A Stunning Expose of Racism Indeed

Over at Manhattan Contrarian is an analysis of an alleged expose of racism on the part of law enforcement in New York City.

What is astounding is not that, in this day and age, the police are arbitrarily and routinely arresting individuals on the basis of their race. (To the degree this still happens it remains an outrage, but I don't think it is right to imply that it is routine.) Quite to the contrary, it's just how patronizing the expose is, and how destructive the implied remedy would be for blacks.

The whole thing is worth a read, but two successive paragraphs give us the gist. An editorialist, apparently wearing the blinders of his moral high horse, all but admits that he thinks that blacks cannot live up to social norms like anyone else. Note that the supposedly outrageous arrests are for a couple of shoplifting incidents, at least one of which is not disputed:

Image by Wynand van Poortvliet, via Unsplash, license.

[Past "progressive" mayoral candidate Robert] Gangi thinks that we should all be "outraged" that these incidents -- and thousands of other similar but likely less sympathetic ones -- led to arrests. But somehow Gangi is oblivious to the fact that fundamentally what he is advocating is that black people are too stupid or incompetent to be held to the normal standards of behavior that govern society. If they "are hungry," they should be privileged to steal whatever they need from whatever source they can find. Any attempt of the police, or presumably anyone else, to stop them is "racist." Because his article is limited to a few instances of theft of food (those being incidents that might give rise to reader sympathy), we don't find out his attitude toward thefts of other items. Does Gangi think that black people should be privileged to steal expensive sneakers? How about high-end TVs? Jewelry? Cars? [bold added]

This attitude crops up often enough to have a name: the bigotry of low expectations.

Not only do I agree that this attitude is ridiculous, I agree with the next paragraph and think it shows that the professed concern for victims of racism often ends exactly there -- at the profession:

If Gangi has given any thought to the collateral consequences of the criminal justice policies he advocates, he gives no indication of that in this op-ed or Report. Those collateral consequences are of course devastating for black people, and include things like making shopkeepers highly wary of any black customers entering the store; making stores catering to large numbers of blacks unprofitable and leading to dearth of stores in black neighborhoods; making prices higher at stores in black neighborhoods, because the stores must charge the paying customers prices that cover the losses from theft. None of these things makes life better for black people. [bold added]

Nor do many of the numerous government programs that are supposed to remedy the effects of racism -- from racial quotas to welfare -- but it is a little bit harder to make such cases than it is to show -- as the author does so succinctly here -- that blacks benefit from law and order -- just like anyone else does.

-- CAV