Above you’ll find my conversation with University of San Francisco law professor Lara Bazelon. She specializes in criminal law and has won exoneration for wrongfully convicted incarcerated people.
We discuss systemic racism in the criminal justice system and debate the pros and cons of various reform efforts. We go into the details of Yutico Briley’s wrongful conviction case in which Lara and her sister Emily were involved (you can read Emily’s piece about it here). Then we shift gears and discuss the challenges of writing fiction. We talk about Lara’s absorbing new novel A Good Mother and my memoir-in-progress. These are pretty deep waters, as we reflect on how our writing has forced us to confront some hard questions about our roles as professionals and parents.
As always, I’m interested in your thoughts! Let me know in the comments!
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0:00 How Glenn and Lara each approach systemic racism
6:46 Lara: The Yutico Briley case exposes the roots of systemic racism
17:32 Trying to understand the equities and inequities of crime and punishment
28:20 The differing perspectives on justice involved in the Briley case
34:44 Are progressive criminal justice policies having an impact?
46:16 Lara's new novel, A Good Mother
54:37 Glenn and Lara's experiences of parenthood
1:01:08 Why Glenn really left Harvard's economics department
1:05:16 Glenn's rocky road as a father
Links
Bari Weiss’ forum on systemic racism
Glenn’s book, Race, Incarceration, and American Values
Glenn’s “intellectual obituary” of James Q. Wilson
Lara’s novel, A Good Mother
I am so grateful that you have these discussions. This one is a gem.
The truth? Ms. Bazelon recommended your discussion with Cornel West. That reminded me of how much I had enjoyed it so I watched again. In one comment Mr. West remarked that truth is barbed (or something like that). Telling your truth will not always polish your characters appearance but it does, I believe, polish your humanity and certainly does indicate a courageous character.
With love,
Myles
And in your case Glenn, your brilliant humanity.
Could someone please respond to AnAn (22 hrs ago)? Am I missing something?
Finally finished watching. Amazing conversation. There is almost nothing of this quality almost anywhere.
Glenn, I would have told her:
---in 1970 blacks were 3.0 times as likely as non blacks to be arrested for homicide
---in 2019 blacks were 8.2 times as likely as non blacks to be arrested for homicide
---in 1926 21% of people arrested were black versus 39% in 1970 and 44% in 1986 and higher after that.
---We have seen a similar sharp increase in the likelihood that blacks are raped and violently assaulted as non blacks.
---If the number of blacks murdered in 2020 rose by 40%, then black Americans were about 15 or 16 times as likely to be murdered as people who live in Bangladesh (a poor country with a massive problem of Pakistani Army backed Al Qaeda linked terrorists mass murdering or otherwise causing mayhem against them.)
For black folk there *HAS* been a massive increase in violent crime. For non black folks, she has a partial point (I would say this to be nice . . . but even there I DISAGREE). What does it say about the character and compassion of the American people that the American people would allow the mass murdering, raping and violent assaulting of black Americans to take place with hardly a word?
She is 1000% right. The American people (in addition to specific institutions) are structurally racist. This is why. And the American people need to stop.
How much of the crimes you cite are Black-on-Black crimes? Where are the stats on crime by someone known to the victim vs random. People HAVE been talking about this for years, but most progressives, especially black progressives only want to talk about "systemic racism" as opposed to looking within. Maybe the compassion would come when the community shows signs of "cleaning up your own house".
Nancy, to respond directly to you, the vast majority of perpetrators of violent crime against Blacks happen to themselves be black. But whatever the perpetrator data is doesn't change the suffering of victims.
However Blacks use to commit and be victims of vastly less violent crime in the past. What do you think has changed?
Who is killing, assaulting, raping Black people matters vastly less than that Black people are dying, being assaulted and raped. We need to protect our black sisters and brothers.
The woke non black *ARE* structurally racist. And sadly even many nominally anti woke people have ingested large chunks of wokeness and are woke lite themselves.
Non blacks need love and understanding to solve wokeness and to partner with their very impressive, powerful, exceptional black sisters and brothers in equality and true friendship.
I'm at a loss. WHO MATTERS!!!!
The black victims of violent crime matter. Black sisters and brothers have humanity. And non blacks are failing to protect their black sisters and brothers. Shame on non blacks!
It is possible that a large chunk of the IQ and standardized test performance gap would be alleviated if we should sharply lower the number of black victims of violent crime. This is my view.
Again, NOT OUR JOB!! Are you not strong or smart enough to manage your own affairs? Stay away from gangs, drugs, violent video games, female degrading hip-hop videos & rap music that extols all the above and the men who make them Get a job and an education and stop expecting someone else to do your heavy lifting. Enough said! I will respond to you no longer.
Lara Bazelson suggests that Louisiana being one of two states that allowed nonunanimous jury verdicts proved the practice to be racist. I live in the other state, deep-blue Democratic Oregon, whose state government reserves funding support for Blacks in covid relief. It's a bad idea; but to say it's racist is to assume a conclusion instead of providing evidence.
Bazelon shows her hand when she seems to blame a moral panic paranoia about crime to explain Eric Adams' win in the NYC mayoral primary: she points to the "relatively low murders compared with the 90s" as some kind of counter-argument to people's visceral fear of violent victimization by a criminal justice system seen increasingly as a revolving door. Okay, fine. Ms. Bazelon wants to hide behind numbers. How many blacks were *actually* killed by the police in the throes of these protests? As a percentage of all police killings? Weighted against the actual violent crime incidents across races? Compared with 20, 30, 50 years ago? Did she write prominently in 2020 calling for moderation against the excesses of the BLM and more extreme protests of similar ilk? Sure, there may be some vestigial laws down in Louisiana that we might want to revisit. But I'm not convinced that Bazelon argues in good faith like Glenn does. Rather, she shifts her epistemological bases to fit the preset agenda. Glenn is a complex thinker, nuanced, and you know very clearly where he's really struggling to reconcile his basic world view with his impulses to the opposite. Bazelon speaks like a lawyer, pounding the argument that works best for the corner of the ring where the discussion is taking place. She waxes eloquently on the life impact of prison on the convicted, with little concern to the victims. Glenn goes fairly easy on her I think, and to his credit, because she demonstrates to a discerning eye her argumentative weaknesses as the hour goes on. Let me be fair: I did learn things. I do think Yutico was dealt a bad hand that moves me to want to see change in their sentencing. Those majority-decision juries are atrocious. I'm sure she's a great criminal defense attorney, and would give some fine testimony on specific legislative reviews, but I do not want Bazelon setting policy on anything important. Her heavy sympathy with criminals over their victims, and inability to articulate the root of criminal law as a means for the innocent to see justice done is deeply disturbing.
I guess like a lot of listeners, I found this conversation frustrating. Partly, it was frustrating because Glenn was approaching it as a social scientist, while Ms. Bazelon was approaching it as an advocate. And not just any advocate, but as a career criminal defense attorney. In my experience, lawyers on both sides of the "vee" in the criminal justice system tend to approach their work as, to use her word, "zealots." You could easily find a prosecutor who lines up with Ms. Bazelon on every metric except whom she represents, and that person would make the counter argument to everything Ms. Bazelon said, with equal passion and equal persuasiveness (or lack thereof).
My other main source of frustration was that Ms. Bazelon's argument about systemic racism proved too much. Her point about social determinism (although I don't recall her using that precise term) would apply to everybody. It may be true that the deterministic forces are different for American black people than for others, but even if they're different, are they really any stronger or any less fair than the deterministic forces that create criminals among the poor or family-challenged of other races? If they're not, how does her argument establish the existence of systemic racism, as opposed to systemic classism, or some other systemic cause?
When did society decide that bad behavior is no longer bad behavior, crime is crime, and all else is incidental. "Social determinism" seems only to apply to certain identity groups.
I wish Glenn would bring some of his considerable "numbers" skill to bear on the issues he brings to the world. For example, in this episode, is over sentencing the "problem" or is the justice "system's" problem that it is way, way, way, way more likely to not catch the culprit, plea bargain, under sentence and then finally fail to convict? Glenn, What do the "numbers" indicate?
Another "interesting" question that could be explored with actual numbers; Is a "masculine" predisposition of culture and "systems" a salient problem today (patriarchy)? Or, as is usually the case, is the Left telling the OPPOSITE of the truth. I propose that the "real news" is that the predominant attitude displayed by the justice, intelligentsia, media, culture (systems) is one of being overly feminine and altruistically pathological. My examples are the millions of cases of, No pretrial confinement, letting felons out of jail because of overcrowding, defunding the police, BLM riots, not prosecuting crimes like repeated theft under $1,000, defecating in the street, drug use, prostitution, vagrancy, sanctuary cities, flooding the nation with illegal third-world in the millions....on and on.
Programming note for Glenn; I suggest a format for your show where you interview a guest to let them make their case.......then you use your considerable "numbers" skills to do a follow-up episode where you present your exploration of the relevant data and your findings. Maybe teach a little bit about your methodology and how math can help structure one's thinking to bring actual problems to light.
definition: "Pathological altruism" can be conceived as behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.
Uhh. Duh! Read my post again….. if allowing…… nay, choosing policies I have highlighted, do not improve things for the intended and others but instead make things WAY worse…. That is pathological altruism. I stand by my statement.
Chui you have exceeded the
Time I allot to fix “wrong think” … now you are just a pest
Thanks for the format suggestion. It's worth considering...
Huh? The value is to point out that the current zeitgeist is the opposite of reality….. are you trolling? Seems like you may be out of your depth.
I finished Lara's book, "The Good Mother". I'll give it a solid B-. Even though it's fiction, there are just too many legal procedural "errors" in how she weaves the story.
After reading the book and watching the discussion with Glenn, it's pretty clear that Lara is a typical bleeding heart progressive, almost certainly one of McWhorter's "Elect". Based on her bio she seems to come by it honestly.
All of this is just good fodder for assessing her contribution to the Bari Weiss essay on "systemic racism" as C- level stuff..............at best.
It's also weird that at one point she declares her self a single mother while just minutes later admitting that her ex husband is a wonderful co-parent and the responsibilities are divided equally so she's not really what one pictures as a single parent; struggling alone... maybe she's a single parent like princess Diana was, I guess it's all in the definition
I echo many of the sentiments of other listeners: Unfortunate that she ignored the fact that her sample case was one of TEN children to a neglectful mother and former imprisoned father. Why is there such a refusal to see this as the core of the problem rather than her finger pointing at the post civil war reconstruction. No point complaining about wealth disparities when those in poverty (of any race/ethnicity) are perpetuating problems of poverty born into poverty! Also a slight shame that she could not bring herself to embrace Trump's policy (and I am not generally a fan of him but even a broken clock...) of reviewing non violent drug crime sentencing and reducing sentences by an average of 70 months, and no mention of Biden's 1994 crime bill... still, nice to see her explaining everything to Glenn from her ivory tower!!! Eyes roll, head in hands...
When you talk population averages and zoom out to 100.000 for …….The root cause of African American generational poverty as well as Asian and Ashkenazi Jewish generational wealth……the answer is the same..unfortunately it’s “nature” (Genes)
James Murphy I think you under estimate the role of culture. Socio-economic outcomes are heavily driven by broadly defined physical health, broadly defined mental health and broadly defined intelligence . . . all of which can be shifted by one's own actions, especially as a child.
I think if we can improve 8th grade standardized test scores (which itself is mostly a proxy of the above three), 80% of our economic problems would sort themselves out.
There are many examples of black 8th grade excellence. Can we agree to focus on these and expanding pockets of K-12 black excellence around the world?
Physical health, mental illness and intelligence are all examples of highly heredib!e traits (genes). Even something as seemingly random like political outlook (conservatives\provressive) has high here heretibility (twin studies)........can you teach people to fulfill their phenotypic max....yes and we should......in fact, we saw that with the black IQ increases of 30 years ago (Flynn effect)...however you cannot move past the phenotypic limit without sustained heavy lifting of natural selection.......this is why I propose eliminating all Governemnt welfare over time........this would GREATLY incentivize all poor women, not just blacks, to be MUCH more selective with men. over the generations This would cause an increase in IQ and positive personality and work traits .....as those with those Positive traits would be more successful passing on their genes than those without them.
Paradoxically to make Things better for.the poor.....you have to stop making it so comfortable.to be poor. natural selection will do the work to improve the genes over generations.
This is a good reason to study group differences. Hiding the truth about genes and group differences hurts the poor.
If women were taught the high heritability of intelligence, personality and mental illness, it would begin to change and at the very least inform their sexual choices.
James, I agree with much of what you say, but I doubt we could ever phase out the welfare system. Maybe just putting the word "shame" back in our lexicon, more requirements for financial literacy classes in the schools (instead of trying to rewrite history) and going back to teaching the 3 R's. Education leads to more opportunities which leads to interaction with more educated people and therefore a larger, smarter, more motivated gene pool. I just heard a podcast interview with Andrew Sullivan, who was found in a poor school with a very high test score and given an opportunity to go to a good private school. He said he though testing helps find these kids of all groups & help them get a better education. While teachers can recognize some, there are some that don't want to show their intelligence for fear of ridicule.
I think we could phase welfare out over 100 years. If we had the will to actually fix things rather than blame......my plan would simply keep all welfare programs frozen at the dollar amount they are today.
Its simple......over many years monetary inflation would very slowly eat away at the value of the benefit. Time for churches and private charities to rise again.
And if the USG wants to allow 250,000 aliens to enter the country each month then the government "managers" will have to get off their asses and manage the budget. If they Want to add 250,000 new welfare people......then you got to remove 250,000 people off the roles.
You must be smoking something if you think Americans & the USG can think 100 years in the future. They can look 100 seconds. Just look at the 3+ trillion "human infrastructure" package. CHARITIES & CHURCHES, so mid last century. People don't vote for charities and churches. How would that be fair. (read with a whine). That's like asking private industry to invent a way of communicating across the world digitally so we can all be closer and understand one another better. KUMBIYA. The only thing about immigrants is they come to work. I think a swap would change the narrative. If our dead-beat welfare recipients (yes, there are those who truly need) had to spend a few months in a failed Marxist, 3rd rate country... Is there racism in South & Central America?
While I think genetics may have something to do with "Asian and Ashkenazi Jewish wealth" I believe it to be more cultural. These groups tended in the past not to intermarry, have strong family bonds & stress education by necessity for survival.
Nancy; Although it doesn't explain 100%...."nature" (genes) accounts for more than we feel comfortable admitting. I will go a step further and say that to a large extent even "nurture" is also nature in as much as its the parent's/families genes express themselves in raising their children (environment is nature).
Back to your point of culture. I'm afraid, "culture" is also in large part "nature" as groups of like peoples express their propensities (genes) and natural selection makes its mark through time.
Now, I'm not saying there is NO free will and everything is 100% deterministic. I just believe there is a lot less then we have been sold, I mean told. So, I say let's relax and realize not everything is under our control to fix.... In short, Let's be kind to one another.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Asian countries were isolated for many centuries, then when able to emigrate (not just to the US) they remained unto themselves (Chinatowns, Little Tokyo's), married and had children within these tight communities therefore limiting the gene pool. Jews were discriminated against since the start of Christianity and also stayed within there own. Education for men was always stressed. When they were the only ones allowed to charge interest on money, use cadavers for study and provide other services not allowed to Christians, became adept and useful to power. The Islamic world that embraced ancient Greek & Roman knowledge was able to be shared unlike the Christian world. Remaining isolated within that world, the gene pool was also limited. Blacks in South America and the Caribbean intermingle with natives and some whites when freed. Here and in South America the black populations were from a variety of African lands so the gene pool was broader. Those cultures also did not have need or were in some cases forbidden education & strong sense of family (more tribal). I agree it's a nature/nurture discussion I would love to have the guys explore more. Thanks for responding.
Thanks for your response Chui, I think we agree on more than we disagree on; I did take care in my comment to state "of any race/ethnicity" for the very reason that intergenerational poverty is pan-racial. As with so many issues I have to defer to Thomas Sowell for gathering so much research and that the issues which created the culture of the south is pre-reconstruction, pre-American, and still afflicts the parts of the UK from which those regions were settled. Regarding our agreement on the problems regarding the Reagan/Clinton/Biden response to crime it should also be noted that President Obama did nothing to reform this during either term, nor did Bush but my expectations of Bush/Cheney are lower than low!!
It is a wonderful conversation, so great many thanks to both Professor Loury and Professor Bazelon. My only gripe is the use of this particular case as an illustration of the racial component of our justice system. Much time was spend describing and discussing the unfortunate circumstances of Yutico's life. The most pertinent fact about his case is that he DID NOT DO what he was accused and convicted of. His background is irrelevant to that fact and so it is of doubtful value as an illustration of racial bias that is built into the system.
Unless of course the argument is that most or at least significant portion of black Americans convicted of violent crime in this country are in fact innocent.
This was really a great conversation and I have to say I had tears in my eyes at the end. So rare to hear people people being so honest. Kudos to both of them.
This was fantastic. I'd love for Glenn to have more folks on who have differing points of view.
I thoroughly disagreed with Ms. Bazelon on many points. But I also thoroughly enjoyed listening to the conversation.
RE: Yutico
I can't help but think that the issue in cases like this has less to do with racism, and more to do with the authoritarian character of the legal institution revealing itself as a result of the accused rejecting the plea deal and forcing the trial gears into motion. In other words, if the agents of the legal system are slighted, I expect they will make you pay dearly for that offense.
Dear Glenn, re: homicide rates in Philadelphia, you were right to challenge Lara. Numbers have increased steadily under Larry Krasner, and have gone through the roof since 2020. We're on track for over 600 homicides at the current rate (last year we had 499). Philadelphia now has the highest per capita crime rate of the country's largest cities. My husband is a homicide detective.
Thank you for this conversation. Really enjoyed it.
I just re-read Mark Kleiman's "When Brute Force Fails" and I can't but think that there is a tension between distaste for habitual offender laws and a desire for certainty and predictability in criminal sentencing that can help shape the patterns of behavior.
It's curious to me that there has been such a heavy focus on pre-trial detention (I suppose that is the item most readily available to DA's from a policy matter) as opposed to reducing the length of criminal sentences when pre-trial detention can be a certain and immediate cost to criminal activity and time served X years down the road may be discounted or cause reluctance in the minds of judges or juries.
I would love for you to have Professor Jennifer Doleac on your show to discuss issues related to crime rates and changes in prosecution patterns and crime rates related to police staffing. I'm not an economist, just a physician, so I cannot fully critique her work. It does seem like decreasing prosecution of misdemeanors decreases future involvement with law enforcement and increasing police numbers decreases violent crime especially in black communities. The work is fascinating, and her podcast, Probable Causation, is excellent.
My Balkan grandmother bore at least ten children. My mother never ceased repeating 'large family equals poverty.' The six that survived into adulthood had eight children among them. My generation has had four children. none of us have ever held anyone up a knife or gunpoint. So Ms Bazelon's client was one of ten children. My mother had no education so she couldn't say "Agency!" But she would have said: "Case closed!"
Nice post!!! Culture matters!!! I love it!
I echo many of the sentiments of other listeners: Unfortunate that she ignored the fact that her sample case was one of TEN children to a neglectful mother and former imprisoned father. Why is there such a refusal to see this as the core of the problem rather than her finger pointing at the post civil war reconstruction. No point complaining about wealth disparities when those in poverty (of any race/ethnicity) are perpetuating problems of poverty born into poverty! Also a slight shame that she could not bring herself to embrace Trump's policy (and I am not generally a fan of him but even a broken clock...) of reviewing non violent drug crime sentencing and reducing sentences by an average of 70 months, and no mention of Biden's 1994 crime bill... still, nice to see her explaining everything to Glenn from her ivory tower!!! Eyes roll, head in hands...
I thought this was a lawyerly argument on her part. Even if a law was created in the period of reconstruction, and even if you can prove that there were racist motives for the law at that time, the law has still been kept on the books for over a century. Part of her argument would have to be that the majority of people of Louisiana are either too racist, or too ignorant to change the law, through to today.
I would instead like to hear an argument for why unanimous jury vote requirements are inherently more just. Most other countries have decided they can determine just verdicts without unanimous jury votes.
Are you able to explain why crime rates differ among various groups even after adjusting for socioeconomic status? China has a fairly low per capita intentional homicide rate despite being relatively "poor" by first world standards even today. According to this link here for 2018 data for China it was somewhere around 0.53 per 100,000 people for a country with PPP adjusted per capita GDP of roughly $19,000 USD. I know that this is probably a terrible comparison, but isn't a per capita GDP of $19,000 USD roughly comparable actually to the per capita income of African Americans, which I seem to remember was also around $19,000-$20,000 USD.
Do you think culture matters?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country,_region,_or_dependent_territory
Well I'm not much of an academic so maybe I can offer up a sort of armchair operational definition of culture. I think we can define culture as in large part being whatever it is that causes poverty to be so much less determinative of crime among Chinese compared to among African Americans for starters, or whatever other relevant group comparison you'd like to make.
I'm not sure we necessarily need to get super detailed on the data here, unless you feel like the per capita homicide numbers for China aren't trustworthy. My general impression, bolstered by the sorts of high level statistics I linked to, is that East Asian countries have extremely low per capita rates of violent crime. For homicide depending on year and country, I've seen numbers anywhere between 0.5 to maybe 1.5+ as far as per capita for the East Asian region.
In the case of China it's pretty obvious by high level GDP metrics that even given its rapid growth over the past few decades its still relatively poor compared to a first world country like the US. The PPP adjusted per capita GDP for China for 2021 is roughly $19,000 USD according to the IMF. I don't believe it's a stretch to look at the high level numbers and conclude that whatever putative correlation/causation exists between poverty and crime seems to be contradicted by the East Asian example because the numbers are so stark.
Meant to say per capita as in per 100,000 people. Honestly I haven't studied the issue in depth, but I think anyone who's seriously interested in understanding crime and its possible relation to poverty should maybe study rural China over the past 20-30 years.
My guess is that the numbers will show that despite significantly higher rates of poverty relative to a first world country like the US, rural china most likely has had significantly lower per capita rates of crime, in particular violent crime over that same time period. It would probably be instructive to understand why.
"I guess my overarching question is one of problem design. Why are you looking to Shanghai to explain New York City? It seems a bit like apples to oranges given the vast cultural, political, geographic, demographic, and economic disparities."
Which is basically my point. What's the point of positing a grand theory of poverty and crime if it has so little explanatory power for such a large fraction of humanity? Poverty explains crime, except when it doesn't and then its irrelevant "apples to oranges". IMO if you're going to posit a universal theory it should have universal applicability.
I wonder for those who have the time and patience to look into the numbers, wouldn't poverty/crime stats among black & brown communities say in places like England, France or Germany, or amongst majority black impoverished nations in Africa be more meaningful?
We often hear, generally from the left, that we need to have "A Conversation" about race in America. I suspect for many of these people that means a one-sided conversation about the "oppressors" and the "oppressed". When Glenn and Lara's discussion about the topic of systemic racism started, I was hopeful that this might be a model for such a conversation. Here are two intelligent, articulate and experienced people willing to acknowledge each other's points and positions who clearly expressed their mutual respect for each other beginning a discussion on this important topic. Lara made what sounded like a convincing example of systemic racism from her own first-hand experience. Glenn, who we know has plenty to say on the topic, never really responded before the conversation changed course.
I hope Ms. Bazelon can return for a more in-depth discussion of the important subject of race in America.
Hat tip to Sam Harris (and Bari Weiss, too) for helping make this happen.
Now that Glenn and Lara have broken the ice so endearingly, I hope they'll speak again - and that Glenn will push back more. Maybe Lara will push back on Glenn too, but since I'm unfamiliar with her, I'm not sure where she might have been holding back in this first discussion.
I'd very much like to know what Lara meant when she said that she isn't an empiricist. How exactly does one make a non-empiricist case for systemic racism? Does one just have a quasi-mystical feeling about it? Surely that's not what she meant, but what *did* she mean? At any rate, I'm glad that she acknowledged that the Kendi/DiAngelo impulse (every disparity is explained by "systemic racism") is misguided.
The discussion about a “good mother” really got me. I think every mother working not at home had a gut punch moment when Glenn said that the the protagonist was not a good mother. Ugh! But it’s great to hear the open dialogue about this.
Some lawyer from California calls a law in Louisiana barbaric. An academic at Brown calls it a disgrace. Nobody from the South has a say in this conversation. A sociological reading of Pine Bluff, Arkansas would be very interesting. I only comment because that’s where my family is from. The situation there has been dire for as long as I can remember, and the response you get from a local, “well you know how those black guys are.” I suspect a kind of self fulfilling prophecy here. Northwest Arkansas, where my family moved, and where I grew up, is very prosperous. Wal-Mart money. It’s hard not to think of this as white flight, or discrimination of some kind. Why is it this way? Well there’s lots of drugs, guns, and violence. This is as common (not accounting for population) to Madison County, the backwoods of the Ozarks, as it is to downtown Pine Bluff. The Sowellian correlation is difficult not to see, Rednecks and Gang Bangers and all of that. Both people are pretty dangerous and I tend to avoid them.
I started reading "The Good Mother". It's got my attention and I don't read much fiction.
Both parts of this discussion were great
I respect and love Glenn, who is one of the (few) shining lights among public intellectuals today.
That said, it felt like Glenn went a little easy on her, which also crossed my mind about his discussion on the Bad Faith podcast.
That said, Glenn may just be more of a gentleman than I am.
To paraphrase: “They say Glenn gives them hell. But Glenn just tells the truth and they think that it is hell.”
Give ‘em hell, Glenn!
Saw the Bad Faith podcast and agree. Glenn is too much the gentlemen at times. At least she was a lady.
This was a great discussion. Face to face (albeit vis Zoom) discussion between 2 smart people who disagree respectfully. We need more of this. Even though Lara's point of view on "systemic racism" and incarceration is anathema to to me, I found it hard to not like and respect her.
Having said this, the initiating subject for the discussion was "systemic racism". Lara Bazelon's principled and emotional defense of her wrongfully convicted black clients in no way makes a reasoned case for the all pervasive continued existence of "systemic racism" in 2021. In fact while there was likely racism involved in the original convictions, and elements of the legal system in Louisiana were and probably still are racist in some ways, an argument can be made that she (working through the existing system) was able to right a wrong and in so doing improve the system. This is a far cry from the situation that existed 150 or even 50 years ago. I think Glenn was kind (and a gentleman, if I am allowed to say so) to change the topic before forcing the "systemic racism" debate to closure.
Seems like a nice lady and I respect her work with exonerating the innocent or at least those who are suffering egregiously at the hands of the criminal Justice system even though they might be perpetrators of crime.
However whenever I hear people excuse criminal behavior in any form I tend to cringe... You almost broke my heart Glen when you were struggling to empathize with her statements about the inner city plight of some young man with limited options. We all are individuals with our own individual stories and regardless of our social economic status there is misery and abuse everywhere. If we allow an individual's story to mitigate society's Justice then we might as well live in anarchy.
On the one hand Laura will cry high ho to the sky about systemic racism which by definition means it is everywhere in the body politic while at the same time trying to cite statistics about how crime has fallen in the last 20 years. Perhaps she should study how incarceration rates for young black men has fallen (cut in half) in the last 20 years. It is disingenuous to tell those 400 murder victims in New York City that they should be grateful because 20 years ago it was 1,000 or 10,000 so we should not prosecute or be aggressive in our law enforcement tactics or pretrial incarceration of suspects.
I think my college roommate who is a sheriff in Harris county outside Houston Texas will disagree with personal recognizance bonds which is the issue you were discussing about pretrial release. He can quote you dozens of cases where everything from murder to rape to home invasions was committed by people that were released by progressive judges. I don't know how I would respond if my family was harmed in such a way because of the ideology of some champagne sipping progressive who goes home to a country club with guarded Gates and doesn't have to live in the real world. And I guess that's the bigoted brush that I paint all progressives with. You don't live in the real world. You live in a cloistered protected environment where you don't have to suffer the consequences of your ideology. The rest of us do. Most particularly the inner city neighborhoods where most of this violence and crime is perpetrated.
While I believe their heart is in the right place I think they are wrong headed and dangerous because they will take us down a path that will be extraordinarily difficult to turn from and if one is paying attention I think I can argue that we are well down that path.
Very well said. You can't take certain cases like her client and then make the case for a much broader picture. Overgeneralizing is very dangerous. And I do notice how the victims of crimes seem to get lost in the shuffle of progressive ideas. Great POST
I had the same reaction when Glenn "went soft." But she was his guest after all and at a point everything's been said that can productively be said. It might sound funny, but my favorite moment was when Glenn calmly responded, after her summation of his views near the start, "Yeah, I don't like that." He isn't about to go along to get along, as the saying goes. (Which is hardly news to anyone here.)
I believe Chesa Boudin is the San Francisco DA alluded to at one point. I wish Glenn and John would talk about the Black on Asian violence going on right now, particularly in San Francisco's Chinatown. I am familiar with Chesa Boudin because I've been following the situation (as reported by local Asian citizen journalists covering the crime on a day by day basis). There is a serious push to see Boudin recalled. This past weekend, there was a rally with martial arts instruction and "Asian Strong" t-shirts. Many of the attacks have been on "elders." Even when fatal, the attacks don't seem to generate much national news. (Barbara Boxer got a taste of things across the bay last week, when she was robbed in broad daylight at 1:30pm.)
Others can debate whether things are truly worse than before -- Lara Bazelon seemed to support the idea that they are not -- but there's one thing that is indisputable. The vast majority of violent street attacks on Asians are being done by black males.
Yet, if you do a Google search for something like "epidemic of black on asian violence" your top returns will be about "false tropes" and studies (the one I read was laughable, using newspaper reports for input data) that show the problem is really -- you know what's coming -- Trump and white nationalism. However, you'll have a hard time finding an Asian in Chinatown, SF or NY, who buys into the idea that the violence is an offshoot of Trump's rhetoric or white nationalism. There's a way-before-Trump San Francisco newspaper article circa 2010 discussing the dirty little secret of violence against Asians.
I think Dr. Loury and Dr. McWhorter have differing views as to the role politics plays in today's woke narratives. I think John has pretty clearly said he doesn't think politics is the driver. I believe Glenn has at least hinted he's open to the idea that it's political. Anyway, I would love to hear a back-and-forth on that, specifically in regard to the utterly bizarre (to me) narratives surrounding the violence against Asians. If the motive for those isn't political, what is it?
To be fair Glenn and John did address the phenomenon of Black on Asian violence in America in response to a question I submitted for a recent Q&A and I was mostly satisfied with their response. I do believe that there's an element of Black on Asian crime consisting of robberies that I would characterize as motivated less by racial animus and more so by the pragmatic targeting by certain Black men of a population on average of smaller stature and thus less likely to fight back.
However as the past year and five months of the pandemic have shown us there's clearly also an element of Black on Asian violence consisting mostly of senseless assault that involves nothing of value being taken from the victim that we should examine more thoroughly. Unfortunately since the mainstream media either ignores this phenomenon altogether or pretends that it's the result of Trump or white supremacy, I'm not holding my breath that this critical examination happens anytime soon.
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I'm sure I heard it, but I obviously forgot. I'll go back and check it out. Thanks again.
I agree with everything you wrote but, for me, the difference between racial animus and pragmatic targeting is not important. I totally get the point, but that distinction is not a courtesy granted so easily to other groups. If too broad a brush is being used, I'll just shrug my shoulders and say, "What comes around goes around."
Glenn is a compassionate man and his life experience allows for a level of empathy that is unique... that said he is playing the hard ass older brother who has walked the dark road and knows it only leads to destruction... he carries moral authority that very few academics do... in order to play that role effectively he will need to be more cantankerous and less sympathetic while simultaneously encouraging those who will listen. I would also advise the good professor to bone up on the numbers... if one is going to swim against this tide one has got to know the data...
Is any journalist credentialed? I wish we had something like a bar exam for journalism.
Can you elaborate? I've never heard of it in the United States. I've called for it and been ridiculed.
You mean they have a degree in journalism. Not sure what that has to do with "credentialed," but I assume your intent is to minimize the Asians in SF who are out on the street talking to victims of crime and collecting video evidence.
I think I follow. The Asians who live in Chinatown and walk the streets of San Francisco are not properly trained and therefore report on things Columbia teaches their students to ignore. The citizen journalists walking the streets of Chinatown talking to victims are not to be trusted.
Thanks!
If the criminal was other than black and the victim other than white, wouldn't there have been a hue & cry about the "emotional" harm?