Being a pedestrian in New York City can be dangerous. As one headline put it, “Last Years was Deadliest in NYC Streets in Nearly a Decade.” Reckless drivers killed 124 pedestrians, 50 motorcyclists, and 19 bike riders. New York City has tried to reduce these fatalities with lower speed limits, cameras to catch those running red lights and clearly marked pedestrian safety zones.
Surprisingly, the city recently reversed course and eliminated the $250 fine for jaywalking or crossing against the signal. Why invite more deaths and injuries? According to city council member Mercedes Narcisse, “Laws that penalize common behaviors for everyday movement shouldn’t exist, especially when they unfairly impact communities of color,” and since in 2023, 90% of the issued tickets targeted black and Latino pedestrians.
Repealing the jaywalking law is about equity, as understood politically, and requires that all outcomes must reflect population proportionality, and if they do not, government must level them, or at least make it appear that differences are nonexistent. So, though we may be unable to stop unsafe behavior, government can keep such unequal behavior out of the public eye by decriminalizing it, even if imposing equity disproportionately harms the intended beneficiaries. Note. blacks nationally experience death when walking at a 118% higher rate than whites. The New York City law does not help anybody. It probably hurts blacks the most. The only beneficiaries are those made uncomfortable by encountering statistics depicting blacks and Hispanics in a bad light. Why not end poverty by eliminating economic data?
This example is only one of many equity crusades. The city has also relaxed enforcing the law against those not paying subway and bus fares since culprits were disproportionately black and Hispanic. That such fare avoidance may bankrupt the public transportation vital for the city’s poor is irrelevant. Furthermore, as in other cities, “broken windows” policing where minor offences such as public intoxication have been sharply reduced since too many blacks and Hispanics were arrested. New York City’s district attorney Alvin Bragg has “reduced” crime by not prosecuting offenders though actual crime remains rampant.
The equity battle goes beyond decriminalization. Many schools today no longer disproportionately punish blacks for misbehaving, regardless of their bad behavior, while adjusting test standards to eliminate gaps in academic performance. If blacks and Hispanics cannot pass the tests to enter academically elite high schools, alter admissions standard to increase minority representation even if overall school quality declines. Higher education has become equity obsessed so schools ignore test scores to “curate” a more physically diverse student body. That a black admitted to Harvard struggles academically and would thrive at the less elite Boston University is irrelevant for equity champions. The primary goal is outward appearances, not what is academically best for the overwhelmed black student.
recent essay by Naomi Shaeffer Riley recounts two current medical journal articles advising doctors not to report injuries to children, a legally mandated policy to protect children, since reporting child abuse would disproportionately harm certain minority children. Why? Because black children suffer physical abuse and neglect at three times the rate of white children, so reporting these injuries might result in punishing black parents. For equity-driven doctors, reporting abuse constitutes medical malpractice. One equity advocate even proposed eliminating the entire child-welfare system since it harms blacks and other minorities by detracting from what is really needed — more and better food, shelter, health care, education, and art. Capitalism, not abusive parents, is the real problem. Anti-poverty programs are the solution to child abuse.
The shift from ending inequality to eliminating the appearances of inequality is predictable. America has spent trillions and enacted countless anti-discrimination laws to achieve racial equality, but with meager results. Significant racial divides remain for illegitimacy, poverty, educational attainment, accumulating financial assets, crime and multiple medical conditions, and the menu of reasonable cures grows smaller. Even relatively draconian solutions such as mandatory racial quotas don’t move the equality needle.
These failures are too large to ignore but openly acknowledging them is currently unspeakable. So, rather than confess failure, just manufacture the illusion of success via promoting equity, This is a policy reminiscent of the Potemkin Villages created by Field Marshal Grigory Potemkin to deceive Russian Empress Catherine II into believing that rural Russia was a paradise. But now, instead of picturesque homes and well-fed, happy peasants, we have elite schools that look “just like America” and cities where crime is, supposedly, on the decline.
Can this manufactured reality endure? Will Americans believe the “new and improved” crime statistics that merely reflect decriminalization and minimal enforcement? Will we believe the equity-driven upbeat statistics about soaring graduation rates and declining school violence in inner city schools? In other words, will the equity campaign work?
Probably not. In today’s world it is hard to hide unpleasant reality given the multiplicity of information sources. Sooner or later, harsh reality seeps out, and the manipulations necessary to sustain the fake utopian vision collapses. Even in the old Soviet dictatorship where truth-telling invited a trip to the gulag, the regime failed to hoodwink its people. In today’s America, most people know that the calling the 2020 George Floyd riots a “mainly peaceful summer of love” is a lie.
Nor will Americans tolerate endless government intervention to level all outcomes. After all, the list of inequalities is almost endless, so achieving equity requires relentless intervention. There will be programs to close the home ownership gap, close gaps in obesity, gaps in longevity, gaps in personal happiness, and myriad others necessary to achieve equity. Eventually, with so many gaps to close, government will increasingly grow all-powerful, hardly what Americans want from government.
The pursuit of equity also assumes that all people are so similar that the government possesses the power to level differences. Can government ensure that there are just as many female as male engineers? Or zero racial differences in athletic performance? The underlying principle of equity — all outcomes can be made equal — is just not credible.
Finally, are these equity-driven subterfuges sustainable? Probably not. What happens in New York if hundreds more black pedestrians are now killed while jaywalking? Recall how elite schools quickly dropped standardized tests in admissions to obscure the low-test scores of blacks and Hispanics. This equity measure failed, and schools returned to “racist” tests like the SAT. Yes, officials can decriminalize shoplifting, but they cannot prevent ransacked businesses from fleeing the city. The vacant stores tell the truth. You can fake graduation rates, but employers will still refuse to hire illiterates.
Kamala Harris and the likeminded champion of equity will fail. No government can close every gap, regardless of the fakery or coercion. Reality is irrepressible, and you cannot substitute fantasy for reality no matter how much power you give government.
Image: RawPixel.com
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