Yesterday, I wrote about racism being behind the propensity of white to be targeted and jailed for white collar crimes.

As expected, the point seemed to be lost on many, from the emails I received.

It wasn’t about white collar crime. It was about how easy it is to say that racism against whites is to blame. The real point was to mirror the claim that racism is to blame for the proportion of incarcerated blacks.

If you read my post on white collar crime and thought it was illogical, wrong, or even ridiculous, doesn’t the same apply to the argument that blacks are in prison because of racism.

People commit crimes, and when they’re guilty, they go to jail.

If you think the proportion of blacks in jail is racist, I’d first ask, are you really arguing they’re not guilty? Because if you’re saying they’re guilty, but that there aren’t enough whites in jail for similar crimes, then you’re really saying we need much, much more prison space then we have to lock up all of the white people who are getting away with similar crimes.

Because if the blacks in jail are guilty, then the problem isn’t that they’re there or getting caught. The problem is that we’re not catching all of the white people committing similar crimes.

The argument could be that we’re profiling, or more apt to look for blacks committing these crimes while turning a blind eye toward what the white people are up to. But even if you’re profiling, if the people you’re profiling are convicted and found guilty, were you wrong to profile?

Because if you are wrong, then you don’t find crime and no one is going to jail.

There are many questions that critical thinkers should ask about this entire situation, but the one that always leaps to the forefront to me is this: what do we do if it were to turn out that blacks were committing certain types of crimes at a higher rate than any minorities.

Taking an even higher level view: Are we even right to be looking at this as a matter of race? Or should we be looking at it from a nature vs nurture point of view?

I don’t think people are in jail because they’re black. I think it’s because of their behavior. And I think their behavior correlates directly to what they were taught by their parents and early teachers.

If kids aren’t held accountable for their actions from an early age, how are they going to behave when they’re older and in more control?