Try a mind experiment: if California’s ridiculous and racist Reparations Task Force wanted to exacerbate racial tensions as much as humanly possible while also making African-Americans seem as toxic to society as a KKK Grand Dragon could imagine in a fever dream, what would it be doing differently that it is doing right now? We know that the group is already recommending that millions of dollars in taxpayer reparations for slavery be handed out to the state’s blacks, even though slavery never existed in the Golden State. But wait, there’s more!
Item: The task force report calls on the state legislature to end child support debt for black deadbeat dads. The 1,100-page document noted that the state’s black residents represent a larger percentage of those who owe child support debt than their proportion of the state’s population, as if we didn’t know that already.
Obviously it is just one more bit of sinister systemic racism designed to keep black men down! The task force is either willfully ignorant or certain that anything they write, no matter how absurd, is assured of setting woke heads a-nodding like those plastic German Shepherds people used to have in the rear windows of their cars.
About 70% of all black births are to unmarried women (the white percentage is about 30%). Of course there are a disproportionate number of black fathers who aren’t paying their share for the children they created; there are a disproportionate number of unwed black fathers.This is a cultural pathogen in the black community, one that African-American leadership has negligently ignored to the detriment of women, children, families, the black community and American society itself. Yet the task force’s solution is for the California legislature “to terminate all interest accrued on back child support, requiring only the payment of the principal owed.”
That is not the way to encourage black men who can’t, as the saying goes, “keep it in their pants” to stop creating children they can’t support or have no intention of raising. It is not a formula for imbuing the black culture with ethical values, either. It is a guaranteed formula for creating a strong and justified backlash from whites. Compensatory discrimination is, sooner or later, bound to reach a tipping point that inflames race relations to a dangerous extent: I’m surprised it hasn’t occurred already. In addition, the “over-incarceration” logical fallacy (“The justice system is racist because such a disproportionate number of blacks commit crimes that get them jailed, so the solution is not to enforce those laws…”) needs to be obliterated, not extended to other destructive black community tendencies. How can a group pursue “antiracism” while trying to benefit from the unethical conduct that contributes to negative black stereotypes? Well, the task force is how, and the effort requires near complete self-delusion.
Item: The task force wants to ban police from enforcing public urination laws and other “public disorder offenses.” The same logic is at work as with black deadbeat fathers: blacks get arrested for these offenses at a disproportionate rate, so obviously the laws are racist:
“A signification [sic] proportion of law enforcement contact with the public relates to low-level, non-violent offenses. Thus, for example, law enforcement is frequently tasked with enforcing public disorder offenses, such as illegal camping, public intoxication, disorderly conduct, minor trespass, and public urination. Although the subjects of these contacts are often experiencing homelessness, a mental health crisis, or both, the responding officers typically possess neither training nor expertise in working with these vulnerable populations…This disconnect often results in the use of excessive and sometimes fatal force that falls disproportionately on Black individuals. Given the devastating impacts of this kind of over-policing, the Task Force recommends that the Legislature prohibit law enforcement from criminally enforcing public disorder infractions and other low-level crimes. Instead, a public health and safety institution, without criminal arrest or prosecution powers, would enforce prohibitions such as sleeping on the sidewalk, fare evasion, and similar transit-related or other public disorder violations that criminalize poverty. People arrested or criminally prosecuted for these administrative violations should be granted a private right of action to sue for damages or should automatically receive a damages payout.”
Take a dump on the sidewalk, get arrested for making life ugly, dangerous and unhealthy for law abiding citizens, and get paid for it! Brilliant! And police trying to stop such conduct is “over-policing.” The Broken Window Theory is valid and works in practice, though this is difficult to prove to the satisfaction of those whose confirmation bias and warped priorities have successfully discredited it. If more broken windows will lower standards of conduct, imagine what piles of crap and puddles of piss on the sidewalks will do.
When I am told by a task force with entirely black members that black people perform a disproportionate number of public disorder offenses, my first reaction isn’t “aw, and it’s all because of slavery and discrimination.” It is “this community needs to make a greater effort to condemn and reduce its own anti-social behavior.” A small segment of society cannot be allowed to have special privileges that include making life worse for the rest of society. When that segment is not only allowed to do this, but uses its anti-social proclivities (whatever its origins and causes) to claim special benefits, the hostility of other segments is certain to follow.
Moreover, such hostility will be wholly justified.
Ethics Alarms 
“It is also a guaranteed formula for creating a strong and justified backlash from whites. Compensatory discrimination is, sooner or later, bound to reach a tipping point that inflames race relations to a dangerous extent: I’m surprised it hasn’t occurred already.”
Whenever the non-woke dare to speak up or act up, there are disproportionate stinging consequences, (J6) for example.
In fact it happens so often and so consistently, it almost seems like it is done that way on purpose.
The justice system is racist because such a disproportionate number of blacks commit crimes that get them jailed, so the solution is not to enforce those laws…
This isn’t the argument. It’s that black people get harsher sentences for committing the same crimes as white people
That’s a different part of the argument.
According to who?
Justice reform activists aren’t arguing that. It doesn’t make sense.
Of course it doesn’t make sense. but if you are advocating allowing people to shoplift because too many shoplifters are black and ending up in jail, then that’s still the “logic.” “Overincarceration” is shorthand for both arguments. Look at the deadbeat dad argument in the post: it isn’t that white dads are allowed to get away with not paying child support and not have to pay interest, it’s that “too many” black deadbeat dads are having to pay interest so the system is “racist.”
Note that the leadership pushing against overincarceration do not really believe what they say.
The same side whining about overincarceration is the same side pushing for “common sense”, “sensible” gun legislation.- which will have the effect of imprisoning people who have not even been accused of hurting anyone.
No one is arguing that the justice system is racist because blacks are committing more crimes though.
Who argued that? How does that even make sense?
but that’s what the argument amounts to, just as with the deadbeat dads. If a disproportionate % of blacks are being punished for crimes they committed, then a disproportionate % of blacks are committing crimes. That’s pure Occam’s Razor.
“It’s that black people get harsher sentences for committing the same crimes as white people”
The cynical side of me chalks this up to that old socialist mantra of “equal outcomes” instead of “equal opportunities”…people who commit the same crime should do the same time. I’m not sure that squares with reality any more than it does with the notion that “people who get the same degree make the same amount of money.” A person that commits a crime and is caught has an equal opportunity to serve some jail time, but some will serve more than others, because outcomes aren’t equal. Again, that’s a bit sarcastic, I know.
The other side of this is that, many times, punishment for a crime has more to do with the victim of the crime than the crime itself. These are silly examples, but they make a point:
1. If I slap a donkey across the face that’s on the other side of the corral fence, what will happen to me?…Probably not a whole lot. The donkey might “hee-haw” or look at me and wonder why I slapped him…or he’ll walk away. Not much.
2. If I slap a police officer across the face, what will happen to me? The officer will spin me round quick as you please, slap cuffs on me, and arrest for assault…probably a felony. I’ll go to jail. Now when I face a judge, I may get a lighter sentence because I have no previous record, but I’ll have been in jail, and now I will have a record.
3. If I slap the President of the United States across the face, what will happen to me? The Secret Service will throw me to the ground and I’m likely going to prison. I’ll spend time in a place with some very bad people.
I’ve just described the same offense, committed three times, but the penalty for each is vastly different. Why? Because of the victim. I slap a donkey?…I’m not very guilty. I slap the President?…I’m pretty guilty. The same offense doesn’t guarantee the same penalty.
But there is one sure way to guarantee that whites and blacks serve the same time…don’t commit crimes. Whites and blacks generally both serve zero time when they commit no crime.
Virtually no defendant of any race goes to jail for a singular infraction. In most cases low level crimes rarely result in incarceration for repeat offenders. It is not until the number of repeat offenses is so large or the seriousness of the crime rises to a level that demands incarceration do people actually go to jail.
While it is true that some affluent whites have access to better lawyers that does not mean the majority of white defendants have such access.
When you compare incarceration rates of those represented by PD’s and separately measure rates of incarceration by blacks and whites represented by private attorneys that disproportionate impact dissolves. The issue is access to attorneys who will be attentive to their client’s case. To suggest racism is the reason for longer sentences you must first identify the judges, his or her caseload, and then compare differential treatment among the discrete demographic segments.
You cannot look at widely different sets of circumstance among defendants and identify race as the singular factor for differential rates of incarceration. If you could you would have to argue that the judicial system is systemically biased against males.
This is the entire Ibram X. Kendi, et al. playbook: black people can’t flourish in modern society, so take society back to pre-society. Problem solved.
Jack
You left out the perpetual guaranteed annual income for blacks equal to the current local median wage of $97,000.
If the only ones left in SF are the beneficiaries the city will implode.
PS glad you are back
Slavers were democrats, let *them* have at it with the whole reparations thingy.
First of all, Jack, welcome back to your blog! We missed you!
Regarding your post, this is what happens when a group consisting of partisan, racialist grifters are given a daunting task of “leveling the playing field.” Inevitably, such people leave the reservation of sanity and embark upon fever-dreams of whatever the most polarizing possible outcome of their deliberations could be. Primarily, these things smack of a desire to punish white people in particular for… I don’t know, being white I guess.
Everything out of this “task force” is about what we could expect of a white supremacist “task force,” only in reverse. It attempts to establish black people as morally and culturally superior by giving them vast sums of unearned money, special legal privileges that they manifestly do not deserve from their own actions, and the right to engage in mayhem at will without consequence.
This is inexcusable dereliction of duty, if we assume the “task force” was assembled in good faith. It is shameful, un-American, and almost villainous in its excess. Any sane slate of lawmakers would reject it out of hand with a sharp rebuke, but alas, sanity is at a premium these days.
“It attempts to establish black people as morally and culturally superior by giving them vast sums of unearned money, special legal privileges that they manifestly do not deserve from their own actions, and the right to engage in mayhem at will without consequence.”
Or, or…. hear me out….
It attempts to establish black people as morally and culturally INFERIOR by giving them vast sums of unearned money, special legal privileges that they manifestly do not deserve from their own actions, and the right to engage in mayhem at will without consequence because, you know, they just can’t help themselves.
How the Reparations Task Force not see this?
Oh, trust me, there are many things to which they appear completely blind or oblivious. Every one of these points prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.
Did they expect that nobody would resent such vast rewards for merely being the same race as persons who were oppressed in other states, but never in California?
This is the consequences of seeing oneself as morally superior — you cannot but look down upon everyone else.
I have yet to figure what the Reparations Task Force will propose next to increase all the bad feelz directed at them and theirs. Also, I have been unable to come up with a good dark humor joke about investing in machete manufacturers.
I thought I posted yesterday… in summary, it doesn’t matter what is included in the 1,100 page document. The first hurdle, assuming the state of California will pay for it, is that they have zero dollars for anything. I’m sure a non profit is already established, siphoning money from the shamed and guilty, but that just won’t do, will it? I question the altruism of it all and assume it’s not for the greater good but because “They” need to pay. If you donate it doesn’t count. Less suffering, you see. I would be shocked if it’s about an even playing field or Justice for the long dead. Lebron James has a kid, did you know that? He is going to play in the NBA. You don’t think he has an advantage over nearly any other kid? He’s certainly not a victim nor does he need charity of any sort. What about the mixed race kids? How very Atlas Shrugged of everyone. Soon we will drop all pretense and pay and promote by the who is the neediest not the qualified. I’m quite cynical today.
“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – You may know that your society is doomed.” Atlas Shrugged- Ayn Rand