How To Self Destruct And Not Be Aware Of It

... intellectually, that is.

Tracy Jan, whose Twitter bio says she specializes in "race & immigration, thru the lens of $, econ & biz," penned this WaPo thumb-sucker about racial inequalities in Minneapolis where it was immediately retweeted by lots of WaPo luminaries of similar mental wattage. The logical flaw in it is so massive that you only need three small excerpts to illustrate it.

First, Minneapolis has seen terrific economic development and been graced with bountiful and well-intentioned progressive policies aimed at ending racial inequalities. The result was the opposite of what the progs wanted.

(T)he prosperity fueled by the region’s Fortune 500 companies and progressive policies has not translated into economic equality. Instead, the wealth gap between Minneapolis’s largely white population and the city’s black residents has deepened, producing some of the nation’s widest racial disparities in income, employment and homeownership.

OK, so we've now established a negative correlation between progressive policies plus economic growth and black performance. Her solution? More, more, more of the same.

Such disappointments offer cautionary notes for those promising change in Minneapolis and other areas of the country in the aftermath of protests against police brutality and systemic racism — and raise questions about how far the movement to shift funding from police departments to other services can go toward delivering racial justice.

Kind-hearted people have tried their hardest to help blacks in their city and after decades of diligent work, they haven't simply failed, they've made things worse. Tracy thinks the problem is leprechauns systemic racism.

Economists, lawyers and civil rights advocates in the Twin Cities say progressive tax policies could not make up for other aspects of structural racism...

Hmm. I wonder if you could test that hypothesis by looking at cities whose structure cannot suffer from structural racism? Cities like Memphis, St. Louis, Detroit and Baltimore where the leadership structure is almost entirely made up of blacks. Blacks who, presumably, wouldn't be structural racists against their black populations.

Ooh, wait, we can do that! Thanks to the WaPo, we have that data as well! Here are the four worst American cities for violent crime, certainly a marker of performance.

1. Memphis
2. St. Louis
3. Detroit
4. Baltimore

I'll leave it to you to research their political leadership.

In the rest of the essay, Tracy lays out in nauseating detail why Tracy's world view is utter nonsense. Her colleagues at the WaPo apparently subscribe to the same one.

We have the worst news media in history.

I'm hoping for clear skies tonight to take some moon photos with my new camera. I'm really hoping for that so I can share some photography instead of this kind of trash.