Systemic Racism or Black Culture?

Last week a couple of letters in the Wall Street Journal argued that high rates of incarceration of black men in American prisons, and low test scores of black children in American schools were evidence of "systemic racism" in American society. I will deal with the education issue in a subsequent post but for now would just like to address the prison issue by reproducing a post from 2017 that seems just as relevant today.

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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 and experience 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. 

If racism is to blame for a disproportion number of black inmates in American prisons, does it also explain the 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 want to believe or need to believe in a very revealing myth of victimization.

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