RUTHFULLY YOURS

It’s all the rage right now for progressives and their allies to call anybody who doesn’t toe the party line of Black Live Matter a “racist,” or worse, a “white supremacist.” Even better is to hurl the accusation that the entire American country is “systemically racist.”

And yet, as I repeatedly note on this blog, all you need to do is look at a little data, and you quickly realize that the jurisdictions most firmly in progressive control and for the longest time — the solidly Democratic big cities with Democratic mayors, City Councils, Congresspersons, and state governors for decades on end — are the places that have the worst outcomes for their African American citizens on every metric you can find. Ask where in this country you can find the highest rates of poverty, the highest income inequality, the highest crime rates, the most murders, the most expensive housing, the worst housing shortages, the most homelessness, the highest energy costs, and so on and on — all of this impacting disproportionately on African Americans — and time after time the answer is, in the big Democrat-run cities.

But what does the dynamic that brings about these disastrous results look like on the ground? Certainly part of it is massive government “anti-poverty” bureaucracies that may have been well-intentioned at the outset, but in practice exist today only to fight to increase their staffs and budgets and never raise a single person out of poverty. But then there is also the perverse progressive mindset that demands special treatment for African Americans, somehow without realizing that that often inherently means treating African Americans as inferior..

Consider this piece in the New York Times from June 24, headline “A Minneapolis Neighborhood Vowed to Check Its Privilege. It’s Already Being Tested.” The story is about a mostly white and heavily progressive enclave in South Minneapolis by the name of Powderhorn Park, not far from where George Floyd was murdered. We are introduced to multiple neighborhood residents who want to show their progressive bona fides by supporting the call to “defund the police,” and then, to prove they really mean it, refraining from calling the police when normally police-worthy incidents arise. Take, for example, Mitchell Erickson:

[T]wo black teenagers who looked to be 15, at most, cornered [Mr. Erickson] outside his home a block away from the [Powderhorn] park. One of the boys pointed a gun at Mr. Erickson’s chest, demanding his car keys. Flustered, Mr. Erickson handed over a set, but it turned out to be house keys. The teenagers got frustrated and ran off, then stole a different car down the street.

Mr. Erickson quickly broke his resolve and dialed the police. However, several days later, he is rethinking that decision in light of his progressive values:

Mr. Erickson said later that he would not cooperate with prosecutors in a case against the boys. After the altercation, he realized that if there was anything he wanted, it was to offer them help.

According to the Times, Mr. Erickson’s position had “evolved”:

“Been thinking more about it,” he wrote in a text message. “I regret calling the police. It was my instinct but I wish it hadn’t been. I put those boys in danger of death by calling the cops.”

Now exactly how is it any kind of favor to these kids to fail to prosecute them and thus leave them free to go off on a spree of armed robberies? In the short run they get a clear message that they will not be held to the same standards of conduct that apply to everyone else, even in the case of armed robbery. In the somewhat longer run, if they continue and escalate their conduct, that could result in their spending many years in prison, if not getting killed in a shoot-out if they try to rob the wrong person at gunpoint. The chance of these kids getting killed from continuing with armed robberies is far greater than the chance they might be killed in a prompt arrest by the police. Meanwhile, any chance these kids might have in life for a real high-paying legitimate career is rapidly disappearing. Perhaps the chance could be preserved by a firm intervention right now; but Mr. Erickson will not give these kids that chance. He thinks he is doing them a favor. I don’t.

Here’s another example, this one coming from Madison, Wisconsin. It involves a 28 year old black man named Devonere Johnson. From the Wisconsin State Journal, June 26, via Ann Althouse:

[S]everal business owners… said Johnson and others entered multiple businesses on State Street on Monday and Tuesday, played loud music, called business owners racists, threatened to burn buildings, demanded free food and drinks and knocked over patio chairs and tables.

Business owner Abbul Lababidi is quoted as follows:

“It’s getting very scary. My customers, they call me, and they don’t want to come down to State Street any more. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Business is very tough. Very tough.”

The arrest of Mr. Johnson set off the latest rounds of “protests” in Madison, involving substantial amounts of destruction and violence:

Statues were toppled, a state senator assaulted, windows broken and the state Capitol vandalized over several hours after the arrest of Devonere Johnson, 28, a Black activist.

Supposedly, this is about the defense of “free speech.”

And one more example, this one from the New York Post, June 26 print edition. There are two adjacent stories appearing on page 9 of the print edition. The first, headlined “BLM big gets ‘inflammatory,’” (different headline in the online version) has a report of an interview of Black Lives Matter New York chapter head Hawk Newsome. Key quote:

“If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right?”

Immediately beneath that one is the headline “Don hits back at Blas,” containing this quote from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio:

“Only warped minds equate the words Black Lives Matter with violence.”

(That quote from de Blasio does not seem to appear in the online version of the article.)