For BLM, black lives matter less than accommodating criminals
Whether it's murder or cancer, black lives take a back seat
A few weeks ago, Ed Morrissey was kind enough to have me on his podcast. When the subject turned to my pet peeve, the war on standards, Ed observed, insightfully, that standards might be increasingly difficult to uphold given the loss of confidence in institutions like the CDC that set them.
I hadn’t thought of this, and my response reflected it. Later on, I realized that the standards I’m concerned about are time-honored ones that are (or should be) taught at home and don’t depend heavily on trust in government — standards like don’t commit murder and assault, don’t disrupt the classroom, perform well in school and on the job if you wish to advance, and so forth.
This post, however, concerns the kind of standard Ed may have had in mind. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing rules to prohibit menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. It claims:
These actions have the potential to significantly reduce disease and death from combusted tobacco product use, the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., by reducing youth experimentation and addiction, and increasing the number of smokers that quit.
In the obligatory nod to “equity,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra adds that “the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.” That’s because black smokers are more prone to purchase menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars than white smokers.
The most cogent objection to the FDA’s proposed ban is this: The FDA has no business banning products that people enjoy, knowing the risks. If such products are to be banned, our democratic institutions should do the banning, not bureaucrats. (The FDA has also banned Juul products, which I think is completely misguided, but that’s a subject, perhaps, for another post.)
Some in the equity crowd have lodged a very different objection to the FDA’s ban on menthol. They claim that the proposed ban improperly “targets Americans of color.”
Afrika Porter made the argument in a piece for Real Clear Politics:
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a prohibition against flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, a product that 85% of black smokers regularly purchase. While its intention might be high-minded, the FDA is in danger of enacting policy that will disproportionately affect black and brown citizens
Yes. If the FDA has the science right, its rule disproportionately enables black and brown citizens to avoid getting cancer. In other words, it will save black lives in disproportionate numbers.
But Porter has a different disparate impact in mind:
The FDA’s course of action will inevitably lead to more run-ins between black smokers and police officers – a mixture that proved fatal in the past. In 2014, New York Police Department officers killed Eric Garner for selling loose cigarettes. Law enforcement officials with checkered histories in dealing with the black community will oversee implementing the proposed FDA ruling.
One solution to this concern would be for blacks to obey the law. But Porter considers it “inevitable” that more than a few won’t.
She’s probably right. The FDA rule will likely create a thriving illegal market in which black crooks will actively participate.
This leaves us with the following question: Whose interests should the government favor (1) the interests of law abiding blacks who (if the FDA is right) will benefit from being less exposed to cancerous products and thus live longer or (2) those of blacks who will disregard the law to make a profit by dealing such products?
To me, the question answers itself. The interests of the law abiding in living longer lives should be paramount.
To BLM, or at least some precincts of it, the question seems to answer itself, too, but the answer is different. Black lives must take a back seat.
It didn’t take the reaction to the FDA’s rule to tell us that the BLM-equity crowd favors black criminals over law-abiding blacks. A fully-funded police department that engages in proactive policing helps minimize the amount of crime, including homicide, that low-income black people suffer. But it increases both interactions between blacks — especially black criminals — and police officers and the number of blacks who end up in jail.
This tradeoff gives the BLM-equity crowd no pause. It demands defunding of the police and, to the extent a police force remains, wants that force to be a passive one that largely eschews confronting criminals. This, despite the fact that ordinary black citizens want more policing of their neighborhoods, not less.
Thus, whether we’re talking about public health or public safety, black lives matter less to BLM than accommodating lawless blacks.