The Race to Racism

If you start with the conclusion you can talk yourself into anything.

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Demonstrators march through downtown Memphis protesting the death of Tyre Nichols on January 28, 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Hey, 

“To know only one country,” Seymour Martin Lipset often said, “is to know none.”

If I were to compile a list of pithy insights that every high school student should have pounded into their heads, this would be near the top of the list.

Whenever you hear people talk about America as uniquely or exceptionally flawed—or superior!—the first question you should ask is, “compared to whom?”

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  1. Mil001

    In something of a digression, when I read your reference to "The Atlantic" writer Jemele Hill, I was put in mind of an article I read in that magazine this past December, on Germany's efforts to memorialize the Holocaust, and in some instances make reparations to the victims. The author, Clint Smith, used the topic, and his observations on the ground in Germany, as a stalking horse to criticize the lack of similar efforts in the United States to address (and redress) the "parallel crime" of slavery and systemic racism. The analogy failed to work for me--to say the least--but I was surprised to see not one Letter to the Editor or comment in subsequent editions on the distorted logic of that analogy. Chattel slavery was wrong, but it had little in common with a government policy forcing 2,000 people into a railroad car designed to hold 20, and transporting them to a place where the young and old were summarily executed, and the able-bodied worked on starvation rations until they could work no more, and then put to death themselves. This, Smith implied, was directly analogous to the blackbirds sailing across the Atlantic, and the actions of the factors and slave purchasers on our shores. That argument defies what I know of facts and logic.
    The necessary discussions about policing, its problems and possible solutions, are impossible to make in fora where such outrageous markers as in the Hill article are set in stone, just as discussions of neither the institutions of slavery, nor the enforced racial and ethnic cleansing of the Nazi machine, can take place in such a distorted, binary world as the other Atlantic article. The tenor of some of the comments on this article of yours show me just how far we are from coming to any viable and rational decisions on such things.
    That's a shame. I thought your points were well made, and compelling.

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  2. Robb.Salomon

    I'm a 78 year old person who's been in CA since 1962 (absent 8 years, 2006-2014, when my residence was WY but had a 2nd home in CA). I feel for both the USA & CA that I have enjoyed the best years of each & that both have been in a state of rapid decline for25+ years. At this point, not only do I disagree with many of the laws of each entity, I quite simply do not understand how the laws they pass could possibly accomplish the goals they talk about. In CA, why do they pass laws requiring reliance on electricity instead of natural gas when the existing electrical grid can only weakly, often not at all, support the current electrical demand?
    My natural gas bill for my home in Carpinter1a, over the past 3 months has soared to more than 5-6x the monthly average over an 8 year history & they continue to take steps to restrict natural gas supply.

    Same question for restricting petroleum supplies & forcing reliance on the woefully outdated electrical grid. Please explain the market anomaly of diesel fuel currently outpricing premium gas by $1.30-$1.50 per gallon. You remember diesel, the fuel the country trucks by & farms by.

    My water bill now has a monthly fixed expense approaching $500 dollars per month. I raise avocados (not a large operation, about 3oo trees) that uses up to 40,000 gallons (domestic & irrigation) per month . My monthly water bill for these hottest/thirstiest months has averaged $900-$1,000 per month. This past month, January, my total water usage was 7,480 gallons per month (241 gallons per day) & my water bill was $514, which covered the water plus residential equivalency, a basic charge, a drought meter surcharge, a drought meter surcharge, a water volume surcharge, a state water project charge & an AG G&M charge.

    A long way to my point. You & David French (great opportunity at the NYT) & others at The Dispatch have been the voices of intellect & logic in a Left & Right overwhelmed by ideology & unattainable utopianism.

    Thank you & please keep it up!

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  3. Tbeachglobal

    Since I largely agree with points Jonah Goldberg made in his article, The Race to Racism (The Dispatch, Feb 1, 2023),

    https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/gfile/the-race-to-racism/

    I want to address his choice to use of the report Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people) - Country Ranking as proof that negative press report might lead us to falsely believe that a problem is worse than the statistics actually indicate.

    https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5/rankings?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=The+Race+to+Racism&utm_campaign=The+Race+to+Racism

    In the end, I think that he makes a very good case that racism in the U.S. has markedly decreased over the last several decades in spite of what one might deduce from press reports. But I don’t think that he chose a very good analogy to make his point. The fact that the U.S. ranks only 64 in a list of 195 countries in homicides per 100,000 population is still, in my opinion, very un-reassuring news, especially if one takes a close look at whose company we’re keeping on this list.

    As I scrolled down through the rankings, it seemed pretty easy to gain a big picture perspective on where murders happen most in the world - Latin America and the Caribbean, parts of Africa, parts of western Asia, and Eastern Europe; and also where they happen least – Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and in the Asian nations of Japan and Singapore.

    There are also the counter-intuitive outliers. Liechtenstein, ranking at 84, appears to have the highest murder rate in western Europe. The United States, ranking at 64, finds itself nestled between Cuba (yes, the one in the Caribbean) and Kenya (yes, the one in Africa), the latter of which has a slightly lower murder rate than that of the US.! The only other English-speaking countries to have higher murder rates are also located in Africa (i.e. The Republic of South Africa and Nigeria) or in the Caribbean.

    With Mexico ranking at 13th highest, the U.S. at 64, and Canada at 109, the average annual murder rate of North American countries is 11.93 per 100,000 people, approximately equivalent to that of country number 27 on the list, Eswatini, a small neighbor of South Africa. Furthermore, according to what I’ve read in the past, Mexico’s high murder rate is due, in large part, to the fact that it is located right next to its largest supplier of illegal weapons, and its largest consumer of its illegal drug trade: the U.S.! Furthermore, the Mexican also grants citizens the right to keep and bear arms.

    While I’m glad to know that racism really has declined, regardless of public perception, I hope that it will continue to do so. In the meantime, I see little to rejoice over with regard to the U.S. high murder rate which we largely share with poor countries, many of which have very corrupt governments.

    The root of the U.S. murder rate lies perhaps not with guns intrinsically, but the current Supreme Court interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    The national debate continues to rage on as to what extent this amendment gives private citizens the right to own and use military-grade weapons in order to protect themselves from government overreach. In the meantime, statistics from the following pro-gun website perhaps unintentionally provide ample reason for individuals and families to choose not to own a gun, stating that 61% of gun-related homicides are committed by a family member, and that another 14% are committed by an intimate partner.

    https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/resources/gun-facts-and-fiction/mass-shootings/

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  4. Kevin.Holsclaw

    The issue of policing in minority communities is a complex issue and beyond simple shibboleths. Tyler Perry has framed the issue most insightfully that those in the Black community want more policing not less. He then goes on to say that they also have a right to expect that the police will protect them and not abuse them. This is the framework within which we should seek reform of policing. A focus on community policing envisioned by Reuben Greenberg, the first Black police chief of Charleston S.C. is a good start. Abuse by police officers is simply unacceptable. However, at the same time it is an insult to law abiding members of minority communities to ignore that they are under siege by criminal gangs and violence. Despite being only 14 percent of the population , FBI crime data shows that the number of murders of Blacks Americans exceeded the number of White American murder victims by almost 3000 persons in 2020. It is time to rethink policing. We need to get officers out of their vehicles onto the streets--walking the beat as it was once called. Recruitment of officers from within the communities they serve must be prioritized. The de-militarization of law enforcement incentivized by the federal government's COP's program must be reevaluated. The power of police unions should be broken to increase the accountability of bad officers. The court created qualified immunity legal doctrine should be re-examined. These and other community oriented reforms are critical to build the trust necessary to address the violence which afflicts minority communities. Maligning law enforcement may satisfy the ideological needs of those who in most cases do not live in these communities but it does nothing to provide the security that people in minority communities have a right to expect.

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  5. Jodipollock

    Just a reminder: The Black Lives Matter Foundation statements on Policing represent the Black Lives Matter Foundation members, NOT the overwhelming majority of Americans who absolutely believe that Black Lives Matter.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Fredtrainer01

    Nice job Jonah. I would love for you to get acquainted with some of the tools from the field of social psychology and add them to your analytic toolbox. People with various temperamental predispositions will experience, interpret and be reactive to the use of force in predictably different ways; not to mention how their own upbringing around issues of parenting get thrown in the mix effecting perceptions - and don't forget tribal affiliations ... just saying we have since the study of trauma began in earnest after Vietnam a whole body of literature with an attending vocabulary that is hugely helpful in throwing light on the beast!
    *** example - check out the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study to demystify things somewhat.
    fred trainer

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    1. Kelly Windsor

      Really? And would understanding ACE help victims of police brutality or the police who practice it, or both?

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  7. Kelly Windsor

    The reason this article is so particularly disgusting to me is that it not only is full of silly arguments about nothing….
    Who cares where we “rank” with other countries….?
    It also reeks of sanctimonious garbage.

    A man lost his life and the response here, both of Jonah and so many of the people cheering this chortling article is “bah! The left can’t get anything right!”

    Seriously? Deep thought put into this complex problem? It REEKS of racism because of it’s privileged denial of a family’s suffering and it’s blatant disregard of real facts.

    The police RARELY solve crimes. They RARELY protect people. And many, many police are criminals. With badges! And many, many police ARE racist!

    If you don’t want to believe that, at least have some freaking compassion for the poor man who was dragged from his car and beaten to death for NO REASON. At least have some RESPECT for his family!
    SMH

    https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/595kv3/police-crime-database

    https://policecrime.bgsu.edu/

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21533687211047943

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  8. Randall Briggs

    Re the Memphis P.D. and the Fugitive Slave Act. The first federal Fugitive Slave Act was signed into law in 1793. Southerners didn't think it was harsh enough and demanded a stricter one. Their demands were met with the passage of a new Fugitive Slave Act in the "Compromise of 1850."

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  9. Kelly Windsor

    Even if you want to deny racism in policing, the history of corruption and CRIME in policing is enough to make anyone (who is paying attention and actually cares) question this idea of the “good cop.” There may be good cops. But the CULTURE of policing is about protecting the assets and interests of those in power.

    There are far too many modern-day revelations of cops mudering, raping, running drugs, planting evidence….

    Cops kill over a thousand people each year, while 100 cops are killed each year.

    Maybe they need more money, they definitely need more training. They DO NOT need more hero worship, or more weapons. The badge doesn’t make someone a hero, the person behind the badge does. And I’m sure there are heroes among them, but the current culture is NOT heroic, if it ever was.

    A heroic culture does not need to shoot first and ask questions later, it does not need qualified immunity, and it does NOT DENY when there IS racism among its ranks by saying there is none at all…

    https://www.britannica.com/topic/police/Early-police-in-the-United-States

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    1. Randall Briggs

      You posted: "There may be good cops. But the CULTURE of policing is about protecting the assets and interests of those in power." Followed immediately by: "There are far too many modern-day revelations of cops mudering, raping, running drugs, planting evidence…."

      How is it that cops murdering, raping, running drugs, and planting evidence protects the assets and interests of those in power? People in power want murderous, crooked cops? How so?

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      1. Kelly Windsor

        Lol. Well if the people in power need someone killed, or are drug smugglers or need evidence planted….
        C’mon

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        1. Randall Briggs

          C'mon, provide some actual instances of this rather than the generalization that cops lie, cheat, steal, rape, and murder on the orders of "the people in charge."

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          1. Kelly Windsor

            The history of policing began with protecting the interests and assets of the rich and powerful. Today we have these civil servants. Bribery is the number one form of corruption in police departments… so crooked cops kowtow to the highest bidder.
            But crooked cops commit crimes of “passion” that have nothing to do with “people in charge,” however they ARE protected from accountability by the “people in charge” aren’t they?

            https://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/californias-criminal-cops-who-they-are-what-they-did-why-some-are-still-working/

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          2. Kelly Windsor

            https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/09/us/police-pensions-invs/

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          3. Kelly Windsor

            People in charge of what?

            https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/2528-police-corruption

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      JohnM.

      Who ever said that there was no racism whatsoever in the ranks of the police? That sounds like a straw man argument to me.

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      1. Kelly Windsor

        It’s a response to the straw man argument of a “few bad apples”….

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  10. Dscranester

    If you cannot account for these facts, then, Jonah, you have nothing to say on the subject of police violence & race: The highest levels of inequality in mortality risk are experienced by black men. Black men are about 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police over the life course than are white men. Black women are about 1.4 times more likely to be killed by police than are white women. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821204116

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      JohnM.

      Now why do you think that those facts exist? Are minorities overrepresented as a proportion of the population in committing violent crimes?
      https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2021/jun/1/us-doj-statistics-race-and-ethnicity-violent-crime-perpetrators/

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      1. Kelly Windsor

        What is your explanation for these numbers John?

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        1. Avatar photo
          JohnM.

          I am neither a sociologist nor a criminologist, so I don't know.

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