Wil's Rant

I can't tell you whether I agree with this guy Bennett or not, simply because I don't know anything about him. He has come under fire for comments he made regarding crime and the black community. Simply stated, he related crime and the black population in the U.S. Because of his remarks, he has been labeled a racist. This might be unfair. It may very well be true that black Americans statistically commit more crimes. Of course it might not be. I know that as of twenty or so years ago, the crime rate among black Americans was higher. This is simply statistics, not racism. We have to be careful about not allowing people to speak the truth in fear of not being politically correct. The numbers might be completely different today, that I don't know. Having come to the conclusion that crime rates are higher in some neighborhoods than others, we might relate that rate more to poverty and income levels than with the race of the persons doing the crimes. I suspect that having made the statistical adjustment for income, the rates would even out. Which brings me to my point. Hiding this truth about crime rates does nothing to fix the problem. If crime is higher among black Americans than it is because the poverty rate is higher among black Americans. We must face this in order to solve the crime problems, at least as it relates to desperation and lack of hope. We have all come a long way in the effort to equalize our views of each other, but lets face it, racism is alive and well in North America. There are very few among us who are totally free of it. I don't consider myself a racist, I like to say that I hate everybody equally.....Joking! That doesn't mean that I feel I am totally free of it. We are all the product of our upbringing and as such we must be ever vigilant to weed out those dregs of an age gone by if we are to continue to move ahead.