Applying the Standard on Hate
30/09/05 08:10
I
heard Bill Bennett's publicly aired notion that
crime reduction would be greatly aided by
the abortion of all black male
babies. It's telling
that this example flew to his mind in discussing
the limits of abortion as a social engineering
technique. He didn't immediately seize upon the
fact that white Southern males are the most
violent Americans, for instance. He did not
suggest that you could reduce violence in the
country by aborting all Southern white male
babies. A 1992 article from Richard E. Nisbett,
Ph.D. of the University of Michigan Institute
for Social Research stated the following:
The U.S. South, and western regions of the U.S. initially settled by Southerners, are more violent than the rest of the country. Homicide rates for White Southern males are substantially higher than those for White Northern males, especially in rural areas.
In discussing Nisbett's work, an article in Psychology Today noted:
It's long been claimed that the South and western regions settled by Southerners are more violent. Even de Tocqueville couldn't help noticing. Nisbett's detailed analysis of homicide rates from FBI files demonstrates that they're not only higher in the South, but highest in small Southern towns and cities and rural areas, especially the hills and dry plains appropriate for herding.
For small cities, homicide rates are three times higher in the South than in New England, Nisbett told the American Psychological Association meeting in Washington, D.C. In subregions such as the Texas Panhandle, the homicide rate is five times that in the similar terrain of Nebraska.
But Bennett did not seize on this extreme of violence. He seized upon the statistic that most suited his audience, and his own mindset--that of black male criminality--the American archetype of the black male predator, out to take the white man's women and his other property.
Bennett's comments reminded me of a seminar I attended in LA years ago. The seminar was arranged by right wing freak David Horowitz, whose historic propensity for stupidity, intellectual featherweightdom and infantile desire to shock is displayed as much by his 60s devotion to the Black Panthers as it is by his current devotion to the racist right. One of the speakers was Bill Bennett's wife, Elayne, discussing her Best Friends Foundation, which teaches abstinence education in the DC public schools.
She stood there, this white, bleach-blonde, faux Stepford horror, talking about teaching young black adolescent girls the joys of not fucking, and I couldn't help wonder what other lessons she taught as well. Here she was, the white woman come to save the colored girls from their racial predisposition toward moral looseness. The Great White Mother, preaching abstinence-only to girls who need to know the benefits of delaying sex until intellectual maturity, but who also desperately need to know how to protect themselves now -- should they choose otherwise. I wondered why it was so important to this woman that these black girls not fuck? If she were interested in preventing teen pregnancies to help guarantee these girls a better life, she would add contraceptive education to her mix. But she doesn't do that. She preaches a doctrine sure to fail among a significant number of teenage girls--and she chooses to preach it to black ones. Why?
Part of my suspicion was the company she kept. This was a seminar at which it was suggested, in all seriousness, that white American settlers did native Americans a service through genocide. After all, this speaker said, they would have killed each other through inter-tribal wars anyway. This was a gathering of the racist right. So how, I asked, could this woman be teaching anything to black girls if it weren't laced with her contempt for people of color?
Why do I assume she holds black in contempt? Because one is judged by the company one keeps. If I, or any black man, woman or child, were a confidante of Louis Farrakhan, I would be called an anti-semite and anti-white. If I supported with Hamas' healthcare initiatives in the West Bank, I would be called an anti-semite by the right. If I so much as suggested that some of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians were barbaric, I would be called an anti-semite by the right.
Yet, the Republicans adopt a Southern Strategy aimed at exploiting race hatred among southern whites, and no one calls them racists. They make bold attempts during the 2000 election to suppress the black vote, and no one calls them racists. They embrace racist institutions like Bob Jones University and the Council of Conservative Citizens and no one calls them racists. They support and coddle unreconstructed haters like Jesse Helms, but no one calls them racists. They embrace Bill Bennett, who ignores the fact of white southern criminality and boldly suggests that black men are born criminals, and no one calls them racists.
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. By the standards above, conservatives are accurate tagged, The Racist Right. They have gorged on race hatred like vampires on blood. They have grown fat, vicious, and drunk with it. Race hatred--the suggestion of it, the exploitation of it, the hint of it, the bold declaration of it-- is among their major calling cards and bait to a significant portion of their devotees.
George Bush speaks at Bob Jones, lending their racist policies his approval. Thus, George Bush traffics in race hatred. He is a racist. It's that simple. I will use the same standards of hate that the right uses against blacks, or any other cause they wish to suppress.
Jeb Bush seeks to suppress the constitutional rights of blacks to vote--no one else, just blacks. Thus, Jeb Bush traffics in race hatred. Jeb Bush is a racist.
Bill Bennett ignores one set of statistics for another in order to denigrate blacks. He traffics in race hatred. Bennett is a racist.
Any politician who, when asked, does not condemn Bennett's words, as any black politician would be asked to condemn Farrakhan's, agrees with Bennett's choice of one statistic over another, and therefore traffics in race hatred, and is a racist.
One standard for all.
The U.S. South, and western regions of the U.S. initially settled by Southerners, are more violent than the rest of the country. Homicide rates for White Southern males are substantially higher than those for White Northern males, especially in rural areas.
In discussing Nisbett's work, an article in Psychology Today noted:
It's long been claimed that the South and western regions settled by Southerners are more violent. Even de Tocqueville couldn't help noticing. Nisbett's detailed analysis of homicide rates from FBI files demonstrates that they're not only higher in the South, but highest in small Southern towns and cities and rural areas, especially the hills and dry plains appropriate for herding.
For small cities, homicide rates are three times higher in the South than in New England, Nisbett told the American Psychological Association meeting in Washington, D.C. In subregions such as the Texas Panhandle, the homicide rate is five times that in the similar terrain of Nebraska.
But Bennett did not seize on this extreme of violence. He seized upon the statistic that most suited his audience, and his own mindset--that of black male criminality--the American archetype of the black male predator, out to take the white man's women and his other property.
Bennett's comments reminded me of a seminar I attended in LA years ago. The seminar was arranged by right wing freak David Horowitz, whose historic propensity for stupidity, intellectual featherweightdom and infantile desire to shock is displayed as much by his 60s devotion to the Black Panthers as it is by his current devotion to the racist right. One of the speakers was Bill Bennett's wife, Elayne, discussing her Best Friends Foundation, which teaches abstinence education in the DC public schools.
She stood there, this white, bleach-blonde, faux Stepford horror, talking about teaching young black adolescent girls the joys of not fucking, and I couldn't help wonder what other lessons she taught as well. Here she was, the white woman come to save the colored girls from their racial predisposition toward moral looseness. The Great White Mother, preaching abstinence-only to girls who need to know the benefits of delaying sex until intellectual maturity, but who also desperately need to know how to protect themselves now -- should they choose otherwise. I wondered why it was so important to this woman that these black girls not fuck? If she were interested in preventing teen pregnancies to help guarantee these girls a better life, she would add contraceptive education to her mix. But she doesn't do that. She preaches a doctrine sure to fail among a significant number of teenage girls--and she chooses to preach it to black ones. Why?
Part of my suspicion was the company she kept. This was a seminar at which it was suggested, in all seriousness, that white American settlers did native Americans a service through genocide. After all, this speaker said, they would have killed each other through inter-tribal wars anyway. This was a gathering of the racist right. So how, I asked, could this woman be teaching anything to black girls if it weren't laced with her contempt for people of color?
Why do I assume she holds black in contempt? Because one is judged by the company one keeps. If I, or any black man, woman or child, were a confidante of Louis Farrakhan, I would be called an anti-semite and anti-white. If I supported with Hamas' healthcare initiatives in the West Bank, I would be called an anti-semite by the right. If I so much as suggested that some of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians were barbaric, I would be called an anti-semite by the right.
Yet, the Republicans adopt a Southern Strategy aimed at exploiting race hatred among southern whites, and no one calls them racists. They make bold attempts during the 2000 election to suppress the black vote, and no one calls them racists. They embrace racist institutions like Bob Jones University and the Council of Conservative Citizens and no one calls them racists. They support and coddle unreconstructed haters like Jesse Helms, but no one calls them racists. They embrace Bill Bennett, who ignores the fact of white southern criminality and boldly suggests that black men are born criminals, and no one calls them racists.
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. By the standards above, conservatives are accurate tagged, The Racist Right. They have gorged on race hatred like vampires on blood. They have grown fat, vicious, and drunk with it. Race hatred--the suggestion of it, the exploitation of it, the hint of it, the bold declaration of it-- is among their major calling cards and bait to a significant portion of their devotees.
George Bush speaks at Bob Jones, lending their racist policies his approval. Thus, George Bush traffics in race hatred. He is a racist. It's that simple. I will use the same standards of hate that the right uses against blacks, or any other cause they wish to suppress.
Jeb Bush seeks to suppress the constitutional rights of blacks to vote--no one else, just blacks. Thus, Jeb Bush traffics in race hatred. Jeb Bush is a racist.
Bill Bennett ignores one set of statistics for another in order to denigrate blacks. He traffics in race hatred. Bennett is a racist.
Any politician who, when asked, does not condemn Bennett's words, as any black politician would be asked to condemn Farrakhan's, agrees with Bennett's choice of one statistic over another, and therefore traffics in race hatred, and is a racist.
One standard for all.