Wisdom From The Past

Debates over crime today frequently involve issues of race. In these debates, many progressives regard it as taboo to suggest that "disparities" in arrests, prosecutions, incarceration, or even school discipline might be largely the result of differences in offending rates rather than unequal treatment by authorities. Coleman Hughes has

this op-ed

in the WSJ reminding us that Martin Luther King (whose birthday is observed six days late on Monday) did not regard it as taboo.

If conservatives whitewash King's opinions on economics and foreign policy, then progressives whitewash his views on race. King discussed many topics that now are considered taboo, if not racist, on the left. Consider the problem of violence in the black community. King lamented "frequently and consistently" seeing "brutal acts and crimes by Negroes against Negroes." "In many a week in Chicago," he observed in 1966, "as many or more Negro youngsters have been killed in gang fights as were killed in the riots there last summer." A glance at today's homicide statistics in Chicago shows that little has changed since King made that observation, yet such violence gets scant attention from racial-justice activists.

King also highlighted counterproductive behavioral patterns in the black community--the third rail for today's racial activists. The current view among progressives is that cultural self-criticism is noble when whites do it but "victim blaming" when blacks do it. In contrast, King held that regardless of racial identity, "one of the sure signs of maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self-criticism," as expressed in a 1960 address.

The final goal King staked for his Southern Christian Leadership Conference was to "reduce the cultural lag" in the black community. And he was clear about the nature of this lag. "Some Negroes have become cynical and disillusioned," he said in 1960. "So many have used their oppression as an excuse for mediocrity. Many of us live above our means, spend money on nonessentials and frivolities, and fail to give to serious causes, organizations, and educational institutions that so desperately need funds. Our crime rate is far too high."

Wisdom From The Past curated from Crime and Consequences Blog