A New Report Questions the "Systemic Racism" Narrative of US Criminal Justice
I think we can all admit that 2020 got a lot of things desparately wrong at this point...
Whether black Americans, compared to other ethnic groups, experience racial discrimination in the American criminal justice system has been an issue of contention for some time. After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, this belief became almost quasi-religious among “correct thinking” folks on the progressive left. But other scholars (including black scholars such as Roland Fryer) pushed back, noting that the evidence was more complex.
That the US would be sensitive regarding discrimination toward black Americans is hardly surprising given a shameful history of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Many older black Americans alive today were born and lived through the age of legal discrimination. Many whites feel ashamed of that history and may, in the quest to be “good” whites, indulge a kind of reaction formation1 in loudly condemning modern racism, whether it exists or not. I think that has blinded many of us to the remarkable (indeed historic) progress we have made as a nation of egalitarianism. Truly egalitarian multiethnic states are like unicorns in history2. The US (and many European nations) has come as close as any nation in history. We have much to be proud of and, at the same time, engaging in neurotics over race may actually make it more difficult to maintain that progress. We should be alert to injustices but also take pride in the achievements we have made.
That said…good data is always welcome. A new analysis by Dave Zimmer at American Experiment examines the record of criminal justice outcomes in Minnesota. This analysis finds that, overall, race does not factor in criminal justice sentencing in Minnesota. In fact, to a small degree, being white may be a disadvantage in some sense (possibly, again, due to a reaction formation response from jurors)3. To the extent that black Americans are overrepresented in incarcerated populations, this is simply because young black men tend to make contact with the criminal justice system more often than other groups. Put simply, the narrative of systemic racism simply doesn’t fit with the data and a more basic explanation (real differences between ethnic groups) better explains these outcomes4.
I suspect the reason that the systemic racism narrative gained such a foothold was the discomfort that progressive whites had in acknowledging any true ethnic group differences could exist. In many progressive circles it’s simply bad to admit that could ever be a possibility. This is something of a luxury belief since, as per the quickly discredited defund the police movement, it left poor black citizens to deal with the consequences of depolicing, namely increased violent crime.
Now, to be clear, I don’t believe there’s anything inherent or genetic about these ethnic differences. Despite an explosion of the black middle class, many black youth still live in poverty, or face issues such as fatherlessness that are associated with crime. This is certainly true for youth of other ethnicities (including whites) as well, but there are proportional differences in all these experiences.
By targeting the root issues of poverty, fatherlessness and other predictors of crime, we likely could do much to reduce these ethnic disparities (and, indeed, reduce crime for all ethnic groups5). But this does require us to be more honest about even uncomfortable truths.
Fortunately, the 4 years since 2020 have seen a remarkable implosion of leftist identity politics. Indeed, I had predicted more of a 10-15 moral panic arc and am truly surprised how quickly this all fell apart6. To be sure, identity politics remains strong in some segments such as academia, but hopefully there is a chance to shift our focus back to an honest assessment of data. I welcome more good data whether agreeing with the report of Mr. Zimmer or challenging it.
This is an old Freudian defense mechanism that basically implies that people overcompensate for things they feel guilty about by doing the exact opposite thing. So a husband cheating on his wife may try to make himself feel better about his guilt by buying her a diamond. Of course, this also implies that the whites most loudly screeching about systemic racism may, themselves, have been among those to harbor the most racist thoughts (I think that’s true in the whole orcs = black people debate in Dungeons and Dragons, for instance). Thus, these individuals may have felt guilty for their own racist thoughts (which is good), but then, using another Freudian defense mechanism, loudly and aggressive projected their own thoughts onto others (which is not so good). Freud’s theories had a lot of goofy, unfalsifiable stuff, but I mainly think he was onto something with the defense mechanisms.
Some modern progressives weirdly look back on historical apartheid states like the Ottoman Empire with benevolent fondness.
Ultimately, finding exact statistically equal outcomes is unlikely for any two groups, and small differences are likely to be random noise, so I’m not inclined to make too much of this.
I think there’s also a difference between saying that there’s a porportional difference between groups on some rare outcome, and using that difference to make sweeping generalizations about that ethnic group. Saying that, at present, young black men proportionally engage in more crime than young men from other ethnic groups is different from saying black men are inherently more criminal than other men. We need only make a passing glance at history to see that horrible, criminal behavior is hardly the unique provenance of African men, no more than things like slavery or genocide were invented by Europeans.
Any policies should be race neutral. True, policies targeting poverty or fatherlessness may proportionally influence some ethnic groups more than others, but policy should not be based on race. Basing policy on race is an excellent way to increase racial discord. Again, one need only glance at history…
By contrast, I still think it will be at least 10 years before people come to their senses and realize adverse childhood events and stressed families are causing youth mental health issues, not social media or smartphones. I can’t recommend enough Mike Males’ substack where he crunches these numbers using CDC data.