Where's The Outrage?
After Kanye West said on national television that "George Bush doesn't care about Black people," Laura Bush said she found those type of comments "digusting." And Condi Rice got in on the act too, saying that no one, especially George Bush, would have withheld relief and aid from the people of New Orleans on the basis of race.
So where are they now? Where is the outrage of the so-called "culture of life" Republicans, at Bill Bennett's comments that if Black babies were aborted, the crime rate would go down?
And where are other African-Americans in the Bush Administration, such as Alphonso Jackson?
Their silence is deafening. But their silence also shows you who they really are. The culture of death party.
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What's sad about his comment is that he linked it to abortion. A more apt discussion is would be what's in this article.
Most violent crime in our country is committed by blacks. According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics, blacks commit 54 percent of murders, 42 percent of forcible rapes, 59 percent of robberies and 38 percent of aggravated assaults. For the most part, the victims are black. Ninety-three percent of murdered blacks were murdered by a black.
In fact, most victims of violent crimes report having been victimized by a member of their own race. However, in the case of interracial violent crime, blacks are 50 times more likely to commit violent crimes against whites than whites against blacks. Bureau of Justice victimization reports show that 89 percent of interracial crimes involved black perpetrators and white victims.
Crime is a major problem and lies at the heart of other major problems faced by blacks. High crime translates into low rates of businesses formation in black neighborhoods. That translates into fewer resident employment and shopping opportunities. Unsafe schools compromise black education and create incentives for the best teachers and students to go elsewhere. Crime drives upwardly mobile residents out, and the neighborhood loses stabilizing influences.
During the 1980s, for example, 50,000 blacks left Washington, D.C. Nationally, for at least two decades, the black suburban migration rate has been higher than that of whites. As middle-class people and businesses leave, cities lose their tax base.
Experts love to blame crime on poverty. That's nonsense! From 1900 to 1929, the nation's murder rate rose from 1.2 per 1 00,000 of the population to 8.4. However, during parts of the 1930s, when the unemployment rate stood at 37 percent, the murder rate had fallen to 6.3 per 1 00,000 and to 4.7 per 1 00,000 by 1960. After 1960, violent crime rates shot up. By 1993, the murder rate was 9.5 per 100,000, falling to 8.2 in 1995. Rather than poverty causing crime, one might more easily make the case that crime causes poverty.
Survey polls show a high degree of black fear of crime. However, crime is an uncomfortable subject for black people. Given our history, this is understandably so. But when crime puts progress on hold for a third of the black population, we can no longer be silent and deny its widespread, devastating effects. We have to do something about it.
Part of doing something requires the recognition that politicians, black elite and civil-rights organizations are virtually useless. If anything, their excuse-making gives aid and comfort to criminals.
Citizens in high-crime neighborhoods must adopt a zero-tolerance of crime. They must privately organize and send the message to criminals: Crime is hazardous to your health in this neighborhood. If school authorities can't prevent students who are alien and hostile to the education process from making education impossible for everyone else, black parents should privately organize and show up on the school premises to create order.
Defending oneself, family and communities against predators is a natural or God-given right. Just because those to whom we've delegated authority to defend us are derelict does not mean we don't have the right to defense. Most Americans wouldn't begin to tolerate the horror that's daily fare in black communities—why should blacks?
Comment by — 2005/09/29 @ 08:42 PM — (Reply)
The latest Bill Bennett kerfuffle leads us to think that the culture of political correctness that surrounds race in America may be in its final throes. Bennett and a caller to his radio show the other day were discussing a hypothesis in Steven Levitt's book "Freakonomics" (available from the OpinionJournal bookstore): that the explosion of abortion after Roe v. Wade depleted the number of potential criminals and thus helped reduce the crime rate. Bennett rejected such utilitarian pro-abortion arguments:
It's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could--if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.
The ragemongers at MediaMatters.org ginned up a controversy over Bennett's remarks, and the ritual expressions of outrage followed, as the Washington Post reports:
Bennett's comments . . . were quickly condemned by Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who issued a statement demanding that Bennett apologize. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) circulated a letter, signed by 10 of his colleagues, demanding that the Salem Radio Network suspend Bennett's show.
Wade Henderson, the executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, demanded that the show be canceled.
"Bennett's statement is outrageous. As a former secretary of education, he should know better," Henderson said. "His program should be pulled from the air."
Today the White House joined in: "The president believes the comments were not appropriate," the Associated Press quotes press secretary Scott McClellan as saying.
But Bennett also has his defenders. One of them is the liberal journalist Matthew Yglesias:
Not only is Bennett clearly not advocating a campaign of genocidal abortion against African-Americans, but the empirical claim here is unambiguously true. Similarly, if you aborted all the male fetuses, all those carried by poor women, or all those carried by Southern women, the crime rate would decline. Or, at least, in light of the fact that southern people, poor people, black people, and male people have a much greater propensity to commit crime than do non-southern, non-black, non-poor, or non-male people that would have to be our best guess. The consequences, clearly, would be far-reaching and unpredictable, but the basic demographic and criminological points here can't be seriously disputed.
Keep in mind, too, that black leaders and liberal politicians constantly harp on the high incarceration rate of black Americans--so much so that John Kerry* was caught last year exaggerating it. Yet somehow it's considered invidious to point out that blacks, or black men at any rate, have a higher crime rate than nonblacks?
We can't help but wonder if part of the outrage over Bennett's remark isn't precisely his view that aborting black babies is immoral. After all, the official position of the Democratic Party is that abortion not only is not immoral but is a fundamental constitutional right, as long as the mother consents. And although MediaMatters claims that Levitt's argument has nothing to do with race, blogger Bob Krumm notes that in a 2001 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Levitt and John Donohue expressly link black abortion to reduced crime:
Fertility declines for black women are three times greater than for whites (12 percent compared to 4 percent). Given that homicide rates of black youths are roughly nine times higher than those of white youths, racial differences in the fertility effects of abortion are likely to translate into greater homicide reductions.
In other words, whereas Bennett rejects the idea of reducing crime by aborting black babies, Levitt and Donohue argue that that is exactly what has happened over the past three decades, as a result of liberal policies. If they are right, there is, to say the least, a fundamental tension between blacks and pro-abortion feminists, two of the core components of the Democratic coalition. No wonder Bennett's comments have caused such discomfort on the left.
So why do we see this as a sign of political correctness's decline? Well, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we kept hearing from our liberal friends that what this country needs is an honest discussion of race. Of course, liberals who call for a discussion of race never actually want it to be honest. Rather, they want to engage in the old familiar ritual in which blacks air their grievances, white liberals trumpet their moral superiority, the rest of us shut up and listen, and dissenters are shamed and silenced (see John Conyers's and Wade Henderson's demands regarding Bennett, above).
Our sense, however, is that this old ritual no longer has the same power it once did, and that as a result, liberals actually are getting the honest discussion about race that they have long demanded. If so, their worst fears are coming true.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/30 @ 03:25 PM — (Reply)
There's no outrage because he said nothing wrong.
Comment by — 2005/09/30 @ 03:37 PM — (Reply)
You racists in the Republican Party are just unbelievable.
I thought you were supposed to be the culture of life folks? Well, your covers have clearly been pulled off.
You are the culture of death.
You find nothing wrong with Bill Bennett, a former Secretary of Education no less, saying that aborting Black babies would reduce the crime rate? So you believe that only Blacks commit crimes?
If you believe that only Blacks commit crime, then guess what? George Bush is our 1st Black President!
The wonderful folks at Media Matters are not "ragemongers."
Do you know David Brock's story?
David Brock used to be a Republican. And he was the one who helped break the so-called "Troopergate" story during the Clinton administration, and helped give us Paula Jones.
He was also responsible for a terrible book about Anita Hill.
But he realized he had allowed himself to be used and lied to by his fellow Republicans. So he wrote a letter of apology to the Clinton family. And he has redeemed himself by starting Media Matters, which is dedicated to correcting all the lies in the conservative media.
He realized he used to help perpetrate those lies in the conserviative media, and he has changed.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/09/30 @ 07:54 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/30 @ 09:48 PM — (Reply)
The first comment was written by a black man.
Comment by — 2005/09/30 @ 10:10 PM — (Reply)
Calling me a racist does not make me one. I love people black, white whatever. I don't see that much of this is really a political argument as much as a spiritual one. There are people on the right and left who are pro-death (abortion) and there are people right and left who are pro-life. So the matter comes down to where is your heart. Politics can not solve that, only a good sit down with the Lord can fix it.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/09/30 @ 10:15 PM — (Reply)
Do you think I am out here just encouraing women to get abortions? If you think that, you are saddenly mistakening.
I don't think I have the right to tell a 15 year who's been raped and impregnated by her father, that she doesn't have a right to an abortion.
I don't think I have the right to tell a woman 3 months pregnant, who's just found out she has inoperable melanoma and needs chemotherapy ASAP, that she doesn't have a right to an abortion.
Those of us who support a woman's right to choose, are not ADVOCATING abortions, abortions, and more abortions.
And it's time you faced the fact that YOUR party is the culture of death.
Your party sends our troops to die in needless wars, and sends them to fight without the armored vehicles they need.
Your party calls for the assassination of world leaders who simply have policy differences with the United States.
Your party says that aborting black babies will reduce the crime rate, so obviously only blacks commit crimes.
Comment by Shalna— 2005/09/30 @ 10:21 PM — (Reply)
Shalan - Should Scott Peterson have been charged with one murder or two? My party says no such thing and neither do I. My party did not call for murder of a national leader. Certainly there are individuals on both sides of the aisle who say things that do not represent those in the party, but if you are saying that liberals do not support abortion at every turn let me ask you another question? Do you know what happens to a baby during a partial birth abortion? Everything but the head is delivered. A large needle is inserted into the baby's brain the brain is chopped up sucked out with a vacuum. Your examples of pregnancy and rape due to abortion and incest make up less than 1% of abortions. So that means that 99% of abortions are done merely for the convenience of the mother. Again your logic is save a terrorist and kill a baby?
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/01 @ 09:39 AM — (Reply)
Shalana - Let me fix this. Should Scott Peterson have been charged with one murder or two? I believe he should have been charged with two. My party says no such thing and neither do I concerning black babies. Yet again liberals couch the argument in a womans right to "choose" as a means to not inconvenience. How many women, black or otherwise have not been born because of abortion? My party did not call for murder of a national leader. Certainly there are individuals on both sides of the aisle who say things that do not represent those in the party, but if you are saying that liberals do not support abortion at every turn let me ask you another question? Do you know what happens to a baby during a partial birth abortion? Everything but the head is delivered. A large needle is inserted into the baby's brain the brain is chopped up sucked out with a vacuum. Your examples of pregnancy dut to rape and incest make up less than 1% of abortions. So that means that 99% of abortions are done merely for the convenience of the mother. Again your logic is save a terrorist and kill a baby?
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/01 @ 09:43 AM — (Reply)
By the way how can I be intellectually lazy when I come to this site.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/01 @ 12:10 PM — (Reply)
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the media frenzy concerning supposed Republican racism, the need for facts instead of emotional tirades becomes apparent. It has long been believed that Republicans and, by extension, Conservatives are bigots who begrudge racial minorities any opportunity to achieve the catchphrase of “racial equality.” This persistent stereotype has entered the forefront of American politics yet again, spearheaded by an outburst by rapper Kanye West during a Hurricane Relief Concert, where he stated, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people!” However, true to the old adage, actions speak louder than words. Republicans have a long history of supporting African-American freedom and development after the end of slavery. Today, President George W. Bush continues this trend with modern tactics while still honoring Republican principles of autonomy.
Before the Civil War, the Republican party was at the forefront of the anti-slavery movement. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Republicans conferred voting privileges to African-Americans and during the Southern Reconstruction Era, which saw a great boom in Congressional and local African-American representation that still stands unrivaled today, African-American politicians chose Republicanism. The 14th Amendment was passed by a Republican-dominated Congress, specifically granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States in order to repudiate the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision that labeled slaves as property, not U.S. citizens.
After the Civil War, Republicans repealed the Black Codes, guaranteeing political and civil rights to African-Americans and allowing them to serve on juries, school boards, city councils, and work as police officers. Republicans recognized the inherent right to vote and its importance to the African-American people’s emergence into free society. With this in mind, the 15th Amendment was passed, indirectly making it illegal to prohibit access to voting polls based upon race or upon regulations connected to race, such as the literacy test, grandfather clause, and poll tax. These were all concocted by Southern Democrats to keep blacks from the polls. Republicans and Conservatives scrutinized the effectiveness of several racially based programs that emerged from the Civil Rights Movement and that seemed to contradict the movement’s original goals.
Comment by — 2005/10/02 @ 11:38 AM — (Reply)
You're right that the Republican Party USED to be the Party for African-Americans. But there was a sea change. There were racists people in the Democratic Party like Strom Thurmond, who got fustrated with the Democratic Party's attempts to change and take on issues of concern to African-Americans. And guess what? Those Democrats (i.e. Thurmond) left the party and became Republicans or Dixiecrats.
That's the history lesson. Those racist Dems of the old days left the party and became Repugs.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/02 @ 12:17 PM — (Reply)
You can excuse them, Sen. Byrd one time KKK member is still a Democrat and was against the Civil Rights Act. What you said proves something to me. Your hysteria goes so far as to lump every Republican as a racist. Should I lump every Democrat as a racist because of Sen. Byrd? You can take your hate and frenzy only so far Shalana. I don't hate anyone.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/02 @ 02:45 PM — (Reply)
I am not lumping all members of either Party together. I am simply noting a historical trend. That many racists who were in the Democratic Party, left and began Republicans. Not all, but many (i.e. Thurmond).
And yes, I absolutely deplore Sen. Byrd's past as a KKK member. It's no excuse for what he did.
But you know what? He changed, and became a great champion of human and civil rights. He learned from his mistakes.
And you call me hysterical simply because I point out facts? I'm hysterical because I live in the reality-based community?
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/02 @ 03:20 PM — (Reply)
He can change and it's okay because he's a Democrat...but Republicans can't. Your reality includes killing babies before they are born. That's not reality..it's called murder.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/02 @ 06:37 PM — (Reply)
1,452 African-American children are killed each day by the heinous act of abortion.
3 out of 5 pregnant African-American women will abort their child.
Since 1973 there has been over 13 million Black children killed and their precious mothers victimized by the U.S. abortion industry.
Where is your compassion and outrage now Shalana. I'm outraged why aren't you?
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/02 @ 07:23 PM — (Reply)
Yes, people are allowed to change. Have you ever changed your positionn on a particular issue before?
Let us contrast Sen. Byrd, who has gone on to do great work in his life, with someone like Jesse Helms, who is unapologetic and still defends the positions he held then.
And you act as though only Democrats have abortions. Republicans have abortions too, I want you to know. You are just totally shut off from the reality around you.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/02 @ 07:25 PM — (Reply)
It was in 1939 that Sanger's larger vision for dealing with the reproductive practices of black Americans emerged. After the January 1939 merger of her Clinical Research Bureau and the ABCL to form the Birth Control Federation of America, Dr. Clarence J. Gamble was selected to become the BCFA regional director for the South. Dr. Gamble, of the soap-manufacturing Procter and Gamble company, was no newcomer to Sanger's organization. He had previously served as director at large to the predecessor ABCL.
Gamble lost no time and drew up a memorandum in November 1939 entitled "Suggestion for Negro Project." Acknowledging that black leaders might regard birth control as an extermination plot, he suggested that black leaders be place in positions where it would appear that they were in chargeÑas it was at an Atlanta conference.
It is evident from the rest of the memo that Gamble conceived the project almost as a traveling road show. A charismatic black minister was to start a revival, with "contributions" to come from other local cooperating ministers. A "colored nurse" would follow, supported by a subsidized "colored doctor." Gamble even suggested that music might be a useful lure to bring the prospects to a meeting.
Sanger answered Gamble on Dec. 10. 1939, agreeing with the assessment. She wrote: "We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." In 1940, money for two "Negro Project" demonstration programs in southern states was donated by advertising magnate Albert D. Lasker and his wife, Mary.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/02 @ 09:44 PM — (Reply)
It was in 1939 that Sanger's larger vision for dealing with the reproductive practices of black Americans emerged. After the January 1939 merger of her Clinical Research Bureau and the ABCL to form the Birth Control Federation of America, Dr. Clarence J. Gamble was selected to become the BCFA regional director for the South. Dr. Gamble, of the soap-manufacturing Procter and Gamble company, was no newcomer to Sanger's organization. He had previously served as director at large to the predecessor ABCL.
Gamble lost no time and drew up a memorandum in November 1939 entitled "Suggestion for Negro Project." Acknowledging that black leaders might regard birth control as an extermination plot, he suggested that black leaders be place in positions where it would appear that they were in chargeÑas it was at an Atlanta conference.
It is evident from the rest of the memo that Gamble conceived the project almost as a traveling road show. A charismatic black minister was to start a revival, with "contributions" to come from other local cooperating ministers. A "colored nurse" would follow, supported by a subsidized "colored doctor." Gamble even suggested that music might be a useful lure to bring the prospects to a meeting.
Sanger answered Gamble on Dec. 10. 1939, agreeing with the assessment. She wrote: "We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." In 1940, money for two "Negro Project" demonstration programs in southern states was donated by advertising magnate Albert D. Lasker and his wife, Mary.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/02 @ 09:55 PM — (Reply)
You've got to be kidding me. You are so far removed from reality, it's almost sad.
Abortion IS a platform for the Republican Party....the reversal or outlawing of it. Why do you think George Bush got so much of the so-called "religious right's" vote? They voted for him because of his anti-abortion stance. Trust me, I have some of those "religious right" folks in my own family, so I know.
You cannot honestly say with a straight face that Republicans don't run on abortion, b/c they do.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/03 @ 07:43 PM — (Reply)
they don't run on the pro death ticket hello
Comment by elmers brother— 2005/10/04 @ 01:01 PM — (Reply)
Your party sends our troops to die in needless wars, and sends them to fight without the armored vehicles they need.
Those troops of which I was one for 20 years VOLUNTEERED for the service knowing full well we might give our lives for gutless ungrateful liberals like yourself.
and Kerry was the one eho voted not to support the troops.
and we still don't have an exit strategy nor did we ask for UN support for Kosovo
Comment by Elmers Brother — 2005/10/04 @ 06:02 PM — (Reply)
I'm sure most members of the military are more than happy to serve in a war that they feel is a just cause. This is not a just cause.
And Sen. Kerry has ALWAYS supported the troops. Always. He was demanding accountability from this administration. Do you know the United States government has not been able to account for money that has been missing in Iraq?
Sen. Kerry wanted accountability from this administration. He has always supported the troops.
I'm so glad to see you get your talking points from Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and the like. In other words, people who lie.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/04 @ 08:36 PM — (Reply)
and you get yours from george soros (mediamatters)
Comment by elmers brother — 2005/10/04 @ 09:25 PM — (Reply)
kerry still voted not to support me and my comrades however you wish to justify it.
Comment by — 2005/10/04 @ 09:34 PM — (Reply)