posted
Dag, an apology. I have been a bit busy recently and couldn't get back to this thread. By the time I did get back to Hatrack this was buried a few pages down so I assumed the debate was over.
You wanted a link to the Whitehouse response that I labeled spin. I fixed the above link which showed the White House public response as "It was innapropriate." There has been no other official White House response.
I believe that Carl Rove works with other conservative and Republican thinkers to put out a backhand spin. It is this group that is emphasisng the words the sensationalist hungry press take note on--"abort all black babies." This becomes very obviously an easilly misquoted statement. Anyone arguing that Bennett is Pro-AfroAmerican Genocide is going to be clobbered by the facts.
What struck me wrong about that comment was the offhand way he linked "Black" with "Crime". Here is where the African American community should come out strongly in opposition of his comments.
My question to you is, how can adding "black", adding "race" into the discussion not make it racist?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Society has carved out a comfortable class-niche for white drug abusers.
If you change that to 'rich and/or famous' instead of 'white', you'd have it about right, I think.
I know quite a few white addicts who have spent time in jail and manditory rehab. I don't know any black addicts at all.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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"The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others"
If the statement "doing X will lead to Y" is backed up by statistics (and no one here has presented reasons why it isn't), then there is no way of knowing if Bennett made the statement because he knows it to be true or if he made the statement because he believes that race accounts for the differences in human character.
Everyone keeps saying "correlation is not causation." Of course not. But correlation - even fairly low correlation - can still lead to predictable results when the underlying numbers are manipulated.
I think the carrot-eating driver example is a good demonstration of this.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I'm concede, a little bit. I still think that there is an disparity that says that white addicts can still be useful to society whereas black addicts should be locked up.
Dag, he introduced a new variable that need not have been introduced and did not serve his message. Had he stuck with the Freaknomics argument to show that economics does not morality make, everything would have been fine.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I haven't seen possession treated differently based on race. I have seen distribution treated differently, not based on race, but based on factors that divide up by race.
I am not in a position to say whether the reason those factors are given the weights they are is related to race; I suspect it is in some people's minds and not in others.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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He wasn't introducing a new variable as far as I can tell, he was using a clearly appalling example to show why the statistics re: the poor shouldn't be relevant to the decision.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Freaknomics' point was that the increase in abortions may have caused a decrease in crime. Bennett's point was than an increase in black abortions msy cause a decrease in crime.
Freaknomics was a claim about unwanted and ill-prepared for babies. Bennett's claim was about black babies. I'm not one to conflate the two catagories, maybe because I was black and born in the 70s post Roe. Freaknomics says that I'm not a factor in crime reducation. Bennett says that aborting me would be a positive factor in crime reduction.
All of this is hay, but I mention it to say that Bennett did introduce a new variable.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Dag, he introduced a new variable that need not have been introduced and did not serve his message.
I think it did serve his message. It showed that mere correlation with crime (and the correlation exists) is not sufficient reason to want a group of people to cease existing.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Definition of racism from Merriam-Webster: 1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
I don't think Bennett's comments could be construed as racist under the first definition, which seems to be the one Dag is working from. But I think they can be construed as racist under the second. He certainly made a discrimination in his statement based on race. That was what I meant in my earlier post(s) when I said his comments were racist.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Note: I'm not trying to be argumentative, I just wanted to clarify that there are multiple definitions of what it means to be racist. Maybe it will resolve some of the arguments (and hopefully not start new ones).
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
See, I see Bennett's comments as fitting both catagories, I'm just willing to overlook it because I think that this discussion is ancillary to Bennett's morally astute point.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: If that's what you want the word to mean, fine, but it makes it a pretty useless word.
I nearly made this exact point in my own post, but then I deleted it, not wanting to add to my own headache
My feeling was that any assertion based on race is racist, whether it assumes race is the root cause or not. The primary definition disagrees with that, but the secondary one supports it. I wouldn't say the word is useless when used under the second definition, but it's certainly less loaded.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:My feeling was that any assertion based on race is racist, whether it assumes race is the root cause or not.
I think assuming a root cause based on race is racist. Not doing so makes the assertion racial.
Discrimination has two senses, one of which contains an element of unfairness. If the second definition of racism doesn't include that element of unfairness, then it is absolutely useless.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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