Why Bill Bennet's racist

[jenk]

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

- source: Media Matters

The reason Freakonomics posits for abortion == declining crime rate is that the women having abortions frequently have decided they can't be good parents. Why? They're young, poor, want to focus on their existing kids, et cetera. Does this mean they are black? No.

Bennet (and yes, this is a call-in show, so he's thinking on his feet) wanted an example of how targeted abortion could improve the crime rate. Did he think of poor women? Minors? Or, maybe...CRIMINALS? No. He thought of black women. When he thinks "crime rate", he thinks "blacks".

And THAT is the problem.