To a Social Justice Warrior, bigotry anywhere = bigotry everywhere. This is why, when white supremacist groups from all over the country, and from Canada, orchestrated what was to be the biggest white supremacist event in decades (Charlottesville, VA), even though those racists could only muster 100 people, it became emblematic of an America that is deeply racist, rather than of an America where racism is so rare that even a handful of racists spark thousands of protestors. ‘Bigotry anywhere = bigotry everywhere’ is why every action that can be spun to look racist, whether it is or not, gets passed around like wildfire on social media with captions that imply that these things are common. To the Social Justice Warrior, ‘bigotry anywhere = bigotry everywhere’, so one racist tweet in a country of 330 million people proves that all of society is bigoted.
The notion that ‘bigotry anywhere = bigotry everywhere’ is an example of the logical fallacy known as the ‘fallacy of composition,’ which is a fallacy in which one assumes that what is true of a part must be true of the whole. With this logical fallacy, each example of racism gets extended to the whole of America, with the implication that we are all guilty because of the actions of a few.
The ‘fallacy of composition’ is usually used to defend racism. Someone will be victimized by someone of another ethnicity, and when talking about it later will say, “they,” rather than, “he” or “she.” The action of one person suddenly becomes the action of an entire ethnicity of people, with the implication that ‘they do it all the time.’
When this fallacy is used to imply that all members of some minority act the same, or that women all act the same, people see it for what it is: racist or sexist. Somehow, when the same fallacy is used to imply that all white people are racist, society loses focus of the fact that it is still a logical fallacy, and a racist one at that.
Social Justice Warriors, at their core, fight racism with racism.
Fighting racism with racism is a fool’s errand. For that matter, fighting any evil with another evil is a fool’s errand, for no matter who wins, it’s evil.
If we look at some of the things Social Justice Warriors believe in, we can see the result of fighting racism with racism. Affirmative Action leads to significantly higher dropout rates among minority college students (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18523), leaving people who wanted to get an education saddled with debt, but without a degree. The result is that we have more minority students in our colleges, but fewer in the higher paying fields of our workforce. Far from benefitting minorities, the only people who benefit from this program are the Social Justice Warriors, who pat themselves on the back for all the good they do, while minorities are artificially suppressed in the workforce by the policies Social Justice Warriors support.
Who came up with the idea that welfare would only be given to single parent households? The answer, of course, is Social Justice Warriors. Prior to these provisions, more than 75% of African American children were born into two-parent homes. Today, a scant three generations later, fewer than 30% of African American children are born into two-parent homes, and with terrible effects on the outcomes for African American children (http://www.heritage.org/welfare/report/how-welfare-harms-kids). It’s particularly brutal on men in our inner cities, who, with few other economic opportunities, are far more apt to turn to crime (https://www.cato.org/publications/congressional-testimony/relationship-between-welfare-state-crime-0).
Who wants a $15 minimum wage? Social Justice Warriors do. The minimum wage is the most racist law America has ever employed, as shown here.
How convenient it must be for Social Justice Warriors to be able to promote policies that harm people, and then to point to the harm they themselves caused, and use it as proof that their efforts are necessary!
Are all cultures equal? Of course not. We can look through all of recorded history, and see that different cultures were better at different times, in different places, at different things. There has never been a time or a place where all cultures were equal, and yet Social Justice Warriors say that they are, and as a consequence we cannot place one culture ahead of others, even if doing so would help people succeed. Once again, Social Justice Warriors put feeling good ahead of doing good, and they pat themselves on the back for being the ‘good guys’, while committing great harm against others.
When confronted with the harm they do, Social Justice Warriors always have an out: they’ll point to one person who may have benefitted from their programs, and say, “See? It helped.” This is, of course, another example of the ‘fallacy of composition’, assuming in this case that if a policy helped one person it must have helped everyone. No amount of evidence to the contrary will dissuade the Social Justice Warrior, for their entire world view is predicated on believing themselves to be the ‘good guys’ championing a cause. If they had to confront the fact that their entire world view is predicated on a logical fallacy, they would have to also confront the fact that the low expectations they have for others is racist, and that by holding minorities to lower standards in schools, they are creating artificial barriers for minorities in the workforce.
When we see bigotry anywhere, we must confront it and correct it. When white supremacists carry torches in Charlottesville, we must show up in greater numbers and peacefully show them that their views belong in the dustbin of history, but when the typical white supremacist march can fit in the backseat of a Ford Focus, we must also recognize that theirs is not only a fringe movement, but the fringe of the fringe. We want to confront them of course, but we want to do so without amplifying their voice.
The real menace is on the other side of the fence, where misguided souls who believe they are champions against oppression create policies that oppress, leading to higher dropout rates, higher poverty rates, lower employment rates, lower representation in higher paying fields, and higher crime rates. These things have been studied into the ground. We know that Social Justice Warrior policies cause harm, and yet we are afraid to confront them lest they turn their anger against us. The time has come to let the Social Justice Warriors know that their racism can no longer be tolerated. They need to wake up, and move on.
And then there is the name ‘Social Justice Warrior’. This name implies that those who wear it fight for ‘justice,’ but justice involves looking at each individual case on the merits of that specific case, and then treating each case individually, on its individual merits. Justice either exists on the individual level, or it does not exist at all, and ‘Social Justice Warriors’ do not believe in justice in terms of fair treatment on an individual basis. ‘Social Justice Warriors’ want to treat everyone as a member of an identity group, delivering verdicts and outcomes to groups, while ignoring the specifics of each individual case. There is nothing ‘just’ about that.
Case in point: former St Louis Police Officer Jason Stockley, who was acquitted of First Degree Murder in the shooting of an African American suspect about a year ago. St Louis was aflame in riots for several weeks, following that verdict. You can read the whole verdict here: Jason Stockley Verdict.
In a nutshell, Anthony Smith (whom Officer Stockley killed) was a drug dealer, who, after being caught dealing heroin, hit Jason Stockley’s arm (and two cars) with his car, racing out of a parking lot. Anthony Smith then led Jason Stockley in a high-speed car chase. The chase ended when Anthony Smith lost control of his car, which Jason Stockley then ran into, preventing Anthony Smith from fleeing again. When Officer Stockley approached Anthony Smith’s car, Anthony Smith fished around for, and eventually found, a gun, forcing Officer Stockley to shoot and kill Anthony Smith.
The Jason Stockley case is but one of many clear-cut incidences of police officers involved in justified shootings, but neither the media, nor the ‘Social Justice Warriors’ who rioted in St Louis, cared one bit about the specifics of the case. To them, another African American was killed by a cop, and the reasons for the killing did not matter. The only thing that mattered was the need to protest the police.
Just to be clear, Jason Stockley should never have lost his job, much less been tried for murder, and the fact that prosecutors bowed to political pressure and took Officer Stockley to court on murder charges is but one example of what has become the ‘Ferguson Effect’, in which police officers, afraid of being the next YouTube sensation, avoid policing inner city neighborhoods. Violent crime rates are soaring in our inner cities as a result (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/us/murder-rates-cities-fbi.html).
According to the FBI, more than half of all violent crimes committed in the United States, involve both an African American perpetrator, and an African American victim (FBI Crime Statistics). Society deserves plenty of blame for this, as explored by Global Liberty Media in American Apartheid, but what also needs to be explored is the reason so-called ‘Social Justice Warriors’ focus on protecting the perpetrators of violent crime rather than the victims, even when both are African American. Where are the riots over the death of Chicago resident Darrius Buckley, who was killed in his driveway by Jeffrey Manor (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-south-side-homicide-charges-20170918-story.html)? Both the victim, and the perpetrator, were African American, and had the police harmed Jeffrey Manor when they arrested him, there would likely have been riots. Where were the riots for Darrius Buckley? Is he not just as dead as is Anthony Smith? The difference is that whereas Anthony Smith was a drug dealer who pulled a gun on a cop, Darrius Buckley did nothing wrong. Where is the justice in rioting for criminals and ignoring acts of wanton violence committed against innocent people?
The notion that African American men are somehow being hunted by the police is asinine. We know, from the FBI crime statistics (link above) that African American men commit more than half of all violent crime in our country, even though they are only about 6.5% of our population. We also know that this is not caused by over-policing, as we can look at crimes, like murder, where having a body present makes questions of over-policing a non-issue. 6.5% is misleading, as almost all violent crime is committed by men, regardless of ethnicity, but African Americans make up 13% of our population, and commit 53% of the violent crime, and that is a fact. When you look at African American incarceration rates, they follow this proportion perfectly, and when you look at the numbers of African Americans killed by police, compared to other ethnicities, fewer are killed than would statistically be expected. The FBI data is very clear on this – the numbers do not lie.
I want to stress again that African American crime rates are not higher because of ethnicity, but because of socio-economic factors, and those factors have a societal cause, as shown (again) in American Apartheid. We can, and must, do better as a society, to stop holding African Americans, and particularly African American men, down. But the police exist to prevent crime and to catch criminals, and let us stop pretending the police are somehow the bad guys. Our police, by and large, deserve our respect.
The anger directed at our police is justified, but it is misdirected, and it is ironically misdirected toward the very people whose job it is to reduce the violent crime rates in our inner cities. The police are the good guys!
You can either have justice, delivered on an individual basis, with each case decided purely on its own merits, or you can have ‘Social Justice,’ where the law is applied differently depending on one’s group affiliations. You cannot have both, for the application of ‘Social Justice’ demands the abdication of actual justice. Anyone who stands for living in a just society must oppose ‘Social Justice Warriors,’ as ‘justice’ is the literal opposite of what their movement calls for. If someone truly believes that ‘bigotry anywhere = bigotry everywhere,’ then ‘Social Justice’ might seem necessary, but to believe that is to believe in a logical fallacy, and we should not flush actual justice down the drain just because some people fall for what is demonstrably false.
The truth is that most racist ‘rallies’ can fit in a Ford Focus. The truth is that the police are our friends.
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Note: This article combines two separate articles, originally published on The Daily Libertarian. Many of the links used are a year old (as of the time of publication in Global Liberty Media), but they were current when the original articles were published.
