John Edwards showed great courage, insight at MTV/Myspace Forum
WTF?! You've heard about what John Edwards said about young African-American men the other day, right?
Asked about what he could do about "inner-city kids partaking in violence" at the MTV/MySpace Forum on Thursday, Democratic candidate John Edwards offered an apocalyptic prediction for young black males:
“We cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating — pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They’re all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two.”
First of all, the right wing has latched onto this story because they smell blood in the water. They think, wrongfully, that this is a clear case of ... of what? What do they think this is? What do they think it says about John Edwards?
I'll tell you where this story will go -- nowhere. Nowhere. Why won't it go anywhere? Because most black people themselves know exactly what John Edwards meant, and MOST of them agree. Did I say all? No, I said most. There is no issue or question in this world in which everyone will agree, and that goes for this too. But it's no secret to anyone, especially African Americans, that the black community, and young black males in particular, are in a crisis in this country. A flat-out crisis. Edwards wasn't cold, disrespectful, disingenuous, irrational or inconsiderate. He was concerned, and f*ckin' aye we should be too.
Jim Geraghty of The Campaign Spot on National Review Online said one of the dumbest things I've read in a long time when he wrote on Friday that "there are more African-American men in college than in prison," with his point being that African-American men really aren't being incarcerated at an unusually high rate. What he's trying to say is that there's no problem here at all. He's trying to say John Edwards was wrong.
I'd like to ask Jim Geraghty if he knows the ratio of white men in college versus the number in prison. He left that number out, nor does he mention the number of Asian American men in college or in prison. What do you think that ratio is?
The United States is the world's leader in incarceration with nearly 2.2 million people currently in our prisons or jails. About 800,000 of them are black. That's more than 1/3 of the entire prison population. African-Americans make up 13.4% of the U.S. population yet more than 30% of the prison population. Now tell me again how John Edwards was wrong.
Frankly, I'm shocked by the courage Edwards showed to say what he said. It's harsh, it's sad, but are we going to hide from the truth, or are we going to say, "Look, we will fix this. We will change this. We will help make this right." People know what Edwards said is true, but name another national politician courageous enough to say it. Look around. The African-American community is in crisis. What are we as a society going to do about it? If you're like me, you trust that John Edwards and those like him really want to help, and by help I don't mean build more prisons.
For more on this discussion over at the Daily Kos website, click here.
TAGS: John Edwards, conservative, Republican, FoxNEWS, media, race, African Americans
- September 29, 2007
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