I’ve been sending an occasional post over to Berny Belvedere, Editor-in-Chief of Arc Digital, as my way of contributing to heterodoxy with a little legal twist. Berny’s proven to be an excellent editor, and his efforts have made me sound a lot smarter than I am. One such example went live yesterday evening. Berny wrote the headline.

Criminal Justice Reform Is Not Just About Race

Politicians and activists have been picking the trendiest, not the most just, reason to change the law

This may prove to be not only a very controversial assertion, but one that will engender outrage and screams of racism from the woke. So why do it and test the mob? Because someone from the criminal defense side of the world needs to question the orthodoxy. After all, everyone knows the system is racist. Everybody in your bubble keeps saying so. Academics keep saying so. How could it possibly be otherwise?

As I write, even though it shouldn’t have been necessary, it’s not that racism isn’t pervasive in the criminal law system, even though you might be led to believe that there isn’t a white guy to be found in prison and it’s only the marginalized who end up on the cellblock.

This, of course, is nonsense, although nobody on the left wants to mention it as it undercuts their narrative, but it doesn’t change the fact that the system disproportionately impacts Black and Hispanic men. Yet, that fact, and it is undoubtedly a fact as the numbers don’t lie, does little to help and plenty to harm, from pushing unsound reform to failing to build a consensus of support for sound reform by ignoring why good, smart, strong arguments benefit everyone, without regard to identity or politics.

So, am I wrong? Am I just another foolish Old who doesn’t get it? Or is the echo chamber of progressives patting each other on the back for their exemplary wokeness conflating one problem for another, and by doing so, making it hard, if not impossible, to do the heavy labor of thinking when they would much prefer to scream racism as the answer to all societal ills?

*Tuesday Talk rules apply, even though today is Wednesday.