Recently I was invited to speak on Renaissance art at the
monthly meeting of a local MENSA chapter. The organization is made up of very
smart people whose IQs place them in the top 2% when it comes to intelligence.
The intelligence of the self-admitted “geeks” was certainly in evidence at the
dinner that proceeded my talk. Discussion at the table was spirited and lively
and ranged over a variety of subjects.
These were interesting people and it was a pleasure to just
sit back and listen. Politics was generally avoided but one man at the table
brought up a book on racial injustice that sparked a little argument. Although only halfway through the book, he
was apparently already convinced of its validity. The book was “The New Jim
Crow” by Michelle Alexander. Its subtitle, “Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness,” is more indicative of its subject.
Published in 2012 the book soon made the NY Times bestseller
list and was even required reading for the incoming class at Ivy League Brown
University. Indeed, the San Francisco Chronicle called the book the “bible of a
social movement.” Apparently the book claims that the incarceration of millions
of black men in America is proof that racism is alive and well despite any
claims to the contrary.
Fortunately, one of the other members at the table turned
out to be well-read on the subject and brought up some very good objections
based on his own reading. Later, he sent me a link to a very critical review
article, entitled, “Revisiting ‘The New Jim Crow,’ written by John P. Walters
and David W. Murray. Here is a link to
the review article that appeared on the Hudson Institute website. The reviewers
quoted from the book’s dust jacket:
By targeting black men through the
War on Drugs, and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice
system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions
to permanent second-class status.
Walters and Murray refute this thesis, and take issue with
the statistics offered to support what amounts to a conspiracy theory. They
dispute the author’s assertion that “arrests and convictions for drug
offenses—not violent crime—have propelled mass incarceration” by first noting
the data for state prisons.
In state prisons, holding the
largest number of incarcerated inmates, only 16 percent are drug offenders—54
percent of those incarcerated are violent offenders.
They also explain that racism is not the reason why drug
offenders make up almost 50 percent of the federal prison population. They note
that the substantially smaller federal system “focuses on major domestic and
international traffickers—34 percent of the federal prison population is
Hispanic and 23 percent are not U.S. citizens.”
In short the authors of the review show that “The New Jim Crow”
misuses statistics and even leaves out important evidence that does not support
its thesis. Instead they argue that conduct and culture have more to do with
rates of incarceration than racism. They point to the case of a black man from
Mississippi who the book claims “cannot vote because he, like many black men in
the United States, has been labeled a felon, and is currently on parole.”
It is true that Mississippi does deny voting to those who
have been convicted of serious crimes from murder and rape to forgery and
embezzlement. The man in question was indicted for the shooting of a
17-year-old boy; escaped from prison while awaiting trial; and was subsequently
arrested and labeled a fugitive wanted for a capital crime. He was extradited
and then convicted of murder. Somehow, he was later released on parole but
cannot vote “not because he is black, but because he killed someone…”
The reviewers cite New York City Police Commissioner William
Bratton who pointed out that blacks and Hispanics “represent half of our city’s
population, but 96.9 percent of those who are shot, and 97.6 percent of those
who commit the shootings.” I suspect that the same figures hold in other major
cities including my own neighboring city of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Recently I read an article in the Wall Street Journal by
Jason Reilly, a black writer who is one of the Journal’s regular columnists. He
also argued that conduct and culture have more to do with the problems of black
Americans today than racism. In particular, he dismissed those who persistently
bemoan the effects of slavery 150 years after its abolition. He pointed to the
tremendous strides that blacks made in America in the 100 years after the Civil
War.
During those years statistics show, for example, that black incomes rose at the same rates as whites and that black family formation was comparable to white. Despite persistent racist attitudes especially in Hollywood, blacks made substantial progress. Interestingly, two of last year’s top movies, “Hidden Figures” and “Fences”, illustrate that black families had made it into the middle class. Only in the sixties did the cultural revolution cause the breakdown of black community life.
During those years statistics show, for example, that black incomes rose at the same rates as whites and that black family formation was comparable to white. Despite persistent racist attitudes especially in Hollywood, blacks made substantial progress. Interestingly, two of last year’s top movies, “Hidden Figures” and “Fences”, illustrate that black families had made it into the middle class. Only in the sixties did the cultural revolution cause the breakdown of black community life.
If racism is to blame for a disproportion number of black
inmates in American prisons, does it also explain the racial
imbalance in American sports today? Why is the preponderance of black athletes
on professional basketball and football teams not racist? Isn’t it ironic that
the black professional athletes who protest during the playing of the national
anthem will all make millions during their playing careers? Despite their own
success these athletes, like many of their white supporters, want to believe or need to believe in a very revealing
myth of victimization.
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