The Washington Post had a great big front-page story on Sunday, headlined “Black and Unarmed,” that analyzes fatal police shootings over the past year (that is, since Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri), focusing especially on ones where the person shot was, you guessed it, black and unarmed. A few observations:
First, it was a little hard to get past the first paragraph, which calls burglary “a relatively minor incident.” Try telling that to anyone who has been home when someone’s broken into it, or even someone who’s gone through having a home broken into when they weren’t home — especially if they’ve had to explain to their children that they have nothing to be afraid of.
Second, the Post acknowledges that, of the 585 total police shootings, only 24 involved unarmed black men – “a surprisingly [to whom?] small fraction” of all police shootings, and a minority (40 percent) even of those involving unarmed individuals, most of whom were white or Hispanic. The Post stresses that black males are nonetheless overrepresented since “they make up just 6 percent of the U.S. population”; true, but of course males of all colors are always overrepresented in crime statistics, and one wonders (and wonders why the Post didn’t include) what the percentage of black males is among those arrested in the first place, which would be the better baseline for comparison.
Third, the Post also acknowledges that, among the unarmed, some “may nonetheless pose a threat.” That’s an understatement (and of course Michael Brown himself is Exhibit A). If you go through the summaries of the 24 cases, time after time there it says there was a struggle for the officer’s gun, or the officer was being charged, or was being attacked with something else that the Post does not consider a suitably serious weapon. The Post says that in “many” of the cases the “threat was not readily apparent”; well, I guess it depends on your definition of “many,” but I think it’s fair to say that in “most” cases the alleged threat was both obvious and serious.
Two other things: (1) The Post does not tell us how many of the police officers were themselves black, which would have been interesting to know; and (2) based on the photographs provided for some of those shot, it’s not obvious in all cases that the police would have known that the person was black.
It’s good that the Post was willing to make the concessions that it did and was willing to include some information that might make the Left uncomfortable. Still, the breathless and accusatory tone of the story is unfortunate.
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Speaking of this particular newspaper, here are the last two paragraphs in a Washington Post item, involving admissions discrimination against women:
“So if you’re a recruiter for a Fortune 500 company and two Vassar résumés come across your desk — one from a woman, the other from a man — keep this in mind: It was almost twice as hard for the woman to get into Vassar as it was for the man.
“Maybe they’re equal candidates. But if you’re playing the odds, I’d say hire the woman.”
This, of course, is the hated “stigmatization” argument that our side of the aisle uses against racial admissions preferences; I wonder if this occurred to the author here.
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I have noted before the amusing disconnect on the Left between the racism it sees (huge) and what it can suggest to address it (tiny). Here’s the latest example. Michael Eric Dyson was given a lot of space (1200 words) by the New York Times to expound on what he sees as a good agenda for improved race relations, and here’s what he came up with (either on his own or with the help of President Obama):
- Federal “funding for police body cameras”
- “Greater federal pressure on police departments”
- “Comprehensive judicial reform that removes from local prosecutors the decision to charge a cop in the killing of an unarmed civilian”
- “Prison reform”: “instead of devoting $80 billion to incarceration, we could invest in pre-K and jobs for teenagers”
- “Enforce legal bans on residential discrimination — making cities accountable for the use of federal housing funds to reduce racial disparities”
- “Pardons to prisoners who were often unjustly saddled with life sentences for nonviolent drug offenses”
- “A new Kerner Commission report that is updated for our day, paying special attention to how black people are viciously targeted by unethical police practices”
Now, some of these may be okay and some are definitely not, but note that all but one (#5) are tied in with the criminal justice system: Are we to believe that improving the way criminals and suspected criminals are treated will end all the racism and racial disparities that the Left complains about?
As I said before: There are still and will always be racists (of all colors), but the amount of actual racism that can be addressed by any serious government program is small — and that’s actually a good thing. Meanwhile, conservatives believe that free markets, intact families, following the law, and high moral, social, and educational standards are the best ways to pursue happiness and prosperity for all.
Your choice, America.
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Finally, and speaking of the criminal justice system: There’s lots of talk these days about criminal-justice reform, from both sides of the aisle: “Mass incarceration” is the Left’s term of opprobrium, and “overcriminalization” is the Right’s. I’m sure there’s plenty of room for improvement in anything run by government bureaucrats, but I do have one caveat: The reforms should not be designed to have a particular racial result, one way or the other.
If the system is broken — that is, if people are being prosecuted or sentenced or imprisoned in a way that makes no sense as a matter of policy — then by all means fix it, but if it isn’t, don’t. And the definition of “is broken” and “make no sense” should not hinge on racial bean-counting. I’m very skeptical that the racial disparities in imprisonment are caused in any significant degree by racism; the fact is that at any point in time there will not be uniformity in crime rates across all demographic groups. The War on Drugs is commonly decried as racist; not only is that dubious, but nonviolent drug offenders are a relatively small part of the prison population, and there is no serious dispute that there are also, for example, racial disparities among violent criminals.
Bottom line: If there is racism then by all means address it, but don’t assume that racial disparities equal racism or that any racial disparity is a problem that has to be fixed.
