Posted on 10/10/2005 4:55:21 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Words are as fragile and sensitive as the human beings who utter them. They need careful nurturing and appropriate context and presentation for their meaning and intent to be realized.
This point was made effectively in a best-selling book on punctuation a few years ago that showed how a sentence pointing out the simple truth that "The panda eats shoots and leaves" takes on a new life and meaning with the addition of a few commas, becoming "The panda eats, shoots, and leaves."
So we have it with the recent almost-too-ridiculous-to-discuss incident with Bill Bennett's alleged racist remarks on his radio show. The remarks, taken out of context by those attacking Bennett, are being used to make the exact opposite point of his and brand him a racist.
A listener called in suggesting that abortion might be an explanation for our Social Security crisis (with more adults around paying Social Security taxes, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in). Bennett replied that such a hypothesis is as absurd and repugnant as the suggestion made in a best-selling book called "Freakonomics" that aborting more black babies would lead to a lower crime rate.
Bennett's point, perhaps to belabor what for some reason to many is not obvious, was that such an allegation is a bizarre, perverse way to view the world.
What is going on in our country today? Is there not enough evil around that we have to look for it and manufacture it where it doesn't exist?
Sure, one could argue that Bennett should have considered that he broadcasts to a large audience and that he might have been insensitive to not appreciate that such a supercharged example might elicit emotional responses. However, even if this captures what happened, an insensitive moment is not racism.
A number of questions and ironies come to mind as I review this strange incident.
Ask yourself, in moments when you have doubts about someone and her motives, if you tend to err on the side of suspicion of bad or attribution of good. I sadly think that, overwhelmingly, our tendency is to be suspicious and accuse. Why does the natural tendency seem to drift toward the bad and not the good?
Ask yourself, when you listen to someone speak, if you are truly listening to him. Are you really paying attention? Did you walk away hearing what he said, or were you really listening to yourself and did you walk away with what you think he said or want to believe he said? How many of us really listen carefully to those speaking to us?
Regarding the army of those attacking Bennett, most of whom are black, my question is this: Why are you outraged about Bennett's supposed remark about black abortions and not outraged, every day, about the 400,000-plus black babies that actually are aborted every year? Or about the 13 million black babies that have been aborted since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973?
If what you truly care about are black babies and black lives, why do you overwhelmingly vote for candidates who support abortion and perpetuate a culture that devalues and cheapens lives _ black and white?
Ironically, Elayne Bennett, wife of the alleged racist, founded and has run for a good number of years the Best Friends Foundation. It runs programs for teenagers, largely black, in communities all over the country, helping these kids build satisfying, responsible lives. In the words of the mission statement, Best Friends "promotes self-respect through the practice of self-control and provides participants the skills, guidance, and support to choose abstinence from sex until marriage and reject illegal drug and alcohol abuse."
Perhaps the explanation for the tendency to suspect rather than to give the benefit of the doubt, the tendency lean to the negative, rather than to seek the positive, is because it is easy. Suspicion, accusation and blame take little effort. Careful listening, clear thinking and a pure heart require real work. Maybe that's why, unfortunately, we see so little of these things.
Bennett should be smart enough to know that only blacks and the left can make such remarks.
But, you know what? Statistically he is right.
Bennett should be smart enough to know that only blacks and the left can make such remarks.
But, you know what? Statistically he is right.
Out of context has risen to new meaning these day.
We all need to be on guard for the pundits and race hustlers.
He should have said, "If every black woman in the U.S. chose to abort her child, the crime rate would go down. But God fobid those women would make that choice." I wonder what the reaction would have been.
I have been ignoring this issue, but wasnt it the premise of the book he was talking , aborting black babies to bring down the crime rate? if it was why isnt there a backlash against the authors?
I finished the book "Freakanomics" yesterday, and I think the thoughts presented there were on Bennetts mind when he made his comment. I will post some excerpts later today to make more sense of where he was coming from. The author posited that the drop in crime in the 90's was easily predictable, and that it was in part because of less babies born to the poor and the minority population.
Thanks. Since I've only heard about and not read the book, I'd be interested in seeing the excerpts.
Bennett oversimplified and took a couple of leaps beyond "Freakonomics" -- which I won't belabor, because there's a summary by the author in the thread at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1494862/posts.
That thread began nine days ago. In that time, the story has all but disappeared by the media except for conservative commentators defending Bennett.
I have no reason to believe Bennett is a racist. He made a poor choice of words in live, off-the-cuff comments; as a politician and broadcaster, he should have known better, but everyone slips up. It deserved a passing remark and a couple of Leno and Letterman jokes, not much more.
If I were his speechwriter, I would have advised him to say something like: "I intended to point out that abortion is an unvarnished evil, and cannot be justified a tool of social engineering because some academic says that it has a beneficial outcome. That is true without regard to race, and I'm sorry that my poor choice of words obscured that point by making race the issue."
If he'd said that, instead of angrily demanding an apology from his critics, the story would have died sooner. More than a week later, it appears to me that conservative commentators rushing to Bennett's defense are the ones keeping the story alive.
Bottom line: If you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, whether fairly or not, stop digging.
I missed that thread, and the book and the post by Levitt are enlightening and to the point. Thanks for providing the info.
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