Darleen's Place

« 'He should have known better' - the Bennett kerfluffle | Main | Quick Links - It's about the values Edition »

October 01, 2005

In the wake of Bennett - The refusal to honestly discuss race

No honest look at Bill Bennett's remarks during an on-air discussion of Freakonomics which tries to draw correlation between abortion and crime, would lead one to the conclusion that Bennett was racist. Regardless of how one might personally feel about Bennett as former Drug Czar or conservative commentator, nothing in his past or writings can support the brickbats coming his way over his use of a Swiftian type statement which he then -- and in the same breath -- identifies as a morally reprehensible proposal.

However, the usual race-baiters, race-pimps and those so thoroughly cowed by even a hint of "racial controversy", are all attempting to shut down any honest discussion of issues dealing with poverty, race and crime.

Even liberal Matthew Yglesias isn't buying the "Bennett is a racist because he used the word 'black'" histrionics.

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.

So why the drumbeat by the usual suspects, not only condemning Bennett out-of-hand to even the unconscionable effort by some members of Congress to get Bennett off the air? Because the race-pimps have completely controlled the discuss for the past forty years and any challenge to their hegemony is met with swift, take-no-prisoners action.

Anyone recall the poor David Howard, a white member of D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams' staff, who was forced to resign after using the word "niggardly" in a memo? It didn't matter that the word has nothing to do with the infamous "n" word. Howard was roundly castigated; first as a "racist", then when it was pointed out that the idiots calling for Howard's head might first like to look at a dictionary, Howard was still castigated for being "insensitive." Howard "should have known" that blacks would be "less educated" to such an "arcane term" and if anyone took offense, it was Howard's fault.

Stupid, and rather racist, reasoning, right? Howard's accusers were 100% wrong but Howard was still at fault for his accuser's wrong perception. The worst of it is, Howard actually agreed with his attackers.

"I sincerely apologize for offending anyone. It was certainly not my intention. Clearly what matters is not my intention but the impact of the words on others.

No, clearly Howard, finding himself publically raped, decided he deserved it because his skirt was too short. And too bad Eric Zorn, who wrote the column at the link, also believes perception is more important than reality. Eager to make it known how wonderfully "sensitive" they are to the members of the Church of the Easily Offended, they help perpetuate the kind of grotesque attacks we are witnessing on Bennett.

As I said earlier, this pattern of attack based on perception rather than reality can be traced back to at least 1965 and the reception Daniel Patrick Moynihan received when his paper The Negro Family: The case for national action, written under the auspices of the US Dept. of Labor, was released. Moynihan, a man of impeccable person integrity, honesty, and intelligence, a liberal respected by both sides of the aisle, was thoroughly and completely attacked. As described here

[t]he Moynihan report ... was under attack from all sides. Civil servants in the “permanent government” at Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and at the Children’s Bureau muttered about the report’s “subtle racism.” Academics picked apart its statistics. Black leaders like Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) director Floyd McKissick scolded that, rather than the family, “[i]t’s the damn system that needs changing."

This revisiting of Moynihan's report and the subsequent seizure of the debate while refusing to deal with race issues honestly is a must read. Here are some startling excerpts:

Moreover, given the fresh wounds of segregation, the persistent brutality against blacks, and the ugly tenaciousness of racism, the fear of white backsliding and the sense of injured pride that one can hear in so many of Moynihan’s critics are entirely understandable.

Less forgivable was the refusal to grapple seriously—either at the time or in the months, years, even decades to come—with the basic cultural insight contained in the report: that ghetto families were at risk of raising generations of children unable to seize the opportunity that the civil rights movement had opened up for them. Instead, critics changed the subject, accusing Moynihan—wrongfully, as any honest reading of “The Negro Family” proves—of ignoring joblessness and discrimination.
-----------
“The problem is discrimination.” The protest generating the most buzz came from William Ryan, a CORE activist, in “Savage Discovery: The Moynihan Report,” published in The Nation and later reprinted in the NAACP’s official publication. Ryan, though a psychologist, did not hear Moynihan’s point that as the family goes, so go the children. He heard code for the archaic charge of black licentiousness. He described the report as a “highly sophomoric treatment of illegitimacy” and insisted that whites’ broader access to abortion, contraception, and adoption hid the fact that they were no less “promiscuous” than blacks. Most memorably, he accused Moynihan of “blaming the victim,” a phrase that would become the title of his 1971 book and the fear-inducing censor of future plain speaking about the ghetto’s decay.

Forty years later, we again allow all discussion of concerning "race" and how it ties in with culture, proverty, crime and values to be the sole province of:

For white liberals and the black establishment, poverty became a zero-sum game: either you believed, as they did, that there was a defect in the system, or you believed that there was a defect in the individual. It was as if critiquing the family meant that you supported inferior schools, even that you were a racist. Though “The Negro Family” had been a masterpiece of complex analysis that implied that individuals were intricately entwined in a variety of systems—familial, cultural, and economic—it gave birth to a hardened, either/or politics from which the country has barely recovered.

The dishonest and self-serving screeching about Bennett's remarks show that we haven't really moved much in forty years.

And those who hold the power in defining this discussion as "It' all Whitey's fault" are not inclined to change.

Pity.

Posted by Darleen at October 1, 2005 07:39 AM

Comments

Wait... Howard was publicly raped? Is this some kind of metaphorical use of 'raped'?

In any case, Bennett was wrong. If you actually did abort all the black fetuses, black people would probably get justifiably angry and start a big race war, most likely involving lots of terrorism. The crime rate would rise as a result.

Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at October 1, 2005 04:50 PM

If you want to know The Real Bill Bennett, read this anecdote from a former FCC chairman:

When I was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (1993-97), I asked Bill Bennett to visit my office so that I could ask him for help in seeking legislation that would pay for internet access in all classrooms and libraries in the country. Eventually Senators Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller, with the White House leadership of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, put that provision in the Telecommunications Law of 1996, and today nearly 90% of all classrooms and libraries do have such access. The schools covered were public and private. So far the federal funding (actually collected from everyone as part of the phone bill) has been matched more or less equally with school district funding to total about $20 billion over the last seven years. More than 90% of all teachers praise the impact of such technology on their work. At any rate, since Mr. Bennett had been Secretary of Education I asked him to support the bill in the crucial stage when we needed Republican allies. He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers,charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education. Well, I thought, at least he's candid about his true views. The key Senate committee voted almost on party lines on the bill, all D's for and all R's against, except one -- Olympia Snowe. Her support provided the margin of victory. On the House side, Speaker Gingrich made sure the provision was not in the companion bill, but in conference again Senators Snowe and Rockefeller, with White House support, made the difference. The Internet has been the first technology made available to students in poorly funded schools at about the same time and in about the same way as to students in well funded schools.

He wanted them to fail.

This is the kind of man who puts his own extremist ideology above the basic human needs of poor children. And that's what is at the core of the rightardist agenda when they talk about "helping" poor people - things like dismantling the public education system in America, that Thomas Jefferson rightly saw as the crucial foundation of a free electorate, and replacing it with ideological factories and Randian utopian hallucinations. They would do to poor American kids what they've done to the Iraqi people - use them as test cases for their utopian theories of free market paradise. If the children are destroyed by this quest, it will be no skin off their noses. Their own children will have their gilded parachutes into their lives of privilege either way, just as their children will never be the ones coming home in the unphotographed flag draped coffins.

Posted by: Snicker at October 1, 2005 05:58 PM

Snicker

That's hearsay. Look the word up up.

And keep on keepin' on with keeping the poh'black'folk down on the Leftist plantation.

Posted by: Darleen at October 1, 2005 06:44 PM

Darleen -- I wrote almost exactly on this topic back in April of 2004. Thought you might like this:

http://www.striderweb.com/blog/16

(If my "cross posting" my own blog annoys you, apologies and of course feel free to delete the comment!) :-)

Posted by: Strider at October 1, 2005 08:45 PM

I see, honey. Is it also hearsay that all Republicans except Snowe voted against the Internet provision in the T elecommunications Law of 1996 and that Gingrich tried to kill it?

One of the few bills in the last 15 years that has done anything to improve the educational environment for poor kids?

Let's look instead at what Repubs have provided for poor kids- No Child Left Behind, which they underfund. This asinine law forces schools to teach to a test (which any parent knows is the least effective method of teaching). The schools who do not meet testing levels - which will primarily be the underfunded poor schools - then lose more funding. It's genius really. And all so the kids can get vouchers, on the off chance vouchers are available in their area, and provided they have no opposition to the religious indoctrination which might go along with it. Who gets help with this? A small handful. Who gets hurt? Entire communities.... Is that what you meant by caring more about individuals than groups?

It's also rather convenien that this cruelly misnamed law does EXACTLY what Bennett is accused of doing in the vignette above. Isn't it?

Your bullshit arguments about 'leftist plantations' (well, can't call them arguments, more like random insults) will NEVER gain any support amongst the people you so clearly could not give a shit about. Contrary to your theories, blacks simply are NOT stupid enough to ever trust Republicans. And No Child Left Behind is a perfect example of why.

i'd love to see you make one rational response to one argument from the left. Your side has obviously seen its debating skills weakened by years of fatcatting and gladhanding. I'd also love to hear you,Strider or ANY Republican explain the ways your one party rule has attempted to lift any Americans out of poverty. So far it's going in the other direction. You've got absolute power. Why do you continue to FAIL? Maybe because you have no plan whatsoever, only insults .

Posted by: Snicker at October 2, 2005 04:17 AM

Snickety

I'd love to here run a soundbit from The Simpsons of Mrs. Lovejoy emoting "The children! Won't somebody think of the children!" but I don't think you'd get it.

Posted by: Darleen at October 2, 2005 06:55 AM

So basically you're just incapable of making a substantive argument in defense of your position. That's a pattern of your type of belligerant rightardist...you're a complete empty suit once you leave your masturbatory echo chamber. Very encouraging from my perspective.

Posted by: Snickety at October 2, 2005 07:19 AM

What I find amusing is Snicker's griping about teaching to the test (for the record I abhor that practice as well) when it is the NEA who created that monster to begin with. The testing program was pushed on South Carolina by none other than that right-wing mouth piece richard Riley when he was governor here before he was tapped to serve as Secretary of Education under that that right-wing extremist Bill Clinton.
oops, wrong wing.
Just pointing out the short memory that leftists have. Then again, they are currently stuck in the "how dare you suggest there is such a thing as 'standard' " mode

Posted by: J Rob at October 2, 2005 12:01 PM

"And all so the kids can get vouchers, [...] provided they have no opposition to the religious indoctrination which might go along with it."

Not sure how they get trapped into objectionable indoctrination considering that the whole _point_ of vouchers is to allow them to choose the school. If the parent is not religious they can presumably choose a non-religious school.

Posted by: Strider at October 2, 2005 08:14 PM

Oh yeah...
"Is it also hearsay that all Republicans except Snowe voted against the Internet provision in the Telecommunications Law of 1996[....] One of the few bills in the last 15 years that has done anything to improve the educational environment for poor kids?"

Access to the Internet has nothing to do with teaching kids to read, or write, or do math, or teaching them about history or science or... what have you. Treating a new tax to "wire" schools as some palliative for the failures of the public school system is at best a false hope.

Objecting to the throwing of more money at a problem in a way that does _nothing_ to actually fix the problem is not the same thing as hoping the problem gets worse.

Posted by: Strider at October 2, 2005 08:22 PM

Strider, do you have kids. Access to the Internet is absolutely VITAl to success in today's marketplace. As vital as being able to read, write and do math. No, it's not a substitute for those subjects, but it is every bit as critical. It has all but replaced library research for most kids, it provides access to a far larger base of information than can small school libraries and it develops skill with a technology that has become fundamental to functioning in the 21st century. Denying poor children access to the Internet is the equivalent of denying them any hope of success in today's world.

To sum up, you say "Objecting to the throwing of more money at a problem in a way that does _nothing_ to actually fix the problem"...and it really just shows how reactionary Republicans have become. This is NOT throwing money at anything - this is an intelligent, practical solution to a problem. And this DOES a great deal to actually fix the problem.

As for vouchers, the problem is that a. most communities have no private schools other than religious ones, meaning this is effectively sending kids to religious schools and b. the few communities with quality private schools do not provide enough placement for all the kids with vouchers. In the meantime, the bulk of kids in the public schools are left underfunded and drifting. How is this moral?

The public education system in America is pretty much the ONLY leg up poor kids have available to them in a society that, laughably, claims to be "merit based". Thomas Jefferson himself regarded it as THE critical ingredient of a democracy. Why do Republicans want to destroy it?

Posted by: Snick at October 3, 2005 03:45 AM

"It has all but replaced library research for most kids"

Oh yeah. Kids just love it because cut-and-paste is so much easier than actually writing that report.... I think you're flatly wrong. Being able to read and do basic math is, as an educational foundation, FAR, FAR more important than knowing how to use the Internet. Hell, if you can't read, you can't so much as fill out an employment application, much less write a resume.

You also said:
"The public education system in America is pretty much the ONLY leg up poor kids have available to them in a society that, laughably, claims to be "merit based". Thomas Jefferson himself regarded it as THE critical ingredient of a democracy. Why do Republicans want to destroy it?"

Possibly because Jefferson was actually adamantly _opposed_ to government control of schools. He believed schooling was important, but that it was vital that they NOT be government-run.

[Jefferson] was convinced from his extensive observations of society in America and in Europe that parental control was vital for schools:

But if it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the Governor and Council, the commissioners of the literary fund, or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience. Try the principle one step further and amend the bill so as to commit to the Governor and Council the management of all our farms, our mills, and merchants' stores.

Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Cabell, Feb. 2, 1816, reprinted in Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1955), page 98 and The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial Edition 1904), volume 14, pages 420-21.

(source: http://learninfreedom.org/Founders_free.html)

Posted by: Strider at October 3, 2005 07:32 PM

BTW, Darleen, I really wish you would install some sort of "subscribe to comments" function.

Posted by: Strider at October 3, 2005 07:34 PM

Strider, I hardly think I, or anyone else, is advocating that kids learn to use computers rather than learn to read. As a parent, I am fully aware of the need for teaching foundational skills.

But you fail to address the point that the Telecommunications Act provision -which Republicans opposed - provided poor children with the essential 21st tools they would otherwise have been denied. It was money well spent. It is effective. It is humane. Yet you gave me knee jerk reactionary arguments why Republicans were correct to oppose it.

I agree with Jefferson's point that parents should have control over their local schools. I believe that's the idea behind local school boards, which in my experience work very well in smaller communities - such as Jefferson would only have known. The problem is once again in very poor rural communities and in large urban districts. How to implement parental control in these situations? Where are the conservative IDEAS about that?

The only conservative idea I've seen in the last five years of one party control is to "starve the beast"....starve the education system and force parents to seek alternatives. Kindly point me to a Jefferson quote where he advocated that. His basic point, as I'm sure you know, was that it was TAXPAYER support of PUBLIC education that was vital to creating a strong system - that it must NEVER be left to private institutions to develop or control at their whim or profit. And for all its faults, we do at the least have a universal K-12 educational system in America, which is more than we'd have had today's conservatives been in power throughout the 20th century.

Posted by: Snick at October 4, 2005 04:06 AM

"How to implement parental control in these situations?[...] The only conservative idea I've seen in the last five years of one party control is to 'starve the beast'"

You give parents control by giving them choices.

We're not trying to "starve the beast", just put it on a seriously needed diet -- a.k.a. get rid of a lot of unnecessary fat.

The schools that are _not_ working will lose students, and either straighten out or close. The schools that are doing a good job will stay open, because theyt will still have students.

Frankly, I don't think it's the rural remote areas that are having a huge problem educating their kids. It's the urban areas wherein there is, or could be, _plenty_ of competition -- areas with deserving private schools that don't have the funds to remain open

In college (in New Orleans) I took an education class, and as part of that went to observe classes at local schools. What I saw at the local public high school was pathetic. The teacher "assigned" them a list of vocabulary words, and then proceeded to look each one up in the dictionary and read the definition to the class. No interaction, no nothing. The teacher gave them a task *and then proceeded to do it for them* -- the kids had to do absolutely nothing but sit there and breathe.

A couple years ago the local school board had a referendum vote saying they needed more money or they would be forced to fire X number of teachers, cut all these programs, etc., etc. The voters came back with a resounding "No".

Not one teacher was fired, not one program was cut. Bunch of political BS and nothing more. Money was not the issue.

Posted by: Strider at October 7, 2005 11:25 PM

The schools that are _not_ working will lose students, and either straighten out or close. The schools that are doing a good job will stay open, because theyt will still have students.

I've noticed that conservatives have absolutely no problem working out their utopian Randian fantasies on the backs of innnocent children in this way.

Proof positive that competition is not a panacea for all of society's ills. What happens to the children in the school while it's "straightening out"? Where do the kids go when their school closes? Beleive me, brother, the private academies are not going to be opening their doors to the unwashed masses, vouchers or no vouchers.

Another thing that struck me as I was reading of Schwarzenegger's attacks on CA teachers - what on EARTH would prompt a young person to go into teaching in that environment? How many masochists are there who'd be willing to endure the difficulties of the job, the low pay and the routine denigration by republican opportunists?

We need people to teach. The focus should be on motivating the finest young people to consider it. We also need kids to learn. The focus should be on meeting their needs, rather than using them as innocent pawns of Republican utopian fantasies.

Posted by: Snick at October 8, 2005 04:27 AM

First off, we have let the "academic establishment" experiment on the "backs of children" with some of the strangest crap for over 40 years

And in CA, where the public school education system was second to none even through the 50's and early 60's, TODAY 20% of high school seniors cannot pass a basic competency test.

And don't try to come here and say Gov Arnold is attacking teachers. He is standing up to the bloated, arrogant and powerful CTA (CA's Teachers Union). A union whose monthly dues of $78 PLUS an extra assessment to cover the $45 million they have tossed into mendacious attack ads is second ONLY to teamster dues.

I know, because MY public employee union is trying to get us to raise our dues and they presented us with a chart to show how much we don't pay...

Most in the trenches teachers just want to teach. I give kudos to the fine ones I've met and worked with all these years. But the bad ones, the incompetent ones, are coddled and protected AND their effect on children lasts for years.

Somehow if feels like fighting the CTA over merit and tenure for teachers is like fighting the Catholic Church over pedophile/ebophile priests.

Posted by: Darleen at October 8, 2005 09:49 AM

Well, the Catholic Church's inability to recruit new priests worries me a LOT less than the difficulty we are having across American recruiting teachers. How many of your children plan to teach, darleen? How many of their friends? And are these high quality applicants, who could just as easily make better incomes doing something else?

I'm trying to imagine what kind of masochist would go into this profession, especially a young person with talent. If they did want to teach, I imagine they'd actively seek out states with teacher friendly policies. The rightwing assault on these people makes them sound like your prior favorite targets - welfare queens. Our society can't survive without teachers. They deserve respect, support and fair recompense, not denigration and suspicion. It's a tremendously difficult job under ideal conditions.

Posted by: Snick at October 8, 2005 10:39 AM

Uh, Darleen? Pardon me, but ebophile? Not in the dictionary, dear. Is this priests who love black people? Or did you mean to denigrate teachers with that one? Please clear me up on your hate speak.

Posted by: Snick at October 9, 2005 05:16 AM

Wow, Hrubec, is this where you want to tell us you think the "pedophile" is hate speech?

Hmmmm.

Yes, I did have a typo there. The word is "ephebophile".

Bad/incompetent teachers do lasting damage. And the CTA makes it near unto impossible to get rid of them. Unless, of course, they ARE finally arrested for stuff like ephebophilia. I've personally seen a few of these cases across my desk.

Posted by: Darleen at October 9, 2005 12:07 PM

Not that you'd ever answer a constructive question, but what are the positive motivations from the "party of ideas" (snort!) as to how to recruit and keep good teachers?

I know you want new ways to punish them and hold them accountable to unfunded mandates and keep their pay low and denigrate what they do. But what's your positive input on the matter? After you're done spitting all over the teachers, where are you planning to recruit them from?

Posted by: Snickety at October 9, 2005 12:25 PM

I know you have problems reading... as I said, I have nothing but admiration for the GOOD teachers I have worked with over the years.

Now, chew on this little math thing. Los Angeles Unified School District, the 2nd largest district in the nation, had a $13.3 billion budget for 2003-2004.

They have 746,000 pupils. That's approximately $17,800 per pupil.

Got your attention?

LAUSD teachers' salaries range from 36,000 to 76,000 and account for 40% of the total budget and 69% of the ADA expenditures. Indeed, the direct education expenditures total about $21 mil dollars.

Pouring massive amounts of taxpayer money down this black hole with NO accountability is criminal.

I could easily run a school, with college level educated/paid teachers and STILL have money left over.

You want to pour money into the casino because the card dealers aren't paid enough but you are unwilling to see the skimming going on in the back room or are willing to get rid of the crooked card dealers.

Posted by: Darleen at October 9, 2005 01:41 PM

I could easily run a school, with college level educated/paid teachers and STILL have money left over.

Wow, easily.

So DO IT, fool. You can get vouchers to pay for it, and take in all the failed children of the public system. You can be famous somewhere other than in your own head.

Posted by: Snicks at October 9, 2005 01:51 PM

thanks

Posted by: jacob at November 29, 2005 10:10 AM

i was looking through your web-site and wanted to drop you a compliment, excellent articles!

Posted by: jacob at November 29, 2005 10:11 AM