6/20/00 1: 25 p.m.
Dissent II
In response to Robert George's article.

By William Tucker, commentator on New York politics

He spoke to National Review's Lopez last week, which started this controversy.

don't think I said the "wilding" problem is a matter of "blacks, not just some blacks, but blacks in general." If my remarks can be construed that way, then I apologize. But saying the majority of violent crimes in New York City are committed by blacks and Hispanics (a true fact) is not the same as saying the majority of blacks and Hispanics — or even a small percentage — are violent criminals.

What I'm saying is that, once again, the New York Times and liberals in general are bending over backwards to avoid the simple observation that the young men who harassed and assaulted women in Central Park were all blacks and Hispanics. Moreover, if you took a count of all the incidents in the past year when women and girls have been assaulted by gangs in public places (swimming pools have become a favorite — it's called "whirling"), you would again find that, almost without exception, black and Hispanic young men are the perpetrators. Once again: This is not to say that all black and Hispanic men indulge in this habit, or even that more than an infinitesimally small percentage do. But it is a black and Hispanic phenomenon. We can dredge up Glen Ridge and Woodstock, or even the Rape of the Sabine Women for that matter, but the fact that we have to go so far afield only proves the point.

Now I don't expect Mayor Giuliani to stand up tomorrow and say, "We're going to crack down on this new practice of black and Hispanic men assaulting women in public. Just listen to their rap music . . . . etc. etc." Nor do I want him to. The fragile coalition of civil society depends that we go about this in an even-handed way.

But somebody has to point this out. Otherwise, the consequences will be as follows: 1) the police start cracking down on incidents where young men assault women in public places, 2) all these attackers turn out to be black and Hispanic, 3) the police are accused of "racial profiling" and "harassing" black and Hispanic men and "only concentrating on minority neighborhoods," 4) the New York Times writes an article saying that maybe the police are "trying to impose the values of Mayberry" on black neighborhoods by cracking down on "whirling" and other harmless habits that really only add "cultural diversity" to these neighborhoods, 5) an attack occurs on a white woman, 6) the police are accused of "indifference" and "hating women" for failing to prevent the crime, 7) Al Sharpton sues the City of New York on behalf of the victim. Something on that order.

Liberals always want to abstract the perpetrators of crimes into something inanimate so they don't have to deal with real people. It's always "society," "guns," "the system," or "hate," never flesh-and-blood individuals who commit real, specific crimes. But that only means that, when the police start confronting the real criminals, they will be accused of "prejudice" and "racial profiling."

Look at what has happened with the cab-driver killings. Last November, Danny Glover visited New York and proclaimed that all cab drivers (overwhelmingly Indian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern, and other non-European countries) are "racists" because he couldn't get a ride. Since then, the city government has been cracking down on "racist cab drivers." Also, eleven cab drivers have been killed — another one just last night. (As one reader to the Post put it, "In Glover's world, all the murderers are leftover KGB apparatchiks and South African real estate developers. Here we have to deal with the real thing.")

A couple of weeks ago, I went out and did what no New York reporter would dare do. I asked a couple of cab drivers their opinion of the situation. What I got was this, a very crudely stated reflection of the reality that cabbies deal with every night: "These black people in New York City. . . . You pick them up, you take them where they want to go, you get there they don't want to pay you. You argue with them, they kill you. I don't care what they tell me, I don't pick them up. I don't care what the Mayor says . . . etc. etc." (How about a reporter going out for a few nights and posing as a cab driver in order to check the reality of these observations? Don't hold your breath on that one.)

The consequences of failing to deal with reality is that the people closest to the situation have to suffer the consequences. Those who live in the make-believe world of "it's-everyone's-fault, we're-all-guilty" get away free. There is a price to be paid for liberal purblindness. The only problem is liberals never pay it.