Some ideas of the soft-on-crime crowd are simply misguided, but some are so bizarre as to make one question their sanity. Christopher Rufo has this article in the City Journal, with the above title, on one of the latter variety.
If conservatives whitewash King's opinions on economics and foreign policy, then progressives whitewash his views on race. King discussed many topics that now are considered taboo, if not racist, on the left. Consider the problem of violence in the black community. King lamented "frequently and consistently" seeing "brutal acts and crimes by Negroes against Negroes." "In many a week in Chicago," he observed in 1966, "as many or more Negro youngsters have been killed in gang fights as were killed in the riots there last summer." A glance at today's homicide statistics in Chicago shows that little has changed since King made that observation, yet such violence gets scant attention from racial-justice activists.
King also highlighted counterproductive behavioral patterns in the black community--the third rail for today's racial activists. The current view among progressives is that cultural self-criticism is noble when whites do it but "victim blaming" when blacks do it. In contrast, King held that regardless of racial identity, "one of the sure signs of maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self-criticism," as expressed in a 1960 address.
The final goal King staked for his Southern Christian Leadership Conference was to "reduce the cultural lag" in the black community. And he was clear about the nature of this lag. "Some Negroes have become cynical and disillusioned," he said in 1960. "So many have used their oppression as an excuse for mediocrity. Many of us live above our means, spend money on nonessentials and frivolities, and fail to give to serious causes, organizations, and educational institutions that so desperately need funds. Our crime rate is far too high."
Personality tests are hugely popular, though if you ask working psychologists, they'll tell you the results are little better than astrological signs. But a new study, based on huge sets of personality data representing 1.5 million people, has persuaded one of the staunchest critics of personality tests to conclude that maybe distinct personality types exist, after all.
Fifty-one years ago, in July 1967, in response to an explosion of rioting in poor black urban neighborhoods around the United States, President Lyndon B. Johnson created a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, to be headed by Illinois governor Otto Kerner. The Kerner Commission issued its report seven months later, on February 29, 1968 ...* * *In one sense, the Kerner Report reflected the liberal optimism of its era: federal programs to provide job training, social welfare, and slum clearance would right the wrongs of racism, it was widely believed. But in its bleak analysis and failure to account for the profound changes that had already been set in motion, the report also signaled the liberal pessimism that has become predominant on racial matters ever since. It's easier to see, looking back 50 years later, that the United States was headed in the right direction. The great crusade for civil rights not only drove down residential segregation; it also created opportunities for genuine African-American socioeconomic advancement. Yet the Kerner Report remains somehow deathless, its erroneous predictions taken as prophecy, its misguided prescriptions still blocking more constructive approaches to the problems that remain.
Each time we have one of these horrific mass shootings, many people shake their heads and ask, "What on earth could make somebody want to do something like this?" In most cases, the perpetrator is dead and did not plan to survive the attack. This time we have a living perpetrator, so perhaps we will learn more.
I suspect that a strong desire to be in the headlines is part of the motivation. Too many young people place too much emphasis on being "famous" and have lost the distinction between being famous and being infamous. There is even a television series titled, "Murder Made Me Famous."We're screwed if we must pretend that black students in public schools are suspended and otherwise disciplined at a disproportionately high rate (including by black teachers) mainly because of their race rather than because of their behavior and, underlying that behavior, their upbringing and family structure. And if we must therefore relax disciplinary standards. Lest we be accused of racism.We're screwed if we apply the same kind of fiction to adult criminals and redefine what's a crime and what's a proper criminal sentence in an attempt to create racially equal outcomes in our (until now Anglo-American) justice system. Lest we be accused of racism.
This summer, law professors Amy Wax and Larry Alexander caused a stir with an op-ed lamenting the decline of what they called "bourgeois norms." "All cultures are not equal," they rightly observed. Those that encourage self-restraint, delayed gratification, marriage and a strong work ethic tend to thrive. Those that tolerate or excuse substance abuse, out-of-wedlock pregnancy and dropping out tend to break down.I would add obeying the law and not violating the rights of others (which are often the same thing). See my Sept. 20 post.
Ms. Wax and Mr. Alexander were instantly accused of racism by the growing army of angry academics who police the prevailing narrative of black victimhood.* * *
Few academic ideas have been as eagerly absorbed into public discourse lately as "implicit bias." Embraced by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and most of the press, implicit bias has spawned a multimillion-dollar consulting industry, along with a movement to remove the concept of individual agency from the law. Yet its scientific basis is crumbling.
Implicit-bias theory burst onto the academic scene in 1998 with the rollout of an instrument called the implicit association test, the brainchild of social psychologists Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji. A press release trumpeted the IAT as a breakthrough in prejudice studies: "The pervasiveness of prejudice, affecting 90 to 95 percent of people, was demonstrated today . . . by psychologists who developed a new tool that measures the unconscious roots of prejudice."
The Chicago Public School system is introducing a new curriculum for eighth- and 10th-grade students....As part of a 2015 reparations deal, Chicago public school students will be [exposed] to a new six-lesson curriculum "about Jon Burge, a former CPD detective accused of using torture, primarily on black men in his custody between the 1970s and 1990s, to force confessions to crimes," reported The Columbia Chronicle.Burge was allegedly responsible for torturing over 200 suspects in police custody between 1972 and 1991. The Chronicle makes it clear, however, that the true motivation behind the new course of study is not to educate Chicago's youth about Burge as much as to teach the myth of systemic racism in law enforcement."The first lesson calls for students to discuss opinions or experiences with racism and police brutality. This precedes discussion of Burge's human-rights abuses and the police officers whose actions helped him hide his crimes," reported The Chronicle.
Last month, law professors Amy Wax of U. Penn. and Larry Alexander of U. San Diego published this op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Their thesis was that the breakdown of "the basic cultural precepts that reigned from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s" was "implicated" in a host of modern maladies, including crime:
Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries.* * *That [late 40s - mid 60s] culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.
