Another reason why, though the other writers at Triablogue are useful and helpful, Steve Hays is not. Compare the reality of the conversation and documentation on the DL yesterday with this prejudiced review:https://t.co/tTawumyUuC— James White (@DrOakley1689) June 26, 2019
I guess this means White will scratch me off his Christmas card list. On a serious note:
1. White's comment is a diversionary tactic. I didn't take issue with his documentation. White is doing his customary bait-n-switch.
2. However, since he brings it up, let's say something about the documentation. It's good documentation about a dysfunctional segment of the black community. That's fine as far as it goes.
But there's the danger of sample selection bias by comparing the worst examples of the black community with the white community. If you constantly rehearse a one-sided narrative, lots of folks begin to think the ghetto culture is the black community. Endless repetition creates a feedback loop. It fosters a culture of fear by cementing in popular imagination the default association of young black men with pimps, thugs, dope-dealers, and gang-bangers. No longer are they judged as individuals, but prejudged as statistics. Every young black man is viewed with suspicion. That's a good way to get innocent black men killed or falsely convicted.
A one-sided narrative is an overgeneralization. It needs to be counterbalanced by documenting the positive side of the black community.
Yes, segments of the black community are in crisis. The same could be said for segments of the white, Latino, and Asian-American communities.
But James White won't be dissuaded because he's the hero in his own movie. So he stays on script.
Since White asked me to compare his DL with what Hays wrote, I did. I don't find White's presentation to be all that interesting and then his justifications for why he wrote it had next to nothing to do with his actual Tweet. Now, I'm sure he was correct when he said he had critical theory in mind, but we're not mind readers and the Tweet didn't convey anything about that focus. In fact, the Tweet was really just a false dilemma (which is a logical fallacy), asking us to choose between two options as the "central cause" of higher abortion among black women, when neither of them actually are the "central cause." It would be like me asking "What is more likely to be the square root of 9, an apple or 47?" Sure, 47 is at least a number, but it's certainly not the square root of 9 and the fact that it's "more" like the right answer doesn't make it relevant.
ReplyDeleteOne fundamental problem White has when approaching abortion is his complete Ameri-centric viewpoint on this issue. It's like the entire rest of the world doesn't even exist to him. Abortion is NOT a uniquely American problem. In fact, the countries with the highest abortion rates are as follows:
1. Russia
2. Cuba
3. Kazakhstan
4. Georgia
5. Romania
6. Sweden
7. The United States
8. Hungary
9. China
10. New Zealand
11. France
12. Norway
13. Denmark
14. Australia
15. United Kingdom
16. Canada
17. Israel
18. Spain
19. Italy
20. Netherlands
Notice that exactly none of those are African countries. So the issue isn't "Why do blacks have more abortions than whites?" It's, "Why is it that ONLY IN THE WEST do blacks have such high rates of abortions?" And at that point, it certainly becomes more than arguable that it is *WESTERN* culture that is influencing the black population so negatively.
Worldwide, the West clearly has abandoned God and is living in rebellion against Him. From missionaries I've spoken with, the church in Africa is doing far better than in America, and it is far more orthodox and moral. So I throw back my own binary options. Which is more likely: 1) black culture pretends to be righteous when it's the majority culture and shows her true nature when blacks are in the minority; 2) Western culture is now seeking to make others twice the child of hell they themselves are.