July 16^th

Today Thomas Sowell asks “Is the Civil War is really over?” Sowell, like a good Republican, doesn’t answer the question directly. He does point out the quick forgiveness in Charleston for the racist killer by the relatives of the slain parishioners and the “whites who responded with solidarity did their part” he says. He also delightedly points out that this inter-racial good will “was accomplished without the ‘help’ of racial activists like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.” (Sowell’s quotes.)

Then we have this peculiar and quite dismissive note, “Professional race hustlers have no incentive to see our current civil war end. They see in this shooting only an opportunity to escalate their demands.” Then he tells us that soon there will be demands to “destroy the statues of Robert E. Lee and other southern leaders, perhaps tear down the Jefferson Memorial and rename Washington D.C.” These demands are, as is usual for conservatives, designed to be hyperbolic. They also exist only in Thomas Sowell’s imagination.

The more realistic demands these “race hustlers” might make are quite different. Perhaps they are demands that cops should stop shooting unarmed black citizens in the back; or perhaps cops should not draw a weapon against black teenagers at a pool party, or maybe a burly cop should not put a bathing suited black teenager in an arm lock so that her face can be ground into the dirt, or a cop with four other cops should not strangle to death a black man in New York City. This last has cost the city of over seven million dollar in an attempted settlement with the man’s family. The particular cop involved got a paid vacation courtesy of his union contract; the family got a dead husband and father courtesy of the NYC police department. Thomas Sowell doesn’t realize it but many Americans believe that the “race hustlers” who object to this treatment have a point.

Then this naïf claims that we have no need of hate crime laws. Oh, but we do! This is because local laws against murder, or arson or other crimes are not always enforced if the victim is black because local customs prohibit conviction of a white person for committing such a crime.  In such a case, and there were once many such cases, Federal Hate Crime Law can redress the balance. Many states have their own hate crime laws that enhance the sentence if a hate crime is committed; South Carolina does not. Former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, now president of the Heritage Foundation, spoke against it in spite of sixteen hate groups in his state. Before you feel self–righteous Michigan doesn’t have such a law either.