Last thing first. I was talking about eugenics ideology which precedes “identity politics” by decades. If you are conflating eugenics with identity politics, please explain your reasoning. I would like to understand your thinking. Now, moving on.
Comparing commissions and convictions is an apples and oranges mistake. People convicted of violent crime and people who commit violent crime are not treated the same way. Instead of the crime, prosecution is determined by race. This is made possible by a vague definition of violence.
If a black man commits a crime, it is usually labelled violent and prosecuted, then punished with a prison sentence and a felony record. If a white man commits the same exact crime, it is often labelled a property crime and the charges are dropped, or reduced to a misdemeanor and punished with a fine and community service. In white neighborhoods, everyone knows someone who got off with a light sentence. White people say things like, he was lucky, he deserved a second chance, or he was a good guy who made a mistake, etc.
This discriminatory practice is blatant in domestic violence cases; a category that happens to involve a disproportionately large percentage of white police officers, prison guards and military men. Domestic violence calls are the most dangerous calls police answer (I’ve never met a police officer who disagreed). During a domestic violence call, an abusive police officer, or prison guard, who is killed by another police office answering the call, will be honored by placing his name on the list of fallen officers. This practice enables police departments to claim a violent criminal as an officer killed in the line of duty. Of course, the authorities insist the abusive officer was not charged, therefore, he remains innocent until proven guilty.
This pattern emerges first in schools, where discriminatory discipline practices, place children as young as eight on police records. The “school to prison pipeline” teaches all children that white children are above the law. I spent four years on our school district’s discipline committee where I heard a few hundred cases. As a board member, I was privy to “closed-session” discussions, an experience that taught me white people have no idea what fairness and racism really mean. While my views often prevailed, I lost to racism too many times to ease my conscience. And so, I ask you to remember that very few black or brown students, and even fewer white students, are disciplined by a committee of black or brown adults.
Hazlit, my point is simple. You are citing data that measure charges, not violent crime. Whether a crime is violent or not, depends on who is being charged and who was hurt. Crime data, especially violent crime, is so politically polluted, so financially motivated, and so racially driven no one knows what’s true and what’s propaganda. Until the definition of violence is made clear, it is impossible to collect clean data. Kyle Rittenhouse is a good case in point. If one of the people Rittenhouse killed had been an off-duty police officer, or a white Senator’s son, Rittenhouse would have been charged and convicted of murder. Again, who was being charged, and who got hurt determined the definition of both violence and crime.
Your turn.
