Category Archives: Race and race relations

2018 Hate Crimes Down

Posted on July 6, 2019 by | 5 comments

Looks like Attorney General Mark Herring will have to come up with a new campaign theme in his run for governor.  It’s bad enough that he got caught up in the blackface scandal. Now the central premise of his campaign launch — that the nation was in the grip of a surge of white supremacist violence — rings more hollow than ever.

The Virginia State Police has issued its 2018 Crime in Virginia report, and sadly for Herring (but good for the rest of us), the number of reported hate crimes was only 161 — down from 202 the previous year. The number of anti-black hate crimes fell to 62 from 68 the previous year.

The 2017 hate crime surge hyped by Herring turned out to be a blip in a long-term decline. The fact is, despite the best effort of politicians to stir up racial grievances, Americans and Virginians get along pretty well with one another.

Update: I updated some of these numbers when I returned from vacation and re-gained access to a PC.

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Posted in Crime and corrections, Race and race relations, Uncategorized

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Now Private-School Tax Credits Are Racist

Posted on July 3, 2019 by | 20 comments

Chris Duncombe

The Left continues to racialize everything, absolutely everything. It makes me sick to the stomach to write about race on this blog so often, but the “progressive” assault on a post-racial society in Virginia is an unrelenting, 24/7 activity, and if I don’t call the Left to account, it appears that no one else will.

Chris Duncombe, policy director of the center-left Commonwealth Institute think tank, opines favorably upon a new Internal Revenue Service rule that prevents people from “double dipping” when making charitable donations to scholarships provided by private or religious schools. My concern here is not the merits of the IRS ruling, which may be valid, but the reasons Duncombe expresses for disliking the special tax credit crafted to encourage donations to private-school scholarships:

People claiming these credits are more likely to be white than Black or Latinx, due to Virginia’s long history of racial discrimination and the under-representation of Black and Latinx filers in the state’s highest income brackets.

So… it’s now a bad thing for wealthy white people to make donations to provide scholarships that overwhelmingly benefit poor minorities. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Race and race relations

Racial Disparities in Maternal Deaths: Another SJW Fraud

Posted on July 2, 2019 by | 22 comments

Dr. Jennifer Lee, director of the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services.

Virginia’s Medicaid program is targeting an alleged racial disparity in maternal deaths. African-American mothers have “consistently” died at more than twice the rate of white mothers during and after pregnancy, and they are more likely to die of natural causes, the Richmond Times-Dispatch informs us. (Black women are three times more likely to suffer a pregnancy-related death, according to The Virginia Mercury.)

“Maternal and infant deaths remain a troubling reality in our commonwealth and our nation,” said Dr. Jennifer Lee, director of the Department of Medical Assistance Services. “There remain stark racial disparities for African American mothers and their babies rooted in generations of racism and historical barriers to quality health care for people of color.”

This is the kind of rhetoric fostered by Governor Ralph Northam as he seeks atonement for dressing in blackface as Michael Jackson 35 years ago. “We have really tried to refocus our administration on a lot of inequities that exist in our society today,” he said yesterday. “One of the inequities that I really believe is quite glaring is the inequities of mothers of color and the mortality rate that not only they face but also that their children face. … This is unacceptable.”

So, how, precisely, will the Northam administration address inequities stemming from generations of racism? Aside from administrative changes designed to generate better data and enroll more women into the program, news accounts allude to two health-related initiatives: curbing tobacco use and connecting pregnant women with substance abuse treatment. If you are having trouble connecting the dots between “historical barriers to quality health care” and the decision of pregnant women to smoke, drink and take drugs, you’re not alone.

The data supporting the “generations of racism” argument are shockingly thin. Continue reading →

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Posted in Health Care, Race and race relations

Blackface Mystery Solved: Ralph Northam as Michael Jackson

Posted on June 24, 2019 by | 2 comments

Published in the Roanoke Times today, a concise synthesize of my blog posts about Ralph Northam costumed as Michael Jackson:

Ralph Northam’s racism controversy has tumbled down the memory hole. The governor has struck with the story that the photograph appearing in the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook of a man in blackface was not of him, and a McGuire Woods inquiry failed to find any evidence to prove otherwise. Critics who once called for his resignation have fallen silent as the governor pivoted left on social justice issues. And the media, which normally loves a good scandal, apparently has concluded that there is little left to be discovered.

But politicians and reporters are overlooking the obvious identity of the man in the yearbook photo — it is of Ralph Northam dressed in Michael Jackson costume. Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics, Race and race relations, Scandals, Uncategorized

War Wounds, Lost Income and the Reparations Debate

Posted on June 19, 2019 by | 28 comments

Benjamin Franklin, Civil War amputee. Source: Pinterest

As the reparations issue heats up across the country — Congressional Democrats are considering forming a commission on reparations, reports the New York Times — it’s just a matter of time before the divisive debate comes to Virginia. The Old Dominion, after all, was a slave state and a segregationist state. We have a history of racism and discrimination to grapple with that, say, Minnesota or New Hampshire do not.

Personally, I find the idea of holding individuals accountable for long-ago sins committed by members of the same race to be a moral obscenity. But as an amateur historian, I find the debate fascinating. The controversy should dredge up loads of intriguing material as Americans trace the impact of slavery and segregation and the efforts to ameliorate that impact.

Here is a study that you won’t hear cited by the reparations brigade: “The Impact of a Wartime Health Shock on the Postwar Socioeconomic Status and Mortality of Union Army Veterans and their Children.” The authors did not research the paper with reparations in mind. Rather, they were tracing the impact of disability on earnings and wealth in an economy dominated by farming and manual labor. But the findings bear upon the reparations debate. In any moral reckoning over the legacy of slavery, one must consider that 620,000 soldiers died from combat, disease and other causes in the Civil War. Even if we assign zero value to the deaths of Confederate soldiers in the war to end slavery, surely we must take into account the loss of 360,000 Union soldiers (who were, for purposes of the reparations debate, overwhelmingly white). Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Race and race relations

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Arlington Schools’ Non-Solution for English Learners

Posted on June 6, 2019 by | 6 comments

Arlington County, which has one of the most politically “progressive” school systems in Virginia, has reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to bolster support for students learning English, reports the Washington Post.

The column described systemic problems in the school system. English-as-a-Second-Language students are often taught below their grade level and grow frustrated and bored. As a specific example of dysfunctional education, columnist Theresa Vargas cites a 15-year-old girl who had spent three years in the school system but still didn’t know how to use an English-Spanish dictionary correctly.

Now for some context missing from the column… The problem is not a lack of money. Arlington County spent $19,323 per pupil in Fiscal 2017 compared to an average of $11,745 per pupil spent statewide that year, according to Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) data.

Neither is the problem a lack of commitment to “diversity and inclusion.” The Arlington County school system has an Office of Equity and Excellence, which… Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Race and race relations

Special VPI Graduation Ceremonies for Everyone (Except for Straight White Christians)

Posted on June 4, 2019 by | 19 comments

I don’t know what was considered deficient with the main Virginia Tech commencement ceremony — too white? too heteronormative? insufficiently diverse? — but the university this year provided ten supplementary graduation programs for African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, gays, and other groups.

Apparently, the administration deemed it inadequate for some students to revel in what they shared in common as Hokies, graduates of one of America’s more prestigious universities, or as young people embarking upon their life journeys as adults, or even, dare I say, as Americans. They needed an opportunity to celebrate their cultural identities. Well, some of them did. If they were of English, German, Irish, Scotch-Irish, Italian, or Polish descent, or if they were Catholic, Protestant or some other denomination of Christianity, there were no special Cultural Achievement ceremonies to attend.

But if students were of African-American descent, they could participate in the university-sponsored Donning of the Kente ceremony. If they were of Hispanic-Latino background, there was the Gesta Latina. There was a ceremony for American Indians & indigenous people, and another one for Asians. There was a special ceremony for Jews and one for Muslims. There was a ceremony for international students, and a ceremony for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally community. Oh, and there was even one for students in recovery and one for veterans.

According to a Virginia Tech feature story, the special ceremonies advance the university’s mission to ensure the success of all students, particularly those from underrepresented and historically marginalized populations. Continue reading →

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Posted in Education (higher ed), Race and race relations

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Cranky Strikes Again, Shows Rampant Cheating in Richmond Schools

Posted on May 29, 2019 by | 7 comments

I have been chronicling the administrative-cheating scandals in the Richmond Public School system, noting with each post that the situation is even worse than it appeared the previous time I wrote. Now it appears that administrative cheating is even more systemic than even I had suspected. In a statistical tour de force, John Butcher, writing in Cranky’s Blog, leaves readers with the impression that the graduation criteria have been so thoroughly corrupted that the numbers are meaningless.

Butcher starts with the common-sense (and incontestable) observation that economically advantaged (referred to as Non-Economically Disadvantaged, or Not ED) students pass the SOLs at higher rates and graduate from high school at higher rates on average than Economically Disadvantaged (ED) students. No one disputes this generality. Indeed, the statement is a truism. The disparity in outcomes is routinely cited in the debate about the inequity in racial outcomes.

Incredibly, the pattern doesn’t apply at Richmond’s five mainstream high schools. At four high schools, economically disadvantaged students graduate at higher rates than their Not ED counterparts. The only exception to the pattern is Armstrong High School, where the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) conducted a course schedule audit in 2016, bringing attention to the administrative-cheating scandal that has been brewing ever since. The ensuing crackdown at Armstrong, Butcher argues, had a “salutary effect” there but had no impact on the other four high schools. Continue reading →

7 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Poverty & income gap, Race and race relations

Counseling, Jail Time, and the Cycle of Violence

Posted on May 29, 2019 by | 4 comments

Prayer vigil at Carter Jones Park

Families in south Richmond have long held community cookouts at the Carter Jones Park. Last Sunday evening, an altercation broke around at a basketball/skateboard facility nearby. Gunshots were fired. Nine-year-old Markiya Simone Dickson and an unnamed 11-year-old boy were struck by bullets. Markiya died.

Community members and city leaders gathered at a vigil yesterday to protest the violence. One of the city officials in attendance, Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras, addressed the impact of trauma upon school children.

Dozens of children in the park witnessed the tragedy, said Kamras, as reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “They will carry that trauma into their lives, and certainly into their classrooms. Sadly, this is all too common for many of the young people in Richmond Public Schools.”

As Richmonders held their vigil, First Lady Pamela Northam was addressing Southwest Virginia’s Rural Summit for Childhood Success across the state in Abingdon. Shootings that kill random by-standers are rare in that part of Virginia, but child abuse and child neglect are far from uncommon. According to the Washington County News, Northam said: Continue reading →

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Posted in Crime and corrections, Poverty & income gap, Race and race relations

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Richmond’s Real Scandal

Posted on May 28, 2019 by | 10 comments

It just keeps getting worse. At least 280 students have been disqualified from receiving a high school diploma after a Richmond Public Schools review of student transcripts and irregularities in the granting of high school diplomas. At best only 810 students will qualify to attend graduation ceremonies — and the number could be smaller, the school board has learned. Only 507 seniors are currently “on track” and 303 are considered “likely” to graduate, reports the Richmond Free Press.

Twelfth grade enrollment in the fall of 2018-19 in Richmond Public Schools was 1,212, according to Virginia Department of Education statistics. How is it not the biggest scandal in the Commonwealth of Virginia when half the city’s seniors might fail to graduate? We’re not talking half of all those who entered high school, we’re talking about half of those who made it to their senior year!

Here are the racially-oriented social justice issues that Virginia media reported on over the weekend, as found in VA News: Continue reading →

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Posted in Media, Race and race relations

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Northam Finds Salvation in Victimhood-and-Grievance Agenda

Posted on May 20, 2019 by | 10 comments

Funny how things worked out. Democratic Party cries for Ralph Northam’s resignation during the blackface scandal have diminished to a barely audible murmur. Now the establishment media is taking notice of the fact, stating out loud what everyone knows: The scandal has passed. Northam is off the hook. Virginia’s governor has purchased absolution by advancing the racial agenda of the party’s progressive wing.

As the Wall Street Journal notes today in its national news coverage, Northam recently vetoed two mandatory-minimum sentencing bills he claimed would disproportionately affect African-Americans, created a director-of-diversity position, and launched a review of how public schools address black history. And that’s just the headline news. Of greater import, his appointees are injecting progressive priorities into the public school system.

I don’t doubt that the outrage of Democrats, liberals and progressives over Northam’s blackface offense was genuine at the time. But at the end of the day, power trumps outrage. By threatening Northam with the end of his political life, the Left pushed the politically moderate governor into advancing a progressive victimhood-and-grievance agenda. Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics, Race and race relations

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Herring Still Campaigning on Racial Justice Issues

Posted on May 10, 2019 by | 14 comments

Attorney General Mark Herring wants to be the next governor of Virginia, which means he first must win the Democratic Party nomination. Despite confessing several months ago that he once wore blackface as a college student, he has put race front and center in his bid for the state’s top office. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Last year Herring launched his gubernatorial bid on the proposition that a crescendo of white supremacist hate crimes warranted new hate crime legislation. The bills he favored got nowhere in the General Assembly. But he’s back, participating yesterday in a Loudoun County forum on how to counter racial inequities such as the lack of judicial diversity, offensive highway names, and how to quickly remove Confederate monuments, according to WJLA.

Are those really the top concerns of Virginia’s African-Americans? Not jobs? Not education? Not health care? I guess we’ll find out whether a white man cranking up the volume on symbolic but inflammatory racial issues is a winning political formula in today’s Democratic Party. Continue reading →

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Posted in Race and race relations

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SJWs Strike Again: Police Field Reports Are Biased

Posted on May 5, 2019 by | 16 comments

VCU Professor Liz Coston says black Richmonders are “overpoliced.”

Here we go again. Today readers of the Richmond Times-Dispatch are treated to a front-page, top-of-the-fold article highlighting racial disparity… not in arrests… not in convictions… not in stop-and-frisks… but in the Richmond Police Department’s use of racial identifiers in “field interview reports.”

The newspaper’s indictment:

Of the 29,997 reports Richmond police officers documented in 2017 and 2018, a disproportionate number of them described the subject of the report as a black person. In a city where black residents make up 49 percent of the population, 65 percent of the people documented were listed as black.

The RTD’s Ali Rockett quotes the Richmond Transparency and Accountability Project as describing the disparity as an “alarmingly disproportionate policing of black boys and men.” And it quotes Liz Coston, a Virginia Commonwealth University sociologist, as saying that the numbers constitute evidence of “overpolicing” of Richmond’s black community. “It’s clear that black residents in Richmond are impacted by policing to a much greater extent than white citizens are.”

Not until 31 to 33 paragraphs down does the reader encounter quotes from interim Police Chief William Smith making an obvious point: The reason a disproportionate number of field interviews are conducted with African-Americans is that a disproportionate number of violent crimes and property crimes occur in high-crime neighborhoods populated by… African-Americans. Continue reading →

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Posted in Crime and corrections, Race and race relations

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Northam Seeking “Diversity and Inclusion” Officer

Posted on May 4, 2019 by | 14 comments

Governor Ralph Northam is looking for a new senior-level official to promote diversity and inclusion within state government, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The new employee will report directly to the governor and his chief of staff.

Among the qualifications listed in the job description: the “understanding of systemic and institutional bias.” States the RTD:

The director will be responsible for developing a plan to promote inclusive practices and address system inequities in state government. The person who fills the post will be tasked with “promoting diversity and fostering an inclusive environment throughout state government where employees feel a sense of belonging.”

Questions: In what way is Virginia state government infected with “systemic and institutional bias”? Are we to believe that the Virginia state government apparatus, which has been run by Democrats for four of the past five gubernatorial administrations, is riddled with racism? I know the political justification for this appointment — Northam is trying to atone for his blackface scandal. But is there a factual justification — as in actual evidence of bias — for creating the office? If there is, why haven’t we seen it?

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Posted in Government workers and pensions, Race and race relations

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Replacing One Inequity with Another

Posted on May 2, 2019 by | 15 comments

Governor Ralph Northam vetoed a bill yesterday that would have imposed mandatory minimum sentences on repeat domestic abusers on the grounds that racial minorities would be disproportionately affected.

I nearly headlined this post, “Northam to Domestic Abuse Victims: Drop Dead.” I decided that wouldn’t be quite fair. But I wouldn’t be surprised if many people interpret his action that way.

Thanks to Northam’s veto, Virginia might be “fairer and more equitable” to perpetrators of domestic violence. But will it be “fairer and more equitable” to victims? The data is patchy, but considerable evidence suggests that African-Americans are roughly twice as likely to be victims of domestic violence as whites. One could argue that creating racial “equity” for African-American criminals creates inequity for African-American victims, primarily females. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Crime and corrections, Race and race relations

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