Bill Bennett

[Not Afraid]

I don't care about context or no context. Nor do I care who else may have some something that may or may not have been similar. Bottom line is that this is a racist comment and the guy should be pubically ridiculed and rotton tomatoes stuffed into every orifice.

It is just not right to say that....at all!

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

Bottom line is that this is a racist comment

Please explain to me why.

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Please explain to me why.

The noun racism has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races


Meaning #2: discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race
Synonyms: racialism, racial discrimination




The Comment:

"I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down..."

Implication: That black babies are somehow MORE responsible for crime than babies of other races. He seems to be implying that it is their "blackness" that is the problem.

If he had said:

"I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce future crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down..."

He would be more correct and the statement would not be racist.

As far as this goes:

.......being outraged about something someone you don't like said

I have no feeling of like or dislike for Bill Bennet before this statement. But, his statement has certainly given me more to think about.

[Nephythys]

Ya know- I like you two- but those comments seem to be full of intellectual laziness and nothing but the need to feel good about being outraged about something someone you don't like said-

Feeling rather than thinking about it-and I truly do not mean offense, but that is how that strikes me.

[Nephythys]

aw come on Leo- they're never racist! Byrd can call black people N****rs and they don't blink.

And now, just because I love throwing fuel on the fires-
N'awlins will be more white from now on?

[Nephythys]

yet you totally reject the context in which it was stated- reject that he himself said that the notion was reprehensible- and simply denounce him as making a racist comment-

THAT should be something to think about!

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Nephythys

yet you ... reject that he himself said that the notion was reprehensible- and simply denounce him as making a racist comment

Since he knew it was a reprehensible concept, all the more boneheaded for him to say it aloud. It's as if he were a schizophrenic Turets victim.


He could have given an example that did not involve the racist concept that blacks commit more crimes because they are black.


His saying that the hypothetical was reprehenisible was nothing more than the way I used to cause havoc on MousePad and then apologize for it. I knew what I was doing when I caused the havoc, and Bill knew what he was saying when he spoke the racism.






Nehph, are you trying to claim that he's a blithering idiot, but not a racist?

[Not Afraid]

Yeah, I think about how anyone who speaks publically should choose their words carefully KNOWING what happens to words once you let them go. No public officer/personality should ever forget that.

[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.

[Gemini Cricket]

Don't misunderstand. I know the context the statement was made in. But his choice of an example was in bad taste. And someone (BB) who has been in the public spotlight before and knows how things can be taken out of context should know better.