Three Items
Anybody know much about Jacques Ellul? I was embarrassed to tell a loyal TDE reader that I'd never heard of him. He wrote over 50 books and over a thousand articles. He thought of himself as a Christian anarchist and was interested in technology and culture. It sounds like he's kind of Rothbard and McLuhan wrapped up into one. I've ordered two of his books. I'll let you know what I think.
So Keith Olbermann leaves another network. There are few people who strike me as an ass like Olbermann, and I don't think it's because he's a flaming liberal. His personality is just obnoxious, and based on little nuggets I hear occasionally, it appears that the people who work with him agree.
In light of the Trayvon Martin affair, Pat Buchanan points out some awkward facts about race and crime. He'll no doubt get branded a racist (oh wait, he already has been), but his facts reveal a fundamental truth: If you're a rational being, you're going to be a little more nervous around a young black male than, say, an old white guy. Excerpts: "Black males between 16 and 36, though only 2 to 3 percent of the population, are responsible for a third of all our crimes. . . . Geraldo Rivera had a point. Whenever cable TV runs hidden-camera footage of a liquor or convenience store being held up and someone behind the counter being shot, the perp is often a black male wearing a hoodie. . . . The real America is a country where the black crime rate is seven times as high as the white rate. It is a country where white criminals choose black victims in 3 percent of their crimes, but black criminals choose white victims in 45 percent of their crimes." And perhaps the most startling analysis:
Black journalists point to the racism manifest even in progressive cities, where cabs deliberately pass them by to pick up white folks down the block.
That this happens is undeniable. But, again, what is behind it?
As Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has written, from January to June 2008 in New York City, 83 percent of all identified gun assailants were black and 15 percent were Hispanics.
Together, blacks and Hispanics accounted for 98 percent of gun assaults.
Translated: If a cabdriver is going to be mugged or murdered in New York City by a fare, 49 times out of 50 his assailant or killer will be black or Hispanic.
Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers has told his drivers, "Profile your passengers" for your own protection. "The God's honest truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these guys are blacks and Hispanics."
Fernando Mateo is himself black and Hispanic.
Now, we know that people from lower socio-economic levels tend to commit more crime. The Italians did, the Irish did. There are reasons for it, and they're not related to race. But it's kind of like the pit bull debate: I don't care why a race trends to crime. Maybe it is slavery's, and Jim Crow's, and institutional racism's fault. Fine. Let's try to remedy it. But in the meantime, don't get self-righteous on me if I act little differently around a young black man roaming the street than I would the young Chinese guy making a food delivery.
It's not racism. It's just common sense.
