[Morrigoon]

Hmm...

Was the statement technically, statistically correct? Probably

Was the statement a poor choice of words? Definitely

Was the statement ill-advised in a public forum? Without question

Was the statement necessarily racist? Hmm....

On its surface, it's a glaringly, maliciously, obvious racist remark. However, taken in the context of what came before it, and the entire statement. Not exactly. I can see where he was going with the statement, and, using statistics to back up the argument, you could technically say it was a correct statement. But it was still a poor choice to make it.

He could have made the same argument by saying "abort all the poor babies," and it would probably have been more correct, statistically, and far less racist. A bit classist, perhaps, but again, he has stats to back it up, and people are less likely to be this upset about a classist remark than a racist one. It probably would have been best to refrain from using this example at all, but given that he did, it would have been a better choice to use socioeconomic status rather than race.

I can see where he was going with it... trying to make a non-racist remark (hence the disclaimers afterward), but in typical born-pre-civil-rights-movement old white guy style, his attempts to be non-racist made him out as more racist, even than he is. Not intentionally racist, but the prejudice comes out in his very poor word choice.