California Conservative

There’s been considerable fall-out regarding Bill Bennett’s radio remarks last week. But not everyone shares the outrage, especially when you understand that Bennett’s remarks weren’t racist — just taken out of context.

Bennett appeared on FOXNews last Friday to clarify. PoliticalTeen has the video.

Joining him was Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who was asked by Alan Colmes, “What is the root cause of crime, race or poverty?” Here’s Peterson’s answer:

“The root cause of crime is lack of moral character.

“We saw a good example of that in the New Orleans situation, in the inner cities. I’ve done a lot of work in the inner-cities and I have to tell you that crime and out-of-wedlock birth — black folks having babies without being married — is out of control.

And it’s not because they lack material things, but because — not all, not all, not all — but most of them lack moral character.

Just look at what they did to the dome. In three days, they turned it into a ghetto.”

Fortunately, Rev. Peterson can get away with pointing out these facts without getting the ‘Bennett treatment’ because he’s black.

Last week, contributor Amy Proctor posted an essay entited, The Truth About New Orleans & Katrina.

Proctor deals in the statistics:

“To simply look at the facts about New Orleans would be damning enough. New Orleans is 67.25% black; 24.53% women with children, no husband; 60.1% of the population is a “family” household, but only 30.82% are married coupled families; and New Orleans has a higher crime rate than the rest of the country in every category but rape. However, the most important fact is that New Orleans is a Democratic stronghold with a Democratic mayor and a Democratic Governor. Similar statistics are consistent with large liberal cities like Los Angeles and New York City.”

Since our critics are always looking to accuse us of one thing or another, we’ll turn to another well-informed opinion that can speak on this matter, not because of her skin color but because she’s not towing the line for the likes of Jesse, Al, and Charlie.

“People have nothing better to do than blow the most mundane things out of proportion,” asserts La Shawn Barber. “This post is not so much a defense of Bill Bennett (because he has nothing to defend) as it is a response to people who keep e-mailing to ask if I’m going to respond to Bennett’s remarks.”

Barber offers an insightful perspective:

In typical fashion, black politicians and other hustlers are calling for Bennett’s head on a platter. In the backrooms, out of sight, white liberals are jumping for joy. If they can’t sell their ideas enough to win elections, they’ll keep floating the conservatives-are-racists meme because they know exactly how blacks will react.

First of all, I am embarrassed that blacks react in such predictable ways whenever a white conservative utters anything remotely related to skin color. All pretense of reason flies right out the window, blown about like a feather caught up in the wind. White liberals thrive on it, my friends.

How’s that for provocative thought?

La Shawn has much more to say on the subject.

From what we’ve seen, whether it be Iraq, Katrina/NOLA, Bill Bennett or anything else, liberals and their “diversity” hucksters will use race as a wedge-issue to use against Republicans.

As a political strategy, DNC Chairman Howard Dean is even making it part of the party platform. And as long as there’s uninformed voters being led astray by the likes of Rep. Rangel, Jesse’s Rainbow ‘Shakedown’ Coalition and the NAACP, Republicans will carry the burden.

UPDATE:
La Shawn Barber’s Bennet Redux
Some things “will have to die a natural death because it no one will be able to kill it.”

Baldilocks discusses the role of the media

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 5th, 2005 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Activism, Crime, Culture, Liberals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.