Armand wrote a piece on Hillary Clinton’s efforts to re-grant voting rights to felons. This is an issue of particular interest to Democrats, some argue, because a disproportionate number of convicted felons are black males, who often (but not always) lean toward the Democratic party.

Armand suggested the following:

“If black males are committing more felonies (by number and/or rate), then they ought to be convicted at a proportionally higher number/rate; however, if that is not the case - the racism is in the Courts, not in the laws stripping felons of their right to vote. Racism must be addressed when and where it exists… not where it’s secondary and tertiary effects are finally revealed.”

Is it right that felons give up their right to vote for life? I’m not sure. Presumably, once a felon has served his time and is returned to society, I’m not sure why he wouldn’t be able to vote again. It seemed a little surprising to me the first time I heard about the voting restriction. Nevertheless, this is the system we currently have. If it’s wrong, it needs to be addressed. But you can’t commit a crime then argue how unfair the punishment is.

Armand says, “If people are concerned with voting, perhaps they shouldn’t commit felonies. Ever.”

To this, Dave said:

“If blacks would like to maintain their right to be on the voting rolls they should make sure that white cops, judges, and district attorneys do not charge them with any felonies.”

Dave then went on to suggest that Armand’s views represented the views of a racist.

But wait a second…let’s think about this issue for a minute. I have no intention of trying to take sides here, but if we’re going to play the race card, let’s play it all the way out.

I think Armand is correct when he says, if black males are committing more felonies (by number and/or rate), then they ought to be convicted at a proportionally higher number/rate. I think that if whites are committing more felonies, then they should have more convictions. But who is committing more? It’s virtually impossible to know. We can look up statistics that show who is accused and who is convicted, but there is no quick tab on who’s actually committing the crime. If we knew that, there would be little use for juries.

Armand’s statement fails to take into account whether black males find themselves in a more desperate economic status than their white counterparts. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that some of them are. Even so, this doesn’t give them an excuse to commit a crime, no matter how desperate they are. We are all expected to live under the same rules.

Dave states that blacks who want to maintain their right to vote should make sure that white cops, judges and district attorneys do not charge them with any felonies.

Being charged with a felony doesn’t remove one’s right to vote. Being convicted does. In a trial, there should be evidence presented to confirm the guilt of the accused. In other words, anyone can be accused. Evidence determines the guilt or innocence. This is not to say that there isn’t racism in the legal system. I’m sure there is…because racism is everywhere.

But Dave’s comment, when read between the lines, contains a few other suggestions that should be addressed.

Do white cops, judges and district attorneys only charge black people? Do they never charge white people?

Are black men who are charged by white cops, judges and district attorneys always innocent and find themselves being accused by whites just because of their skin color?

Do black cops, judges and district attorneys ever charge black men with felonies?

Do black cops, judges and district attorneys only charge white men?

This brings us to a bigger problem: assuming that there is racism in the system, how do we fix it?

Do we ignore a crime committed by a black male because blacks are already convicted more often?

Do we only search for white criminals until we have a 50/50 split in prisons?

Do we sentence white people convicted of felonies to stiffer penalties because black people have historically been sentenced to stiffer penalties in the past?

Do we split the justice system along racial lines, so that white criminals will only be dealt with by white cops, judges and district attorneys and black criminals will only be dealt with by black cops, judges and district attorneys?

It seems to me that any of those scenarios are racist, too. If we’re looking to correct a problem, it seems that we should be looking to make the problem go away, not as problematic on the other side.

If we’re going to play the race card, assuming that because more black men are convicted of felonies than white men, the system must be racist, are we not being as racist to assume that a black man will only be accused by a white person or that any black person who is accused by a white person is being accused solely because he is black?

Does one sweeping generality make another sweeping generality true?

How do we really fix the problem?