. . . in the criminal-justice system is flawed by (choose one) (a) innumeracy, (b) illogic, (c) a liberal-progressive narrative that trumps facts, (d) white guilt, (e) moral preening, or (f) all of the above.
One day a few months back the house radical, whose identity I suspect but do not know for certain, was given the keys to the Houston Chronicle editorial page. He or she then produced one of the all-time worst editorials the newspaper has ever published, which is saying something. (Editorial, "Glaring inequities: Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the U.S. [read United States.] Let's make justice truly equal for all," The Houston Chronicle, January 9, 2015.)
The editorial deserves a line-by-line takedown, but Unca D is getting old and doesn't have much time left. Why waste precious minutes on a project with no prospect of success -- teaching the unteachable, redeeming the irredeemable.
But for the benefit of men and women of good will who may be troubled, sincerely, by what the Chronicle declares in this rant, let's subject a few lines of the editorial to the bright lights of fact and reason. Here's a sample of what the Chronicle says is racially inequitable about the local justice system:
A highly disproportionate number of African-Americans and Hispanics are incarcerated in Harris County. For example, while they make up only 18.9 percent of the population, African-Americans represented 50 percent of the people detained in Harris County jails in 2012.
The text above is offered as proof of racial inequity. The implied argument is that the demand for racial equity in the local justice system will not be satisfied until African-Americans represent 18.9 percent (rather than 50 percent) of the people detained in Harris County jails.
What's wrong with the argument? Think very carefully. The answer is not hard to come by.
What's wrong is the assumption that incarceration rates in Harris County should be proportionate to population groups categorized by race (absolutely wrong) rather than to crime rates (inarguably correct).
What's wrong is the assumption that African-Americans commit only 18.9 percent of the crime in Harris County, not 50 percent.
Which is true -- 18.9 percent, 50 percent, or some other number? I don't know, and neither does the Houston Chronicle. Not with certainty. But I'm confident the number is considerably north of 18.9 percent.
Police know blacks commit a disproportionate share of crimes. Prosecutors know it. Defense attorneys know it. Social scientists know it. The FBI knows it. Black mamas and preachers know it. Kids on the street know it. Everybody knows it. Pump a few milliliters of truth serum into the cold veins of Chronicle editors, and even they would admit knowing it.
The underlying reason for the racial inequity that troubles the Chronicle -- incarceration rates -- is the racial inequity that the Chronicle and all other good leftists studiously ignore -- crime rates.
Blacks commit a disproportionate share of crimes. It's a fact, horrifying but true.
Which means that the editorial is arguing, in a weird and indirect way, for letting a significant number of black offenders out of jail to satisfy a greater good -- racial equity in the incarceration rate, damn the consequences.
Progressives love to debate the accuracy of the racial data in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. Indeed, it is the nature of unsolved crimes -- the majority of crimes, by the way -- that the race of the offender is unknown.
Among all crimes, however, the race of the offender is most reliably known in cases of murder. Why this is so is another issue, but it is so.
Blacks make up 13.2 percent of America's population. What percentage of murders, nationwide, do the Uniform Crime Reports attribute to black offenders?
The answer, sadly, is 38 percent of all murders, plus -- it is reasonable to assume -- some share of the 29.1 percent of murders for which the race of the offender is unknown.
As between blacks and whites, blacks commit 55 percent of the murders for which the race of the offender is known.
These numbers are from "Homicide Data Table 3" from "Crime in the United States 2013."
Progressives are always demanding a conversation about race. But this is not a conversation they want or will even permit. My job, and yours, is to shut up and listen to nonsense like the nonsense from the Houston Chronicle, quoted above.
The left's response to what I'm saying here is not and never will be that I'm wrong, which I am most decidedly not. It will be that I'm a racist for uttering these inconvenient truths.
Leftists can think what they will. I would argue that the real racists are those who infantilize blacks, treat criminal offenders as victims, and deliberately and egregiously misuse the word equity by applying it to the wrong categories.
It is not self-evidently true, as the Chronicle supposes, that a racial cohort of 18.9 percent demands an incarceration rate of 18.9 percent for members of that group. It is self-evidently true, however, that Chronicle editors-- like other liberal and progressives -- are unwilling to confront the awful truth black crime -- and especially black-on-black crime.
It's rather more important to these moralists that you and I are made to feel guilty about the criminal justice system and its rough, but basically rational, response to an unfortunate reality.
You want a conversation about race? How about explaining the inequitable crime rates? What share of the blame goes to the failure of the nation's great social experiment in rearing black boys, particularly, in "families" without fathers? What share goes to the decline of black churches? What share goes to a subculture that glorifies violence, criminality, licentiousness, and abuse of women? What share goes to the larger culture for agreeing that approved victim groups may replace the virtue of taking personal responsibility with the vice of blaming others for their troubles?
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