The Conservative Race Contradiction

I notice that Atrios just linked to it, which makes my link somewhat pointless, but there is one element of Roy’s extremely persuasive critique of Bill Bennett that’s worth highlighting:

The actually offensive part of Bennett’s statement was his assertion that mass black fetuscide would, of necessity, cause crime to drop. Bennett’s defenders do not dispute this idea — in fact, they appear to consider it beyond dispute.

It’s strange that so many public intellectuals think the condition of black folks will not improve in another generation. In a way I am more surprised by the conservatives than by the eventheliberals. We are constantly assured by them that Iraq will swiftly improve, indeed, will soon flower into an oasis of democracy. If that shitstorm can subside, why not black crime stats?

Right. The assumption made by liberal like Yglesias or DeLong that crime rates will be higher among African-Americans in the next generation can be easily explained by the assumption of most progressives that 1)racism remains a stubborn problem, especially where criminal justice is concerned, and 2)even is individual prejudice and the worst formal inequalities are lessened, the structural effects of racism persist. But conservatives, of course, generally disagree with these premises. At any rate, conservatives who defend Bennett’s premises have two options:

1)They can believe that black people are inherently more likely to commit crimes. (Or, in other words, they are racists.)

2)They can concede that the general conservative dismissal of the continuing importance of racism–whether direct or structural–is wrong.

There is no third option.