Institutional racism?

 When one backs up and looks at what is happening in the United States, one should realize there are maligned forces at work in our country. For many years, we have all lived together here - black and white, gay and straight, religious and atheist. We have all pretty much embraced the “live and let live” attitude that has allowed so many different viewpoints to live happily together. So, what has changed? Let’s examine that, shall we?

In the last few decades, the Democrat Party in America has lost most of the voters they used to depend on to carry their party to victory. No longer the party of the little man, the Democrat Party is now largely a coalition of different minority groups and grievance groups that express their distrust of American with their vote for Democrats whom they hope will help them succeed.

In state after state, the vote from black votes has been the vote that made the difference in victory and defeat for the Democrat Party. So, you see, the Democrat Party cannot afford for race relations to improve. The Democrat Party would lose one of its major grievance members if, all at once, black citizens began to vote Republican. That fear is the motivating force behind all the grievance politics we see today. Whenever a problem arises in American society, you can bet the Democrat Party will be there to blame that problem on racists in the Republican Party. And loyal Democrats faithfully ingest and believe whatever the latest lie that Democrats peddle and try to spread that belief to as many people as possible.

Let us examine the idea that there is systemic racism in America. Lillian Green, a consultant on race relations and such in the workplace, defines systemic racism in this quote from an article on MSN:

“Systemic racism involves all of our institutions collectively upholding racist policies: education, health care, housing, government, etc. It’s the ripple effect from hundreds of years of racist and discriminatory practices that still play out today.”

She goes on to talk about statistics concerning disparities in the way lawbreakers are dealt with:

“For example, African-Americans are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of white people in America. Although African-Americans and Hispanics make up about 32 percent of the U.S. population, they made up 56 percent of all incarcerated people, in 2015, according to the NAACP.”

Let us think about that raw statistic.

First of all, the overwhelming majority of those African-Americans incarcerated had a trial by jury of other black members of the community. Were those black jurors part of this institutional racism Ms. Green discusses?

Secondly, what percentage of Blacks are committing crimes to begin with? Although Blacks make up only 13 percent to 14 percent of Americans, blacks are responsible for a little over half of all homicides. So, if that is the case, we can see why they are overrepresented in the incarceration rate. Simply put, more blacks commit crimes, therefore more blacks are incarcerated for those crimes. Why is that never mentioned when people complain about “institutional racism?” Let’s continue.

Thirdly, how does the breakdown of the black American family contribute to this discrepancy? Let’s take a look at some quotes from differing authors about crime and unmarried mothers:

“Among married two-parent families, whether white or black, the crime rate was very low.  The capacity and determination to maintain stable married relationships, not race, was cited as the pivotal factor.  Chaotic, broken communities resulted from chaotic, broken families.”  Patrick Fagan, “The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime:  The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community,” The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder #1026, March 1995.

An analysis of 50 separate studies of juvenile crime revealed that the prevalence of delinquency in broken homes was 10 percent to 15 percent higher than in intact homes. In addition, there were no appreciable differences in the impact of broken homes between girls and boys or between black youths and white youth.

Edward Wells and Joseph Rankin, “Families and Delinquency: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Broken Homes,” Social Problems 38 (1991): 71-89.

More next week…