It must be wonderful to live in the world of ACLU attorney’s, one in which everything can break down into black and white and there is no grey area. Those of us living in reality however have long ago come to the realization that the grey area is where life actually takes place. Particularly in the world of politics and law the grey area plays a crucial role in the understanding of a given situation. A Google search for the term “words were taken out of context” will display over 17,000 results, emphasizing how often politicians words are used to paint a picture which differs from reality. It is not only words which can be taken out of context however, statistics are often used to strengthen an argument pushing one agenda or another as well. The problem with statistics however is that generally speaking they do not take into account any variables, i.e. they ignore the grey area.

The ACLU recently cited such statistics in their article titled “Racial Bias Highlights Rampant Problems in Death Penalty System“, in it they state:

Similarly, today, there are two death penalty systems in the United States, one minority, one white – separate and unequal. A 2003 Amnesty International report showed that although African-Americans are only 12% of the population of the United States, at that time they were 40% of the people condemned on death row. If this nation is not going to abolish the death penalty, it needs to institute a moratorium until we can figure out why these two death penalty systems have developed and what, if anything, can be done to prevent this clear racial bias from continuing.

There is an abundance of studies which demonstrate that capital punishment suffers from extreme racial bias. A white paper published by the ACLU showed the racism of the federal death penalty. Among other things, it states that people of color were the majority of people who received death sentences in the modern federal death penalty. It also stated that two of the last three people executed in the federal system were people of color, the other being Timothy McVeigh. The issue is not going to resolve itself as the next six people scheduled for federal executions are African-American.

With regards to race in America, statistics are often misleading, and generally promoted by the mainstream media and politicians with little or no explanation for fear of being charged as a racist. Wether it be crime, poverty, education or any number of other social issues, the story you will always hear is that Black are disenfranchised by a biased society and that is why the statistics are skewed against them. Only in small, mostly right wing circles will you here the opposing argument, and that is one of personal responsibility. The ACLU has completely overlooked personal responsibility in this case, immediately pointing the finger at the Justice system for the disparity of African Americans on death row.

Rather than lecture the ACLU on the principle of each person being responsible for their own actions, I have decided to reply with a few statistics of my own. Although these statistics are widely available, they are considered politically incorrect, and therefore rarely cited. IBD Editorials outlines some of them today in their article titled “High Incarceration Rate Of Blacks Is Function Of Crime, Not Racism”

The black incarceration rate is overwhelmingly a function of black crime. Insisting otherwise only worsens black alienation and further defers a real solution to the black crime problem.

Racial activists usually remain silent about that problem. But in 2005, the black homicide rate was more than seven times higher than that of whites and Hispanics combined, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed more than 52% of all murders in America. In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3% of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3% of all robbery and 34.5% of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4% of all property-crime arrests.

By examining these statistics it would appear as if black were actually under-represented on death row, having committed 52% of all murders while only accounting for 40% of the death row population. Of course citing these statistics is racist in and of itself, at least that is what the ACLU and Al Sharpton will tell me. They will argue that it is prejudiced to state that blacks commit more violent crimes than whites, although the statistics they love to cite so much back up that statement as fact, not prejudice.

I highly recommend checking out the entire editorial at IBD, Heather Mac Donald did an incredible job not only breaking down the murders rates, but dispelling the myth that our drug laws have racial bias as well.

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