"I didn't mean that!"
So, William Bennett, education secretary under Ronald Reagan and author of "The Book of Virtues" has a radio program. And on that program this week, he got a caller who suggested that the kinds of people who get abortions are the kinds of people whose kids grow up to be criminals, so shouldn't we keep abortion around to keep crime down?
Bennett attempted to use the age-old device of taking an argument to it's extreme to show the caller the wrong-headedness of his argument. "If you wanted to use abortion to keep crime down, just abort all the black babies. But of course, we can't do that."
The hew and cry ensued, and today Bennet is saying, "My comments have been misconstrued! They've been taken out of context! I didn't mean that! It was a rhetorical device!"
Except, Mr. Bennett, your rhetorical device made an assumption. And that you can't see the assumption means it is so deeply held that we have to question your sanity. You said black babies make crime. And you may try to argue yourself out of the hole, say you have black friends, you know skin color doesn't matter to morality, but in a moment when you had to grab for an illustration of an extreme, you said "black babies make crime." You could have said green. You could have said poor. You could have said babies from parents who are convicts. You could have said babies from illiterate parents. You said "black".
You picked a minority people group with easily-distinguished physical features and blamed a social ill on them. Social ills do not come from physical features! Not from skin color or the shape of your nose, not from whether you eat garlic (Eastern and Western versions of this), or curry, not from the shape of your eyes or the curl of your hair.
I have been a minority a couple times. In elementary school, I was bused to a school that had a hispanic minority. I did not behave any differently there than I did earlier in preschool or later in high school, but I was sent to the office more than any other kid in my class. Why do you think that is? Perhaps because I am trusted in white environments and mistrusted in non-white ones? Perhaps because I didn't understand the cues of how to play nice with these people who'd grown up differently from me?
In college, I was hired by a Chinese church to run the youth program for a retreat. I was taller than most people there, I was white, but my most distiguishing feature was my curly hair. A boy in the 4th grade decided my hair indicated I was a witch.
We make grave mistakes when we conclude that we know what kind of person a person is based only on the apperance of their bodies. Deadly mistakes, Mr. Bennett.
It's time to stop defending and start being ashamed.
Bennett attempted to use the age-old device of taking an argument to it's extreme to show the caller the wrong-headedness of his argument. "If you wanted to use abortion to keep crime down, just abort all the black babies. But of course, we can't do that."
The hew and cry ensued, and today Bennet is saying, "My comments have been misconstrued! They've been taken out of context! I didn't mean that! It was a rhetorical device!"
Except, Mr. Bennett, your rhetorical device made an assumption. And that you can't see the assumption means it is so deeply held that we have to question your sanity. You said black babies make crime. And you may try to argue yourself out of the hole, say you have black friends, you know skin color doesn't matter to morality, but in a moment when you had to grab for an illustration of an extreme, you said "black babies make crime." You could have said green. You could have said poor. You could have said babies from parents who are convicts. You could have said babies from illiterate parents. You said "black".
You picked a minority people group with easily-distinguished physical features and blamed a social ill on them. Social ills do not come from physical features! Not from skin color or the shape of your nose, not from whether you eat garlic (Eastern and Western versions of this), or curry, not from the shape of your eyes or the curl of your hair.
I have been a minority a couple times. In elementary school, I was bused to a school that had a hispanic minority. I did not behave any differently there than I did earlier in preschool or later in high school, but I was sent to the office more than any other kid in my class. Why do you think that is? Perhaps because I am trusted in white environments and mistrusted in non-white ones? Perhaps because I didn't understand the cues of how to play nice with these people who'd grown up differently from me?
In college, I was hired by a Chinese church to run the youth program for a retreat. I was taller than most people there, I was white, but my most distiguishing feature was my curly hair. A boy in the 4th grade decided my hair indicated I was a witch.
We make grave mistakes when we conclude that we know what kind of person a person is based only on the apperance of their bodies. Deadly mistakes, Mr. Bennett.
It's time to stop defending and start being ashamed.
posted by Anne at 11:52 AM
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