In December 1984, a young white man, Bernard Goetz, was approached on a New York underground train by four black youths ‘asking’ for $5. Having been a previous victim of black muggers, and certain that they were about to rob him, Goetz pulled out a gun and shot all four (all of whom had criminal records). Due to pressure from white liberals and black ‘activists’, he was charged with attempted murder and assault but was acquitted (though spending eight months in jail on a lesser charge).
In the International Herald Tribune (19 June 1987, p.3; all emphases added) Joseph Berger writes about the case.
Underlying the issue of crime … was the issue of race. Scholars such as Dr. Kenneth B. Clark [black], … have expressed doubt that Mr. Goetz would have shot four white youths asking him for money.
However, Marvin E. Wolfgang, a criminologist …, said that perceptions about who is more likely to commit a crime have some statistical basis. For four violent offenses – homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – the crime rates for blacks are at least 10 times as high as they are by whites, he said.
“The expectation that four young blacks are going to do you harm is indeed greater than four young whites”, he said. “I can understand the black position that this is a racist attitude, but it is not unrealistic”.
Legal scholars such as Graham Hughes … said it would be “intolerable to adopt a social norm or legal concept that you can reinforce your argument of reasonable fear just because the person happens to be a young black person”. The courts, for example, have generally ruled that police cannot take race into account as a factor in leading to an arrest.
My response to Kenneth Clark would be, “Of course he wouldn’t have shot four whites. First of all, it’s hard to imagine four ordinary, middle-class whites asking someone for five dollars. But if they did, then no, Goetz probably wouldn’t have shot them because he wouldn’t have feared being robbed. Whereas with the blacks he was – justifiably – so worried”. We can imagine circumstances in which four whites would be threatening and four blacks not, but the point is, their being black by itself is seen as menacing – and on the evidence adduced, quite rightly so.
Which leads to Marvin Wolfgang’s observation that ‘perceptions about who is more likely to commit a crime have some statistical basis’. Some? Given the facts he asserts, they have a very good basis and create a presumption that, other things being equal, the chances of blacks harming you are much greater than whites.
Yet, according to him, this attitude is ‘racist’ – though ‘not unrealistic’. But why is it racist – i.e., bad? He’s already said that the rate of violent crime is ten times higher for blacks and hence that the greater ‘expectation’ of harm is warranted – and given these facts we don’t need a criminologist to tell us this! – which means that the belief that blacks are a threat is true, end of story. Since racism is bad, what Mr Wolfgang is telling us, in a nutshell, is that we ought not to be realistic!
Prelude To a Continuing Discussion: Can A Fact Be Racist?
Question: can such a true belief – a fact – be racist? The very idea seems absurd. A fact is merely something that is the case, and such a thing cannot, in and of itself, be racist. To call something racist is to say it is morally bad and it would seem absurd to call a fact morally bad.
But if a fact cannot be racist, neither can a proposition, for a proposition is simply what is made true (or false) by facts. A proposition, therefore, is like a ‘picture’ of a fact: to every fact there corresponds the proposition which would assert that fact, while, conversely, to every proposition there corresponds either a fact (which makes it true) or the absence of that fact (whose absence makes it false). So propositions and facts are intimately related, and if facts cannot be racist neither can propositions.
Can ‘Truth Itself’ Be Wrong?
Similar thoughts are expressed by two Harvard professors, James Q Wilson and Richard J Herrnstein, in their book Crime and Human Nature (1985, p.468; emphases added;
Herrnstein was later to co-author The Bell Curve):
There is no way to discuss the evidence, such as it is, on constitutional factors un-derlying the association between race and crime without giving offense. Even to allude to the possibility that races may differ in the distribution of those constitutional factors that are associated with criminality will strike some persons as factually, ethically, or prudentially wrong. We disagree. One cannot dismiss such possible connections as factually wrong without first investigating them. Honest, open scientific inquiry that results in carefully stated findings cannot be ethically wrong, unless one believes that truth itself is wrong.
What then can be racist? How about beliefs? If by ‘beliefs’ we mean the content(s) of beliefs, then that is the same as a proposition, which we’ve said cannot be racist. What is racist is not the content of a belief but rather the manner in which it is held. Similarly, while facts per se cannot be racist, one’s attitudes towards them can be. If, e.g., one ‘enjoys’ discovering (e.g.) that blacks’ have a higher crime rate, that might indicate racism; but it still wouldn’t be the facts which were racist but how we deal with them.
No One Can Be Blamed for Acting on Reasonable and Justified Presumptions In calling fear of blacks ‘racist’, Mr Wolfgang is saying it is bad. But is it bad? He agrees that it’s ‘not unrealistic’ – meaning that it’s reasonable and justified; moreover, it is self-pre-servative: one defends oneself against dangers and he agrees that blacks are a danger. But if it’s not bad, how can it be racist, since to say it is racist is to say it is bad?
And why would it be ‘intolerable to reinforce your argument just because the person … [is] black’? If Mr. Hughes wishes to deny the facts asserted by Mr. Wolfgang he should say so; but if he means that even given these, it would still be ‘intolerable’, I’d like to know why. We’re not saying that because a person is black he is a criminal; we are only speaking, as he is, of ‘reasonable fear’ and of what one is thereby morally entitled to do: specifically, that when four blacks ‘ask’ for $5, you are entitled to conclude with a moral certainty that they are about to rob you and to act accordingly.
True, innocent blacks will suffer, being effected by similar presumptions when looking for housing, jobs, etc. But whose fault is that? No one can be blamed for acting on reasonable and justified presumptions. If there is fault to be found here it is with black criminals and liberals, who have created a climate where these realities simply cannot be discussed.
Racial Profiling Supported by Jesse Jackson The latest incarnation of these ideas (circa June 1998) is ‘racial profiling’. State police in New Jersey (U.S.) have used the facts about black criminality to both prevent and detect it with considerable success. But rather than defend their eminently sensible procedure, the police found it necessary to deny they were taking race into account – even when it was evident that they were. And so we have another instance where the fear of confronting racial realities has deadly consequences.
If It’s Good Enough for Jesse, It’s Good Enough for Me!
I note with some satisfaction that that arch-radical black American apologist, Jesse Jackson, has recently been quoted thus (by Clarence Page, himself black, in the Chicago Tribune, 5 January 1994, Section 1, p.13):
“There is nothing more painful to me ... than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved” [emphasis added].
Meanwhile, taxi drivers in Washington, D.C. face a $500 fine for nothing more than acting on precisely this reasoning*. Such thoughts – as obvious as the nose on one’s face – have long been banished as ‘incorrect’ and almost everyone has danced to the Emperor’s Tune. Jesse Jackson’s remarks make short shrift of black ‘complaints’ regarding different treatment by store detectives and the like, and one could henceforth reply to such accusations of racism simply by saying, “Well, if it’s good enough for Jesse Jackson, it’s good enough for me!”.
*
BLACK TAXI DRIVERS PUNISHED DUE TO THIS SAME PHILOSOPHICAL ERROR
What Is Discrimination?
‘Not Blacks. Niggers.’
In Washington, D.C., taxi drivers (mostly nonwhite) face a fine of $500 fine ‘for discrimination’ if they fail to pick up black passengers (Paved With Good Intentions, p.58.) Such a law rests on a presumed understanding of the nature of discrimination. The question of whether or not this is the correct understanding – and hence whether these taxi drivers, acting on reasonable and justified presumptions, ought to be punished – is yet another instance where a compelling practical issue rests on an essentially philosophical one, viz., 194 Exactly what is discrimination (aka racism)?
To quote from The End of Racism (p.251):
“This racism stuff is bullshit” one African student who was driving to put himself through school told me. “I’m not going to pass up a fare, which is money in my pocket. But I don’t want to get robbed. You know what the black crime rate is in New York? Do you want me to risk a gun to my head, man? What’s wrong with you?” A white driver in Chicago told me, “No exceptions, pal. I never pick up niggers”.
“You don’t like blacks?” I asked.
“Not blacks. Niggers.” “That sounds like racism to me.” “Hey, that’s crap. I pick up older blacks all the time. I have no problem with giving black women a ride. My black buddies won’t pick up no niggers. I ain’t no more racist than they are.”
Self-Preservation Requires Policy-Decisions
Note that the decision these drivers must make is not simply whether to pick up this customer, but rather whether to adopt a certain policy, i.e., of regularly picking up this type of person in this type of situation; in other words, regularly making certain kinds of decisions in certain kinds of circumstances – because of course they don’t pick up just one passenger; they pick up thousands.
There are, roughly, three choices: one, pick up anyone looking for a taxi; two, try to discern, in the case of young black males, whether they ‘look safe’; three, don’t pick up young black males at all (except, perhaps, in exceptional cases). The first is clearly fraught with great danger, which is why few adopt it. The second may look better, but experience tells us that it will eventually lead to the same result as the first, since, over the long haul, you are bound to make mistakes. This leaves the third policy, which most drivers adopt out of common sense self-preservation – and yet for which they risk a harsh penalty.
From: RACISM, GUILT, SELF-HATRED AND SELF-DECEITby Gedaliah Braun
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