On Sunday, leftist Sally Kohn retweeted an old tweet from Audible host Ashley Ford:
THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! https://t.co/wwHyJwqb2p
— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) July 10, 2016
Kohn isn’t alone in her celebration of the notion of “systemic racism.” In an effort to appear softer and more compassionate, Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Marco Rubio have embraced similar language. Last week, Gingrich stated, “If you are a normal, white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America and you instinctively underestimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk…Black Lives Matter too would in fact try to be a corrective which initially [white] people reject because it’s not in their world.” Marco Rubio, who is now running for senate in Florida, sang the same song: “Those of us who are not African American will never fully understand the experience of being black in America….All of us should be troubled by these images. And all of us need to acknowledge that this is about more than just one or two recent incidents.”
This sort of stuff is generates more anti-police activity, more police hesitancy, and more crime.
It’s also patently un-American.
The notion that white Americans cannot fully understand black Americans spells the end of democracy. We’re human beings, and we should be able to understand one another. If we can’t – if everything we do or say is channeled through the prism of identity politics – then there can be no common solutions. White Americans say that we ought to wait for evidence before condemning cops as racists; black Americans then say that white Americans only say that because they’re white. There can be no facts in this environment, just feelings; to argue with someone’s feelings is to deny “their reality.” In fact, Rubio says that openly: “How [black Americans] feel is a reality that we cannot and should not ignore.”
But what if those feelings are misguided? What if the solution to supposed police racism isn’t shouting buzzwords about “systemic racism,” or even more vaguely, “this is about more than just one or two recent incidents,” but about better and more plentiful law enforcement in black communities? What if the solution to police misconduct is full prosecution of such misconduct based on evidence, rather than President Obama standing before the world and stating that we have a widespread problem in the criminal justice system – without evidence?
Because our world is now dominated by justification of subjective feelings, rather than discussion of objective facts, we cannot reach the solutions necessary. Want less run-ins between cops and black Americans? Lower the crime rate in the black community, and prosecute cops for the crimes they commit. That will require more cops, not fewer; that will require more evidence, not less.
But none of this conversation is geared toward solutions. It’s geared toward political expediency. It’s easier to win votes if you legitimize somebody’s feelings, however evidenceless, than if you insist that we use facts to fight problems. Solutions can be field-tested. Complaining about vague problems can’t. Nobody in the Democratic Party has ever been held responsible for the destruction of inner city black communities because the left never bothers with solutions; they just blame racism. Now some figures on the right, in a misguided attempt to look kind, are legitimizing those claims instead of offering solutions. The people who pay, for the most part, are black Americans and cops – the two groups we should be seeking to help most.
