“…if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”

Bill Bennett, on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show, 09/28/05

Statement by Rev. Timothy McDonald
Senior Pastor, First Iconium Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia
Board Member, African American Ministers Leadership Council

How many people are using Bill Bennett’s book to teach their children about virtue? Let’s hope there weren’t too many children listening to Bennett’s radio show on Tuesday, where they would have heard Bennett basically equating black people with criminals. Bill Bennett needs to learn that making offensive racial generalizations is no virtue. And we need to teach our own children that just because someone talks a lot about the values we hold dear or quotes the Scripture we revere doesn’t mean that he’s someone to look up to, admire and trust. Unfortunately, Bill Bennett and his buddies on the radical right give us plenty of material for that lesson.