Walter Williams tackles the elephant in the room on crime
Dr. Williams is a well known conservative economist and longtime John Olin Chair faculty at George Mason University in eastern Virginia, author of 12 books and syndicated columnist. In the past, he has been substitute host on the Rush Limbaugh radio program. He is almost like family to me, and I have benefited from his essays and books over the years. This past week, I saw and read his essay on disparities in crime rates among races that was picked up by Military in its October 2019 issue. What got Dr. Williams going was the article by Matthew DeLisi of Iowa State U and John Paul Wright of the U of Cincinnati titled "What Criminologists Don't Say and Why."
Dr. Williams confirms that the writers are right about the liberal tilt of criminologists — "If criminologists have the guts to even talk about a race-crime connection, it's behind closed doors and in guarded language. Any discussion about race and crime ... can mean the end of one's professional career."
Dr. Williams points out teen black-on-white predatory behavior — chronicled in detail by many, particularly Colin Flaherty, whose investigative reports appear frequently (more than 100) at American Thinker — cannot be reported, mentioned, or considered by the media, politicians, criminologists, commentators, politicians, even law enforcement people without risking being called racist, the easy epithet used to enforce a ban on talking about the realities of racial disparities in crime and the increasingly violent nature of black violence against whites — the knockout game, polar bear hunting, flash mob violence against people and property.
Referencing the Wright and DeLisi report, Dr. Williams comments on another reality: that the rate of black homicide and armed robbery as well as other violent crimes are as is as much as 15–30 times more than whites, for example, and he points out the silliness of criminologists' claims that mass incarceration rather than criminality has decimated the black community. He favorably quotes Wright and DeLisi when they say, "What they [criminals] did, in reality was to prey on their neighbors."
Dr. Williams returns to a theme he has explored many times before in this essay and commentary when he points out that the black family of the past was two parents and stable, even back to days of slavery, and that the black community was moral and law-abiding. "The strong character of black people is responsible for the great progress made from emancipation to today. ... [T]oday's conduct among black youth wouldn't have been tolerated yesteryear."
My regret is there aren't enough Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell types to engage the nutty attitudes of liberal chatterbox experts.
John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. is an emergency physician, sheriff's medical officer and inactive attorney, policy and science adviser to the American Council on Science and Health of NYC and the Heartland Institute of Chicago.
Image: C-SPAN via YouTube.