LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS ON RACE
and prison. and college living.
Some small part of me thinks I should just stop
writing about Barack Obama, because every time I do, I get some sort of worried
or outraged or pissed-off response. And that's just from the people I
like.
The latest such email comes in response to Friday's (two) Notes calling out Senator Breath of Fresh Air for lying or pandering or both -- once again, Obamans, take your pick, because you can't deny that he's doing it -- with his insistence on using the more young back men in prison than in college line that, time and time again, has been proven not just false, but not even remotely close (193,000 vs. 530,000, at last count) to the truth. I've already responded to my emailer -- we'll call him Mr. R. -- but I thought an expanded version of that response should appear here, both to clarify these points for everyone and (let's be honest) to forestall yet another email (or two, or three) on that subject...
I'd hate for the debunking of Obama's blithe assumption to result in a perception that there is not a very real, very structural, disaster in the making as we create what John Edwards cogently pointed out in the primaries of 2004: two Americas.
I would also hate for that to happen. But I'm confident that it won't. Because I'm not an idiot. And neither, I trust, are my readers.
(You aren't, are you?)
(Good.)
The Washington Post fact checker makes that point clear. I link to it, and I figure that's enough. Especially because I do nothing to feed or to suggest or even idly to point toward that perception. My point in those notes was not to suggest that there aren't two Americas, or that there are not real problems for blacks and other minorities in America, but merely to observe that what Obama and Edwards and others like to say sounds dire and shocking and dramatic and impressive but is, in fact, bullshit. The point was the rhetoric, not the sociology.
And, just for the record, Senator Obama's claim is not an assumption; it's an assertion. One that he and his staff have probably always known -- and, either way, must surely know by now -- is a heaping pile of horse hockey. One they persist in blithely and happily shoveling. That's the problem. And, if you ask me, the real source of outrage.
Can't the numbers speak for themselves? I mean, isn't it dire and shocking and impressive and dramatic enough to say that we have almost 200,000 young black men in prison? Do we really have to gin up -- which is to say, lie -- about the truth to get people to pay attention?
Jesus Christ, Chad, that's about ONE THIRD of black males. Unless 2001 was an extraordinary year for the birth of a black criminal class, it suggests to me that in this country the justice system regards black men as The Criminal Class.
Of course it does. Which makes it a good match for a whole lot of young black men, most of them fatherless, who also regard themselves, with varying degrees of narcissistic pride, as the criminal class. The sooner we acknowledge that their own culture shares the blame -- along with, of course, racism in general and the justice system in particular -- the better off we'll all be. And the sooner we'll get around to doing something about it.
Obama's lying or pandering (take your pick) is about as far from that acknowledgment as you can get. It's just more pandering, more melodrama, more hyperbolic grandstanding that does a disservice to the very real problem to which it speaks by destroying the credibility of the speaker. Which is to say it turns him into Al Sharpton. Albeit with better diction.
Another point we must keep in mind is that these university enrollments -- unless there's a way to check -- would not separate out black inmates who have enrolled in college classes.
Probably not. But I'm guessing -- and I'm just gonna go out on a limb here -- that there aren't hundreds of thousands 18-24 year old black prison inmates who've enrolled in university correspondence courses, or who enrolled in college and then became incarcerated before their universities knew to remove them from the rolls.
But let's pretend that they have. In fact, just for fun, let's pretend that every single black man in prison, aged 18-24, is also currently enrolled in a college class. Even if we subtract their numbers from the number of black men, aged 18-24, enrolled in college, Obama's claim still isn't true.
In College (adjusted): 337,000
In Prison: 193,000
Even in this fantasy world scenario, the numbers aren't even close. And Obama knows it.
Another point to note is the study (and I've got to round it up because I'm going by memory here) that says there are more black males incarcerated than are residents at universities. I can't say for certain what to make of that fact, assuming it checks out, although it suggests to me that it is indicative of financial hardship that usually explains the phenomenon we call the "commuter student." (You're hearing from one right now; if I'd had to pay for dorm space, I doubt I'd have gone to college.)
Nor would my (white) parents, back when they were in college. Nor many of my (white) friends at Duquesne when I was in college. Nor many of my (white) students at Duquesne when I taught there. Nor many of my (white and black and Hispanic) students at the University of Maryland when I taught there. And yet they were all still in college. They weren't considered second-class citizens, nor in any way disadvantaged, because they slept on real mattresses in beds somewhere off campus. To suggest otherwise, or even to kinda sorta imply that these people diminish the "in college" status, is just silly.
But so, for that matter, is the study from which its silliness slinks. Consider:
The study, released to minor hoopla back in September, rings its hands and rends it garments over the thought that three times as many black people live in prison cells as in college dorms. This statement, unlike Senator Obama's canard, is actually true. But that doesn't mean it's not deceptive. Or even that it's playing fair.
Think about it for a moment, and you'll realize that, with some contextual sleight-of-hand and a whole lot of rhetorical misdirection, the educational apples are now being compared to penal oranges. We're no longer talking about young black men between the ages of 18 and 24 being in prison. Now we're talking about all black people of any age being in prison. And we're not comparing that number to all blacks in college -- only to blacks who live in dorms. Is it really so shocking that there are more blacks (of all ages) living in prison than there are blacks (theoretically of any age, but realistically -- to the tune of 96% -- aged 18 to 24) living in college dorms?
(Gee, could we stack the deck a little more? Would it surprise you to know that the number of years of the average black person's prison sentence is higher than the average black person's grade point average? Someone call Amnesty International!)
Okay. I'm obviously getting silly. And more than a little absurd. But that's the point. Because that's the best way to respond to absurdity. And to such a tilted, stilted playing field.
And that, again, is the point here. Not that there aren't problems -- serious problems of crime and race and racism, of empty promises and lost opportunities and a culture so maddeningly set adrift in a great, bleak sea of indifference -- we need to solve as a government and as a people. But that distorting or exaggerating or outright lying about them -- treating them, in other words, with an intellectual dishonesty that is precisely the opposite of what they both need and deserve -- is not the way to solve them. Nor even to talk about them. And all the less so when you're asking a nation to listen to you, to believe you, and to take you seriously as a new and refreshing voice free from the kinds of cynical spinning and truth-creating that have marred our country for (at least) the last seven years.
Senator Obama is supposed to be smarter than that, isn't he? And his supporters sure do love to tell us that he's better than that, don't they? Don't they?
And yet there he is, over and over again, trotting out one of those exaggerated, bullshit statistics that, much like the equally debunked one in four women will be raped in her lifetime -- don't believe me? read Christina Hoff Sommers' Who Stole Feminism? -- takes on a life of its own, is repeated so often that it fictionalizes its way into the presumption of fact, and ultimately does a disservice to the very real problem it hopes to address precisely because of how grossly it misrepresents it.
(It's the socio-political equivalent of the L.A. cops planting evidence against O.J.: if you're in the right, and you already have a case, don't gild the lily. Unless you want to look like a schmuck. And blow the case.)
Oh, and by the way:
When he insists on (and persists in) repeating claims he knows not to be true, isn't Senator Breath of Fresh Air essentially doing what the current Administration -- you know, the one his supporters love to hate -- did during the run-up to the Iraq war? Isn't that the kind of lying-means-justify-the-eventual-ends attitude against which he claims to be rebelling? Or is cooking the books -- so long as you approve of the recipe -- okay after all?
If so, then the Audacity of Hope is starting to look and feel an awful lot like the Mendacity of Bush.
The latest such email comes in response to Friday's (two) Notes calling out Senator Breath of Fresh Air for lying or pandering or both -- once again, Obamans, take your pick, because you can't deny that he's doing it -- with his insistence on using the more young back men in prison than in college line that, time and time again, has been proven not just false, but not even remotely close (193,000 vs. 530,000, at last count) to the truth. I've already responded to my emailer -- we'll call him Mr. R. -- but I thought an expanded version of that response should appear here, both to clarify these points for everyone and (let's be honest) to forestall yet another email (or two, or three) on that subject...
I'd hate for the debunking of Obama's blithe assumption to result in a perception that there is not a very real, very structural, disaster in the making as we create what John Edwards cogently pointed out in the primaries of 2004: two Americas.
I would also hate for that to happen. But I'm confident that it won't. Because I'm not an idiot. And neither, I trust, are my readers.
(You aren't, are you?)
(Good.)
The Washington Post fact checker makes that point clear. I link to it, and I figure that's enough. Especially because I do nothing to feed or to suggest or even idly to point toward that perception. My point in those notes was not to suggest that there aren't two Americas, or that there are not real problems for blacks and other minorities in America, but merely to observe that what Obama and Edwards and others like to say sounds dire and shocking and dramatic and impressive but is, in fact, bullshit. The point was the rhetoric, not the sociology.
And, just for the record, Senator Obama's claim is not an assumption; it's an assertion. One that he and his staff have probably always known -- and, either way, must surely know by now -- is a heaping pile of horse hockey. One they persist in blithely and happily shoveling. That's the problem. And, if you ask me, the real source of outrage.
Can't the numbers speak for themselves? I mean, isn't it dire and shocking and impressive and dramatic enough to say that we have almost 200,000 young black men in prison? Do we really have to gin up -- which is to say, lie -- about the truth to get people to pay attention?
Jesus Christ, Chad, that's about ONE THIRD of black males. Unless 2001 was an extraordinary year for the birth of a black criminal class, it suggests to me that in this country the justice system regards black men as The Criminal Class.
Of course it does. Which makes it a good match for a whole lot of young black men, most of them fatherless, who also regard themselves, with varying degrees of narcissistic pride, as the criminal class. The sooner we acknowledge that their own culture shares the blame -- along with, of course, racism in general and the justice system in particular -- the better off we'll all be. And the sooner we'll get around to doing something about it.
Obama's lying or pandering (take your pick) is about as far from that acknowledgment as you can get. It's just more pandering, more melodrama, more hyperbolic grandstanding that does a disservice to the very real problem to which it speaks by destroying the credibility of the speaker. Which is to say it turns him into Al Sharpton. Albeit with better diction.
Another point we must keep in mind is that these university enrollments -- unless there's a way to check -- would not separate out black inmates who have enrolled in college classes.
Probably not. But I'm guessing -- and I'm just gonna go out on a limb here -- that there aren't hundreds of thousands 18-24 year old black prison inmates who've enrolled in university correspondence courses, or who enrolled in college and then became incarcerated before their universities knew to remove them from the rolls.
But let's pretend that they have. In fact, just for fun, let's pretend that every single black man in prison, aged 18-24, is also currently enrolled in a college class. Even if we subtract their numbers from the number of black men, aged 18-24, enrolled in college, Obama's claim still isn't true.
In College (adjusted): 337,000
In Prison: 193,000
Even in this fantasy world scenario, the numbers aren't even close. And Obama knows it.
Another point to note is the study (and I've got to round it up because I'm going by memory here) that says there are more black males incarcerated than are residents at universities. I can't say for certain what to make of that fact, assuming it checks out, although it suggests to me that it is indicative of financial hardship that usually explains the phenomenon we call the "commuter student." (You're hearing from one right now; if I'd had to pay for dorm space, I doubt I'd have gone to college.)
Nor would my (white) parents, back when they were in college. Nor many of my (white) friends at Duquesne when I was in college. Nor many of my (white) students at Duquesne when I taught there. Nor many of my (white and black and Hispanic) students at the University of Maryland when I taught there. And yet they were all still in college. They weren't considered second-class citizens, nor in any way disadvantaged, because they slept on real mattresses in beds somewhere off campus. To suggest otherwise, or even to kinda sorta imply that these people diminish the "in college" status, is just silly.
But so, for that matter, is the study from which its silliness slinks. Consider:
The study, released to minor hoopla back in September, rings its hands and rends it garments over the thought that three times as many black people live in prison cells as in college dorms. This statement, unlike Senator Obama's canard, is actually true. But that doesn't mean it's not deceptive. Or even that it's playing fair.
Think about it for a moment, and you'll realize that, with some contextual sleight-of-hand and a whole lot of rhetorical misdirection, the educational apples are now being compared to penal oranges. We're no longer talking about young black men between the ages of 18 and 24 being in prison. Now we're talking about all black people of any age being in prison. And we're not comparing that number to all blacks in college -- only to blacks who live in dorms. Is it really so shocking that there are more blacks (of all ages) living in prison than there are blacks (theoretically of any age, but realistically -- to the tune of 96% -- aged 18 to 24) living in college dorms?
(Gee, could we stack the deck a little more? Would it surprise you to know that the number of years of the average black person's prison sentence is higher than the average black person's grade point average? Someone call Amnesty International!)
Okay. I'm obviously getting silly. And more than a little absurd. But that's the point. Because that's the best way to respond to absurdity. And to such a tilted, stilted playing field.
And that, again, is the point here. Not that there aren't problems -- serious problems of crime and race and racism, of empty promises and lost opportunities and a culture so maddeningly set adrift in a great, bleak sea of indifference -- we need to solve as a government and as a people. But that distorting or exaggerating or outright lying about them -- treating them, in other words, with an intellectual dishonesty that is precisely the opposite of what they both need and deserve -- is not the way to solve them. Nor even to talk about them. And all the less so when you're asking a nation to listen to you, to believe you, and to take you seriously as a new and refreshing voice free from the kinds of cynical spinning and truth-creating that have marred our country for (at least) the last seven years.
Senator Obama is supposed to be smarter than that, isn't he? And his supporters sure do love to tell us that he's better than that, don't they? Don't they?
And yet there he is, over and over again, trotting out one of those exaggerated, bullshit statistics that, much like the equally debunked one in four women will be raped in her lifetime -- don't believe me? read Christina Hoff Sommers' Who Stole Feminism? -- takes on a life of its own, is repeated so often that it fictionalizes its way into the presumption of fact, and ultimately does a disservice to the very real problem it hopes to address precisely because of how grossly it misrepresents it.
(It's the socio-political equivalent of the L.A. cops planting evidence against O.J.: if you're in the right, and you already have a case, don't gild the lily. Unless you want to look like a schmuck. And blow the case.)
Oh, and by the way:
When he insists on (and persists in) repeating claims he knows not to be true, isn't Senator Breath of Fresh Air essentially doing what the current Administration -- you know, the one his supporters love to hate -- did during the run-up to the Iraq war? Isn't that the kind of lying-means-justify-the-eventual-ends attitude against which he claims to be rebelling? Or is cooking the books -- so long as you approve of the recipe -- okay after all?
If so, then the Audacity of Hope is starting to look and feel an awful lot like the Mendacity of Bush.
Posted: Mon - December 10, 2007 at 10:29 AM
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