Color us baffled!

How about we blame the cops!

We’re back in good ol’ Madison WI from beautiful Los An-gel-EES, the capital of car culture, where the high temperature hit 77 degrees earlier this week and An-gel-EE-noes voted Bernie, just as Madison will do the same on April 7.

We see the snow has receded and Madison kids are still stealing cars. And political leaders are still chasing down taxpayer dollars from guilty white liberals. Which is why the white lab coats at Blaska Policy Werkes recommend reading Steven Elbow’s piece in Wednesday’s Capital Times:

‘None of this has changed’  

“Madison’s racial disparities have gotten worse,
despite decades of reports, task forces and funded programs.”

There’s your sound bite. Pretty much says it. We are put in mind of an old Onion satiric teaser headline: “War-torn Beirut — Would bombing help?” Makes no difference; we got three Madison school board members blaming police. Their names are Nicki Vander Meulen, Ananda Mirilli, and Ali Muldrow.

⇒ See “Unlearning Whiteness in the Madison schools.”

‘It’s baffling, some say’

Elbow runs through the numbers; here are some of them: 

• In 2009 black kids were arrested at a rate 4.7 times that of whites; by 2019, an arrest was 7.4 times more likely to happen to a black kid.
• Population at the detention center is 86% black, up from 73% in 2011.
• Between 2016 and 2019, the number of kids referred for detention for car theft — including passengers — rose from 62 to 312.

“It’s baffling,” the juvenile court administrator is quoted as saying. Sigh.

Throw more guilt on the fire

Good Madison liberals, “some say,” blame that ol’ Debbil Racism.

The problem, some say, is that disparities impact a population that has little political or economic clout. And white people, who control the levers of commerce and government, address only pieces of an interconnected web of issues that include child development, education, economics and criminal justice.

Which is why “several teens” as young as 14 years of age bailed out of the stolen car speeding at 100 mph following the hit-and-run crash on John Nolen Drive about 4:30 p.m. Monday (03-02-2020). Apparently, because we’re not addressing enough of the interconnected pieces.

Which is why mid-afternoon Wednesday “five African American juveniles,” as the police report describes it, were arrested only after their stolen car stopped only because of flat tires and engine failure on Raymond and Verona Roads. They had been traveling “at high rates of speed the wrong way in traffic.” As for those bad guy cops:

Understanding that nearby schools were releasing for the day, a City of Madison Police Sergeant stopped at every crosswalk in the Raymond Road corridor and advised the crossing guards not to allow children to cross the street.

⇒ See also: “Don’t assume 5 teens running from wrecked car had stolen it!”

What’s Madison’s answer?

Teaching responsibility instead of victimhood? Demanding performance, not excuses? 

ARE YOU KIDDING? !!! This is Madison, where the answers are: More money, more baffling programs, more guilt, rinse and repeat. The Capital Times reports:

County officials and local nonprofits are hoping to reverse the trend with a new program that provides intensive mentoring for youthful offenders, which showed promise during a pilot program last year.

At $250,000 from the United Way and $100,000 from the county, the program would serve up to 49 kids — that’s $7,000 a kid for those who didn’t take math. As for the Policy Werkes, we’re siding with a neighbor who ventured, on social media:

If it isn’t stray bullets it is out-of-control 4,000-pound missiles. Next time you vote, consider how many chances a particular judge tends to give juveniles before applying the maximum extent of the law or creatively applies a deterrent.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: To which we can only add: Vote Wayne Strong for school board over Nicki Vander Meulen on April 7. The other two are not up this year, unfortunately.

What do YOU think?