You ain’t mad at Bill Bennett.
You can’t be mad at Bill Bennett. Not even if you’re Rev. Al Sharpton, who called recent remarks by Bennett “blatantly racist.” No one’s ever accused Sharpton of being Mr. Racial Harmony or nominated him for the Kumbaya Brotherhood Award.
You ain’t mad at Bill if you’re Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who got straight up punked by Sharpton in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary. Dean called Bennett’s remarks “hateful and inflammatory.”
You ain’t even mad at Bill if you’re NAACP president Bruce Gordon, who said he was “personally offended and angry” at Bennett’s remarks.
So what did Bill Bennett say?
Proving that nothing gets you in touch with your inner idiot more than being behind the microphone of a talk radio show, Bennett served up this salvo last week.
“But I do know that it’s true that 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. That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”
Bennett’s defense is that he said aborting every black baby would be “impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible.” Oh, nice of you to have our back, Bill. Now a word of advice: please don’t help us.
Still on everybody’s mind is what Bennett said was “true:" that if you abort every black baby, crime would go down.
What’s also true is that if you lobotomize every male -- starting with Gregory Kane and Bill Bennett -- you could practically eliminate crime and virtually empty the death rows of every state in the union. Why did Bennett play the race card instead of the gender card?
Why, to get ratings of course. And to pass himself off as the victim of the Political Correctness Hit Squad when the grits predictably hit the fan.
But still, I ain’t mad at Bill. You shouldn’t be either.
Did Bennett say anything an annoyingly growing number of black folks themselves don’t believe?
You know who they are. I’ve written about them enough. The black rappers who can’t pen a tune that doesn’t have the word “gangsta” or “thug” in it.
The ones who think black boys pop out of their mommies’ wombs with a Glock in one hand and a 40-ounce in the other.
The ones who wear “Stop Snitching” T-shirts and caps in an attempt to take criminal culture mainstream.
The ones who would put out a “prison issue” of a magazine and dedicate it to “Hip Hop’s Incarcerated Soldiers.” (See the July issue of XXL magazine.)
The ones who would make a song about “’hood status” and “street credibility.” (Listen to Destiny’s Child’s “Soldiers.”)
I’m talking about those black folks who throw cookouts and barbecues for those relatives who’ve just been released from lock-up, as if that’s an achievement.
Graduating summa cum laude or magna cum laude from Hampton or Howard is an achievement. Having a relative that’s a criminal is an embarassment. At least it should be.
And if it isn’t, then we shouldn’t be mad at Bill.
However despicable the underlying premise of Bennett’s remark was -- “Ohmygawd! The nigras is just committin’ crimes!” -- he was talking about mass abortions that aren’t going to happen. We should be concerned about the black men and boys who are being killed daily on the streets of America. And the Bill Bennetts of the country aren’t the ones pulling the triggers or sticking in the knives.
It’s us. Gordon should know that, since the NAACP’s national headquarters are in Baltimore, Md. which local drug dealers, murderers and thugs have renamed “Bodymore, Murderland."
Almost all of those murdered bodies are black males. Almost all of the people who’ve murdered them are black males. The body count in Bodymore, Murderland continues to rise, year after year, running well over 200.
There is no discernible evidence that the body count of black men and boys, whether it’s in Bodymore, Murderland or elsewhere, has aroused the ire of our Sharptons and Gordons.
But if that body count doesn’t make them angry, Bill Bennett sure as hell shouldn’t.
