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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPaul Shager _ 9 a a. From the desk of PAUL SHAGER i $ 7 Ai`,rx ' mow I WANNA DIE LIKE MY GRANDDAD DID ` ,, : QUIETLY IN NOT KICKING & SCREAMING LIKE HIS PASSENGERS MAR 3 March 18, 2015 2 � c TTT LLS PTO: Sequim Police Chief and Mayor Port Angeles Police Chief and Mayor Clallam County's Washington State Patrol Clallam County's Border Patrol rya As Paul Harvey would put it, "here's the rest of the story." Enclosed is an article I wish every American could read. It's an eye opener by a very educated black man who has depth and understanding of the situation he writes about. 2k� Being a Clallam County resident and business man, I very much appreciate our law enforcement leaders, officers and employees. Your job is not an . easy one. a Thank you for what you do. , f. Paul k" ` ,Enclosure ` (360) 681-8708 �. PO Box 2954 : Sequim, WA 98382 A PUBLICATION OF HILLSDALE COLLEGE Im [Drimis 0 • OVER 2,800,000 READERS MONTHLY January 2015 Volume 44, Number 1 i i Race Relations and Law Enforcement ,Jason L. Riley Editorial Board Member, Wall Streetjournal JASON L. RILEY is an editorial board member and a senior editorial page writer at the Wall Street Journal,where he writes on politics, economics,education, immigration,and race. He is also a FOX News contributor and appears regularly on Special Report with Bret Baier. Previously,he worked for USA Today and the 4 Buffalo News. He earned a bachelor's degree in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of Please Stop Helping Us:How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed. The following is adapted from a speech delivered on January 30,2015, at Hillsdale College's Allan P. Kirby,Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship ill Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Fancily Foundation Lecture Series. Thomas Sowell once said that some books you write for pleasure,and others you write out of a sense of duty,because there are things to be said—and other people have better sense than to say them.My new book,Please Stop Helping Us,falls into that latter category.When I started out as a journalist 20 years ago,I had no expectation of focusing on race-related topics.People like Sowell and Shelby Steele and Walter Williams and a few other independent black thinkers,to my mind at least,had already said what needed to be said,had been saying it for decades,and had been saying it more eloquently than I ever could.But over the years,and with some prodding from those guys,it occurred to me that not enough younger blacks were following in their footsteps.It also occurred to me that many public policies aimed at the black underclass were just as wrongheaded as ever.The fight wasn't over.A new generation of black thinkers needed to explain what's working and what isn't,and why,to a new generation of readers.And the result is this book,which I hope will help to bring more light than heat to the discussion of race. H I LLSDALE. EDU HILLSDALE COLLEGE: PURSUING TRUTH DEFENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1844 The book is not an autobiography or system in America. Eighty percent of a memoir,but I do tell a few stories about black kids in New York public schools growing up black and male in the inner are performing below grade level. A nd a city.And one of the stories involves a trip big part of the problem is a black subcul- back home to Buffalo,New York,where lure that rejects attitudes and behaviors I was born and raised. I was visiting my that are conducive to academic success. older sister shortly after I had begun Black kids read half as many books and working at the Wall Street Journal,and I watch twice as much television as their was chatting with her daughter,my niece, white counterparts, for example. In who was maybe in the second grade at the other words,a big part of the problem is time. I was asking her about school,her a culture that produces little black girls favorite subjects,that sort of thing,when and boys who are already worried about she stopped me and said,"Uncle Jason, acting and sounding white by the time why you talk white?"Then she turned to they are in second grade. her little friend who was there and said, Another big part of the problem is a "Don't my uncle sound white?Why he reluctance to speak honestly about these tryin'to sound so smart?" cultural shortcomings. Many whites fear She was just teasing, of course. I being called racists.And many black smiled and they enjoyed a little chuckle leaders have a vested interest in blaming at my expense. But what she said stayed black problems primarily on white rac- with me. I couldn't help thinking: Here ism,so that is the narrative they push were two young black girls,seven or regardless of the reality. Racism has eight years old,already linking speech become an all-purpose explanation for patterns to race and intelligence. They bad black outcomes,be they social or already had a rather sophisticated aware- economic. If you disagree and are white, ness that, as blacks, you're a bigot. If you white-sounding disagree and are black, speech was not only Imprimis(im-pri-mis), you're a sell-out. [Latin]:in the first place to be avoided in The shooting death their own speech EDITOR of a young black man Douglas A.Jeffrey but mocked in the by a white police officer DEPUTY EDITORS speech of others. Matthew D.Bell in Ferguson,Missouri, I shouldn't have Timothy W.Caspar last year touched off COPY EDITOR been too surprised Monica VanDerWelde a national discussion by this, and I wasn't. ART DIRECTOR about everything except Angela E.Lashaway 1, My siblings) along MARKETING DIRECTOR the aberrant behaVlol" with countless other William Gray of so many young black black friends and PRODUCTION MANAGER men that results in such Lucinda Grimm relatives, teased me CIRCULATION MANAGER frequent encounters the same way when Wanda Oxenger with police. We talked STAFF ASSISTANTS I was growing up. Robin Curtis about racial prejudice, And other black Kim Ellsworth poverty, �lo Kathy Smith P unem1 y y professionals have MaryJo Von Ewegen Inent,profiling,the told similar stories. Copyright©2015 Hillsdale College tensions between law What I had forgot- The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not enfOI"Celllent and p001' tell Is lust how early necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. black Communities,and Permission to reprint In whole or in part is these attitudes take hereby granted,provided the following credit so forth. Rarely did we line is used:"Reprinted by permission from hold—how soon this Imprimis,a publication of Hillsdale College." hear any discussion of counterproductive SUBSCRIPTION FREE UPON REQUEST. black Crime rates. thinking and behav ISSN 0277 8432 Homicide is the Imprimis trademark registered in U.S. for begins. Patent and Trademark Office#1563325. leading cause Of death l New York City for young black men in has the largest school the U.S.,and around HILLSDALE COLLEGE PURSUING TRUTH-DEFENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1844 JANUARY 2015 VOLUME 44, NUMBER 1 < hillsdale.edu 90 percent of the perpetrators are also The Left wants to blame these out- black.Yet for months we've had pro- comes on racial animus and poverty, testers nationwide pretending that our but back in the 1940s and '50s, when morgues are full of young black men racial discrimination was legal and because cops are shooting them.Around black poverty was much higher than 98 percent of black shooting deaths do today, the black crime rate was lower, not involve police.In fact,a cop is six The Left wants to blame these out- times more likely to be shot by someone comes on "the system," but blacks have black than the opposite.The protestors long been part of running that system. are pushing a false anti-cop narrative, Black crime and incarceration rates and everyone from the president on spiked in the 1970s and'80s in cities down has played along. such as Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia under black mayors Any candid debate on race and black police chiefs. Some of the and criminal justice in this country most violent cities in the U.S. today are would have to start with the fact run by blacks. that blacks commit an astoundingly Some insist that our jails and pris- disproportionate number of crimes. ons are teeming with young black men Blacks constitute about 13 percent of the due primarily to racist drug laws,but population,yet between 1976 and 2005 the reality is that the drug laws are nei- they committed more than half of all ther racist nor driving the black incar- murders in the U.S.The black arrest rate ceration rate. It's worth remembering for most offenses—including robbery, that the harsher penalties for crack aggravated assault,and property cocaine offenses that were passed in the crimes—is typically two to three times 1980s were supported by most of the their representation in the population. Congressional Black Caucus,including So long as blacks are committing such Rep. Charles Rangel of Harlem,who . an outsized amount of crime,young at the time headed the House Select black men will be viewed suspiciously Committee on Narcotics Abuse and and tensions between police and crime- Control. Crack was destroying black ridden communities will persist.The communities and many black political U.S.criminal justice system,currently leaders wanted dealers to face longer headed by a black attorney general sentences. In other words,black legis- who reports to a black president, is a lators in Washington led the effort to reflection of this reality,not its cause. If impose tougher drug laws,a fact often we want to change negative perceptions forgotten by critics today. of young black men,we must change When these laws passed, even their the behavior that is driving those opponents didn't claim that they were perceptions. But pointing this out has racist. Those charges came later, as the become almost taboo.How can we even racially disparate impact of the laws begin to address problems if we won't became apparent. What's been lost in discuss them honestly? the discussion is whether these laws "High rates of black violence in the leave law-abiding blacks better off. late twentieth century are a matter of Do you make life in the ghetto harder historical fact,not bigoted imagination," or easier by sending thugs home wrote the late Harvard Law professor sooner rather than later? Liberal elites William Stuntz."The trends reached would have us deny what black ghetto their peak not in the land of Jim Crow residents know to be the truth. These but in the more civilized North,and communities aren't dangerous because not in the age of segregation but in the of racist cops or judges or sentencing decades that saw the rise of civil rights guidelines. They're dangerous mainly for African Americans—and of African due to black criminals preying on American control of city governments." black victims. 3 �. JANUARY 2015 VOLUME 44, NUMBER 1 < hillsdale.edu i i Nor is the racial disparity in prison As political scientist James Q. inmates explained by the enforcement Wilson said, if crime is to a significant of drug laws. Blacks are about 37.5 per- degree caused by weak character,if cent of the population in state prisons, weak character is more likely among which house nearly 90 percent of the children of unmarried mothers, if there nation's inmates. Remove drug offenders are no fathers who will help raise their from that population and the percent- children,acquire jobs, and protect their age of black prisoners only drops to 37 neighborhoods,if boys become young percent.What drives black incarcera men with no preparation for work, if tion rates are violent offenses,not drug school achievement is regarded as a offenses. Blacks commit violent crimes sign of having sold out—if all these at seven to ten times the rate that whites things are true, then the chances of do.The fact that their victims tend to reducing the crime rate among low i be of the same race suggests that young income blacks anytime soon is slim. black men in the ghetto live in danger of Many on the heft sincerely want to help j being shot by each other,not cops.No the black underclass.The problem is that ernment is the best is this a function of blacks being picked liberals believe bigger gov on by cops who are"over-policing"cer- way to help.But having looked at the track tain neighborhoods.Research has long record of government policies aimed at I shown that the rate at which blacks are helping the black underclass,I'm skeptical. arrested is nearly identical to the rate at This year marks the 50th anniver- which crime victims identify blacks as sary of President Lyndon Johnson's their assailants.The police are in these commencement speech at Howard communities because that's where the University.Johnson had signed the Civil 911 calls originate. Rights Act a year earlier and would sign the Voting Rights Act two months later. If liberals want to help reverse And he used the speech to talk about these crime trends,they would do better what the government should do next on to focus less on supposed racial animus behalf of blacks.These two laws marked and more on ghetto attitudes towards merely the end of the beginning,he said: school,work, marriage,and child- rearing. As recently as the early 1960s, That beginning is freedom;and two out of three black children were the barriers to that freedom are raised in two-parent households.'Today, tumbling down. Freedom is the more than 70 percent are not,and the right to share,share fully and number can reach as high as 80 or 90 equally,in American society-to percent in our inner cities. For decades, vote,to hold a job,to enter a public studies have shown that the likelihood place,to go to school. . . . But of teen pregnancy,drug abuse, freedom is not enough. . . .You do dropping out of school and other bad not take a person who,for years, social outcomes increases dramatically when fathers aren't around. One of has been hobbled by chains and the most comprehensive studies ever liberate him,bring him up to the undertaken in this regard concluded starting line of a race and then say, that black boys without a father are 68 "you are free to compete with all percent more likely to be incarcerated the others,"and still justly believe than those with a father—that overall, that you have been completely the most critical factor affecting the fair. . . .The next and the more prospect of young males encountering profound stage of the battle for the criminal justice system is the just equality civil rights [is] . . . not j I Y presence of a father in the home. All as a right and a theory but equality other factors,including family income, as a fact and equality as a result. are much less important. 5 HILLSDALE COLLEGE: PURSUING TRUTH • DEFENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1844 But what if Johnson was mistaken? incarceration rates today is larger than What if there are limits to what gov- it was in 1960. And the black unem- ernment can do beyond removing bar- ployinent rate has, on average, been riers to freedom? What if the best that double the white rate for five decades. we can hope for from our elected offi- Confronted with these statistics, cials are policies that promote equal liberals continue to push for more of opportunity? What if public policy the same solutions.Last year, President makers risk creating more problems Obama announced yet another federal and barriers to progress when the goal initiative aimed at helping blacks— is equal outcomes? an increase in preschool education, The civil rights struggles of the mid- even though studies (including those 20th century exemplified liberalism released by his own administration) at its best.The 1964 Civil Rights Act have shown no significant impacts in and the 1965 Voting Rights Act out- education from such programs. He said lawed racial discrimination in employ- that he wants to increase reading profi- ment and education and ensured the ciency and graduation rates for minor- ability of blacks to register and vote. ity students,yet he opposes school All Americans can be proud of these voucher programs that are doing both. _ accomplishments.But what about the He continues to call for job-training social policy and thinking that arose programs of the sort that study after from the ruins of Jim Crow?Good study has shown to be ineffective. intentions aside,which efforts have Fred Siegel,an expert on urban facilitated black advancement,and public policy,has written extensively which efforts have impeded it? about the liberal flight from evi- dence and empiricism that began in in 19883, right around the 25th the 1960s.The Left,wracked by guilt anniversary of the Great Society, over America's diabolical treatment of Harvard sociologist Nathan Glazer blacks,decided to hold them to differ- published a book called the The Limits ent standards of behavior. Blacks,Siegel of Social Policy.Glazer analyzed writes,were invited to enter the larger Great Society programs from the society on their own terms.Schools, perspective of someone who believed which had helped poor whites,ceased that government action was the best incorporating poor blacks from the way to improve the lot of blacks. But his South into the mainstream culture. assessment humbled him. He concluded Discipline as a prerequisite for adult that in many ways,the Great Society success was displaced by the authen- programs were causing just as many tic self-expression of the ill-educated. problems as they were solving—that Blacks were not culturally deprived but good intentions aren't enough. simply differently-abled—more spon- 1 Unlike Nathan Glazer, many policy taneous and expressive and so forth. makers today are still riding high Liberals tried to improve conditions for on good intentions. They don't seem blacks without passing judgment on particularly interested in reconsider- antisocial black culture.And this sort of ing what has been tried, even though thinking continues to this day. Walter 50 years into the war on poverty the Williams once wrote that he's glad he result isn't pretty. While gains have grew up'in the 1940s and,'50s,before it been made,significant racial dispari- became fashionable for white people to ties remain in some areas and black like black people. He received a more retrogression has occurred in oth- honest assessment of his strengths and ers. The black-white poverty gap has weaknesses,he says,than black kids widened over the past decade and today are likely to receive from white the black poverty rate is no longer teachers and employers who are more falling. The black-white disparity in interested in being politically correct. JANUARY 2015 • VOLUME 44, NUMBER 1 < hillsdak.edu � E After George Zimmerman was acquit- And black liberals are all too happy to ted in the shooting death of Trayvon hustle guilty whites. Martin,President Obarna explained the black response to the verdict this way. Blacks ultimatelyInUSt Blacks understand,he said,that some of themselves. They must develop the elp the violence that takes place in poor black salve attitudes and behaviors and habits neighborhoods is born out of a very vio- that other groups had to develop to rise lent past in this country,and that the pov- in America. And to the extent that a erty and dysfunction that we see in those social policy, however well-intentioned, e LY communities can be traced to that his- interferes with this self-development, it per 1 mm tory. In other words,Obama was doing does more harm than good. exactly what the Left has been condition- This concept of self-help and self- ing blacks to do since the 1960s,which is development is something that black to blame black pathology on the legacy of leaders once understood quite well, and slavery and Jim Crow. at a time when blacks faced infinitely This is a dodge. That legacy is more obstacles than they face today. not holding down blacks half as Asked by whites in 1865 what to do much as the legacy of efforts to help. for freed blacks, Frederick Douglass Underprivileged blacks have become responded: "I have had but one answer Playthings for intellectuals and politi- from the beginning. Do nothing with us! cians who care more about revelling in . . . If the apples will not remain on the their good intentions or winning votes tree of their own strength . . . let them than advocating behaviors and atti- fall! . . . And if the Negro cannot stand tudes that have allowed other groups to on his own legs,let him fall also. All I get ahead. Meanwhile, the civil rights ask is,give him a chance to stand on his movement has become an industry own legs!"Douglass was essentially say- that does little more than monetize ing,give blacks equal opportunity and white guilt. Martin Luther King and his then leave them alone. contemporaries demanded black self- Booker T. Washington, another late improvement despite the abundant and 19th century black leader who had been overt racism of their day. King's self- born a slave, once said that it is impor- styled successors, living in an era when tart and right that all privileges of the public policy bends over backwards to law be granted to blacks, but it is vastly accommodate blacks, insist that blacks more important that they be prepared cannot be held responsible for their for the exercise of these privileges. plight so long as someone, somewhere Douglass and Washington didn't play in white America, is still prejudiced. down the need for the government to The more fundamental problem secure equal rights for blacks,and both with these well-meaning liberal efforts were optimistic that blacks would get is that they have succeeded, tragically, equal rights eventually,although neither ou in convincing blacks to see themselves man lived to see that day,But both men first and foremost as victims. Today also understood the limits of government ,r there is no greater impediment to black benevolence.Blacks would have to ready ng advancement themselves to meet the than the self ed challenge of being in a I Pitying mindset position to take advan- that permeates HILLSDALE COLLEGE PURSUING TRUTH�DEPENDING LIBERTY SINCE 1 844 tage Of Opportunities black culture. o once equal rights had White liberals as DID YOU KNOW? been secured. The his- think they are In i 's its Best C0116ge Values of 2015, Kiplinger tory of 1960s liberal helping 7 blacks ranked Hillsdale 1 � e 1st in Michigan and 2nd social i policies is Jar gel)in the Midwest among all colleges and by universities, and 17th among liberal arts a history of ignOrirlg ing bad behavior. colleges nationwide.The ranking cites ear g c Four-year this wisdom.■ i schools that combine outstanding academics with affordable cost. 7