Honest discussion of race must not ignore facts

Honest discussion of race must not ignore facts

As best we can tell, blacks commit homicide at a rate roughly seven times that of whites (Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Homicide Trends in the U.S. 1980-2008,” p.3 (2011).
This is not a prejudice.
It is not a stereotype.
It’s a fact.
The honest discussion of race that Chris Anderson claims to desire cannot ignore this, nor can it ignore the fact that the victims of these crimes are overwhelmingly black.
However, when Anderson states that black men stand a 1-in-3 chance of being incarcerated during their lifetimes, as though incarceration were something that just happened to them rather than something they caused, one suspects that he is not so interested in an honest discussion as he is in a discussion of just how evil white people really are.
A discussion based on the premise that all the fault lies on one side is hardly an honest discussion.
Incidentally, men are incarcerated at a rate far higher than women. Does Anderson think that this indicates a criminal justice system pervaded by anti-male prejudice? I suspect it’s more complicated than that.

Kevin Fogarty, letter to the editor Cincinnati, Ohio