More significant than Obama’s underplaying of black criminality, however, is his move to “contextualize” it: “Black folks do interpret the reasons for that [crime rate] in a historical context. We understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country.” Try telling the fiercely law-abiding residents of Central Harlem and the South Bronx that a teen who mugs an elderly lady needs to be understood “in a historical context.” These brave proponents of law and order, who faithfully attend police-community meetings to show support for their cops, know that what leads a young boy to shoot at a rival gang member is not a lynching from a century ago but the breakdown of parental authority and self-control today. The “root causes” excuse for crime undermines the efforts of these heroic urban watchdogs to strengthen bourgeois norms. And even if it were the case that the primary determinant of current black criminality were this country’s despicable history of slavery and segregation, the only people who can overcome that legacy now are blacks themselves, through self-help and personal responsibility. (University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax has forcefully made this point.)

Obama embraces the “racist criminal-justice system” conceit as well: “The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws, everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws.” In fact, the effort in the academy to prove such ongoing racial disparities consistently fails, without denting the zeal with which advocates peddle the poisonous idea.