How, oh how, would the Republicans have us get rid of crime?
Republican Former Secretary of Education William Bennett has an answer. Just get rid of the black babies, he says. No kidding. Here’s what Bill Bennett had to say on Good Morning America today:
“If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”
Understand the context of this statement: There was a study recently that attributed the drop in violent crime over the last ten years to the availability of legal abortion. The idea is that because people have fewer unwanted children, there are fewer people who are growing up with the severe emotional baggage of not being wanted by their parents. Fewer emotionally maladjusted young people therefore has led to less crime, the theory suggests.
Notice that the study said nothing about black people.
So why did Bill Bennett mention black babies in particular?
It seems that Bill Bennett assumes that it’s the black babies that are making all the problems. Apparently, in Bill Bennett’s mind, if you abort all the black babies, you get a drop in crime. If you abort all the white babies, there’s no drop in crime, however.
Bill Bennett said later that, of course, aborting all black babies is a reprehensible idea. But, he said the reason it’s reprehensible is that abortion is wrong. He never repudiated the idea that getting rid of black people in particular would be the best way to reduce the crime rate.
Bill Bennett is the guy who wrote The Book of Virtues, a tome in which he presumes to preach to all of America about what moral values everybody should follow.
A few years after The Book of Virtues came out, it was revealed that Bill Bennett is a compulsive gambler who spends and loses amounts of money at casinos. People at the time questioned why Mr. Bennett didn’t include squandering wealth as one of the virtues in his book.
Now, I find myself wanting a different question answered. Does Bill Bennett plan to come out with a new edition of The Book of Virtues with a chapter about how virtuous it is to practice racial bigotry?
Preach what you practice, Bill Bennett, or stop preaching.
That is well and truly disgusting.
Over here he’d be sacked for even hinting at something like that. He’d probably risk being mobbed, even most of our Chavs/Townies aren’t racist to the point where they suggest that people of a skin colour should be destroyed!
Ugh… I’m serious, that is a truly horrible thing to say. Not even suggesting that he means any specific group of people other than all the black-skinned ethnicities? How can people get away with this?!?
Even written in a book that’d lose any politician in England their job.
[Edit to second paragraph: "...That all people of a certain skin colour should be destroyed!"]
And actually, I think aborting all black babies would cause a very sharp RISE in crime.
Like if you suggested black-skinned people should be put back into slavery.
Miss Hare, I must tell you, with a heavy heart, that there are people who feel exactly the way you discribe in your last point. Those people do more to dispell the “myth of white supremicy” with two minutes of talking than the NAACP has managed in decades.
My daughter-in-law is black. She has a master’s degree, is a naval officer. She is at present on a hospital ship in the Gulf of Mexico helping with hurricane releif. I’m keeping the grandsons, and it is interesting to hear what people say about them. They’re just kids: they bleed the same color as anyone else when they skin their knees, they love hugs, they get up to devilment. Like any other kid, they need direction and motivation, they can be anything in the world that can be learned. That’s one of my goals before I die, to help them along and see them safe and able to live as I can.
I was really glad to read your take on this horrible report in which you pointed out that – despite the fact Mr. Bennett was ‘condemning’ the slaughter of an entire race – the very fact that he thinks crime is directly related to one race is reprehensible. He also doesn’t seem to feel like he should apologize to anyone for his remarks. This is just further proof that Republicans are so removed from the real world that they are incapable of understanding how elitist and racist their remarks are.
Well, if you look at the context, he’s not actually calling for aborting all black fetuses.
Still, it’s really distorting to compare a woman’s right to choose to terminate her own pregnancy with a program of racist eugenics.
Bennett’s so done for. He peddles this simplistic schlock on morality, but then his own statements and behavior reveal someone with a serious dark side.
Yes, Ralph. That’s the point of this article, which I think wrote about the nuance very carefully – not that William Bennett was really calling for mass abortions, but that he made the bigoted racist suggestion that if it weren’t for all the blacks, we wouldn’t have so much crime.
Bill Bennett = Big Jerk
Book of Virtues = Christian Snowjob
I really would like to hope that Mr. Bennett was trying to make a statement that would resonate along the lines of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (If you took English 1A in any college in America, you know what I’m talking about.) That having been said, his response to the question was, at best, completely tasteless and repugnant, and, at the other extreme, if one were to take him at his word, he should step away from the airwaves, and confine his comments to a more receptive audience…maybe he could be the head columnist for the KKK Times?…no…first his audience would have to be able to read…
i love it when these christian moralists stick thier foot in their mouth.
how quick they are to judge before they can be judged.
or, how does that go?
I think that Bennet’s father was Henry Ford’s “social police”, who went around to the orkers and made sure they weren’t getting up to such tricks as being “unamerican.”
edit to “cheif of Hennry Ford’s “social police”.
I believe people like this are ignorant. Their thinking has been warped only to cause us black folks to get mad when in reality, anything we say or do to get refenge on this comment will only make matters worse. As MLK, Malcom X, turn the other cheek as our heavenly Father commands us. Our reward will be in heaven. The word also says, do not touch my anointed. Revengence is his, all we can do is pray for these types of people and press forward for the mark of the high calling!