Dr. Phil Gives 'Defund the Police' Activist an On-Air Wake-Up Call: 'That Is the Reality in Which We Live'
Dr. Phil McGraw shut down an anti-police activist who blamed society — not criminals — for skyrocketing lawlessness across the United States.
In a nutshell, leftist writer and activist Mychal Denzel Smith played the overused race card and infantilized criminals, suggesting the reason they rob, beat and kill people is socioeconomic “inequalities” rooted in racism.
“When I say, ‘Oh, I don’t believe there’s a role for, that there’s a need for police,’ what I’m saying is that there has been so little investment in creating the conditions under which police would not be necessary,” Smith said on Friday’s episode of the “Dr. Phil” show.
“People are the creations of the society in which they live in,” he continued.
“And if you are a society that has such massive inequality, and you are a society that is based on racial and gender hierarchies, and you are a society that deprives people of the resources that they need to live — talking about housing, clean water, food, all of these things that are part of an equitable society — you’re talking about people that will do desperate things in order to survive.”
This is a laughable argument. There are countless instances of criminals shoving random commuters off subway platforms or viciously attacking them for no apparent reason.
Smith added, “You’re not solving anything by arresting those people. You’re not solving anything by shooting and killing those people.”
Dr. Phil agreed that society must do more to prevent criminality before it occurs, but he said defunding the police is not a viable solution. Neither is not holding criminals accountable for their actions.
“I agree with you 100 percent on society’s failures about how that person became a criminal,” McGraw said.
“My point is that we also live in the here and now, and if someone invades my home and has my wife held hostage in the bedroom tonight, I don’t give two [bleeped] about where they came from tonight,” he said. “What I care about is a solution tonight.”
The clinical psychologist added: “That doesn’t mean that we don’t need to solve the problem so my grandchildren don’t get held hostage in their bedrooms 20 years from now.”
“But when you say we don’t need police because of ‘developmental failures,’ that doesn’t solve the problems that are occurring tonight, tomorrow night, the next night,” he said. “Those things have to be dealt with.”
The audience erupted into applause when McGraw said that.
Smith, however, suggested this was an irrational response.
“I hear you. That is the fear that continues to drive us toward more policing though,” he said.
Dr. Phil interjected: “No, that is the reality in which we live. That’s not a fear. Fear is the anxiety or anticipation of something that may happen. What I’m describing is something that is happening. And we have to have guardrails. We have to have someone to turn to. We have to have someone on the end of 911.”
Essentially, Smith was urging for police to be defunded because they’re racist and target black people.
This is the same harebrained argument that the Black Lives Matter organization — which led the “defund the police” movement that resulted in catastrophic crime spikes nationwide — has repeatedly made.
Of course, this absurd race-hustling contention completely ignores crime statistics.
In 2018, white people committed 12,794 rapes. That’s a rate of 6 per 100,000. A comparable rate for black people would yield 2,640 rapes.
There were 5,376.
— Leonydus Johnson (leave/me/alone) (@LeonydusJohnson) June 4, 2020
In 2018, white people committed 184,527 aggravated assaults. That’s a rate of 93 per 100,000. A comparable rate for black people would yield 40,920 aggravated assaults.
There were 100,393.
— Leonydus Johnson (leave/me/alone) (@LeonydusJohnson) June 4, 2020
With such massive disparities in crime rates, why on earth would you expect there to be no disparities anywhere else? It makes no sense.
Sources:
White population: ~197 million
Black population: ~44 millionhttps://t.co/eoFBC6AcJYFBI UCR 2018https://t.co/2uLari9j39
— Leonydus Johnson (leave/me/alone) (@LeonydusJohnson) June 4, 2020
Dr. Phil’s other guest, former Seattle police chief Carmen Best, said she doesn’t believe racism or policing cause criminality.
Best — who is black — also shut down Smith’s implication that “racist” police are targeting black people by noting the rigorous recruiting process for law enforcement officers that results in a diverse police force.
“I don’t think that you can just land all those racial issues and put them on the police department itself because police departments recruit from society,” she said. “In fact, I would argue that there are much more stringent vetting of police officers than, say, your schoolteachers, your medical doctor, your bus driver, your postal worker.”
Best’s observation is correct.
The police chiefs for many of the biggest U.S. cities — including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Francisco, Houston and Atlanta — are black.
Incidentally, there have been massive crime spikes in these Democrat-run cities even though many of them are led by black mayors and legislators.
At some point, we all have to accept responsibility for our own actions and stop blaming others.
No society — or individual — can survive or thrive if the go-to excuse for everything is the hackneyed race/victim card.
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