Abort all black babies
Hold it! Before you go for my neck with a vengeance, this is just a hypothetical proposition from a passing comment in a simple radio talk-show exchange.
"If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose; you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." [1] [2]
My interest in this subject is hardly significant; I was once a black baby born at 26 weeks - probably, if I was disposed of then, I would not be here making comments about this issue.
More so, a term of 26 weeks gestation was just barely viable 40 years ago, it must be a matter of good fortune that I was conceived and born in the UK, not America when the civil rights movement was on the boil or the Netherlands now where the question of viability is more clinical than empathetic. [3]
For instance, if one were to make that arrival in America
No, one cannot countenance that thought, it is evil; well, really how evil? Probably to the extent of the experiments that were conducted at the Tuskegee Institute where black men suffering from syphilis were given the impression they were being treated when in fact the activity could just have rivalled that of the Nazi Dr Mengele. [5] [6]
Hypothesis of the hypothetical
Am I dissolving into untrammelled histrionics? Watch me...
"I was putting forward a hypothetical proposition. Put that forward. Examined it. And then said about it that it's morally reprehensible. To recommend abortion of an entire group of people in order to lower your crime rate is morally reprehensible. But this is what happens when you argue that the ends can justify the means" he told CNN. [2]
If my science was taught me right, I do remember that the process of any scientific idea becoming fundamental flows from thought to hypothesis to theory and then law. Maybe, we are just halfway there.
The proposition gains more import when you realise that this commentator was once the Education Secretary during the government of the "Great Communicator" who I think was Ronald Reagan. [7] [8]
Having once been the "drug czar" one might contend without prejudice that this was some drug-induced diatribe but that would be a little far-fetched.
Inappropriate inappropriateness
Once again, I am utterly perturbed and driven to distraction by the inappropriateness of the response of the White House to such comments. [9]
After Hurricane Katrina, the question of race and deprivation loomed large in the American landscape.
Inappropriate must be a euphemism for something I still seeking knowledge of, in the hope that it is a lot stronger than the expression and far from diplomatic bullshit.
The events are just too vivid to countenance an insensitive arrangement of words and thoughts from someone of no particular significance as Pat Robertson of the "Take out Hugo Chavez fame".
I beg to differ; these commentators are part of the unacknowledged opinion elite whose commentary is pushing the "Freedom of Speech" envelope beyond the limits of acceptable discourse.
Everyone can have an opinion but all opinions should be expressed with responsibility, sensitivity and consideration - this means some opinions regardless of the freedoms we so cherish just cannot be expressed for the good of community and society. There must be a valid point somewhere in the preceding statement.
A failed Education Secretary
That said, what is most interesting is the frenzied prognostication that suggests that a black child is already labelled a criminal before he has had the opportunity to realise if his country would participate in providing opportunities that would make that prophecy a false statement worthy of grovelling contrition, penance and apology.
Without doubt, all those past years after he was Education Secretary he has declared himself an utter failure, he laid no foundations to prevent the ascendancy of that thought in the first place and would we have to wait for another few years to find out that it was really a policy in the Reagan years?
May the souls of those black babies rest in peace. Amen!
References
[3] Premature birth
[6] Josef Mengele
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