Monday, October 1: Here’s another from the smart and brave Heather Mac Donald, responding to this op-ed by Orlando Patterson. An excerpt (emphasis added):
“Patterson’s discussion of black crime rates and family breakdown is anti-climactic. But just to make sure that his standing with liberal elites is unassailable, at the end of his piece, Patterson lets fly a few swipes at conservatives. He blames the black incarceration rate on, inter alia, the ‘hypocritical refusal of conservative politicians to put their money where their mouths are on family values.’ This charge, like so much else, is made up out of whole cloth. The only politicians and policy makers who have tried to programmatically strengthen family values are conservatives; the marriage movement, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector, seeks to channel a portion of federal welfare dollars into marriage counseling for the poor. If any liberal politicians have gotten behind this idea, they are keeping quiet about it. And Patterson’s call for ‘greatly expand[ed] social services for infants and children’ –as if the last 40 years of poverty policy haven’t proven the futility of such money sinkholes — is a pathetic diversion from the only effective social service for children: two married parents.”
Saturday, September 29: I try not to blog on weekends, but I wanted you to see an op-ed by Carol Swain on Jena Six. She writes:
“Black crime is a serious problem that stereotypes all black youth. And it must be dealt with by a united black community that stands up and says enough is enough. Unfortunately, too many of our media-appointed leaders have failed to vigorously condemn the attack of the six against the one. This is unfortunate.”
Unrelated Note (9/28 @ 12:04 p.m.): Catch me on Bill O’Reilly’s radio show today around…now.
If you want to know what O’Reilly said about race relations in proper context (his conversation with Juan Williams), listen to his “controversial” comments in full (audio file – thanks IC!).
Later…For O’Reilly radio listeners looking for the CNN segment, here it is.
