If minorities disproportionately violate a law, just abolish the law
A new theme running in woke circles is a push to abolish anything that disproportionately affects minorities in a negative way. For example, many woke school boards, such as in Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts, have abolished testing to get into elite public schools because “not enough” minorities were doing well on the tests.
Woke Seattle has now found a novel way to adhere to this view. Since the people cited under the King County (Seattle) bike helmet law were disproportionately minorities, the county decided to scrap the law. As the press release announcing the repeal of the law stated:
“Bike helmets save lives and help prevent serious injuries. A review of several published studies estimates that bike helmets provide a 63-88% reduction in the risk of head and brain injuries for people who ride bikes. As part of the movement to encourage the use of bike helmets, the King County Board of Health passed a law in 1993 requiring anyone riding a bike to wear a helmet. However, data presented to the Board of Health has shown racist and discriminatory enforcement. Seattle Police Department data collected and analyzed by Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and the Helmet Law Working Group shows that police disproportionately gave helmet law citations to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color cyclists… In light of this data, and in alignment with the Board of Health’s declaration of Racism as a Public Health crisis, on February 17, 2022, the Board of Health repealed the King County bike helmet law….”
Interim Director for Public Health for Seattle and King County Dennis Worsham stated:
“When we declared racism a public health crisis, we committed to working closely with BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] communities to promote public policies and practices that ensure better health and safety for all without doing harm to Black and Brown people. The recent action from the Board of Health removes a policy that has resulted in racist enforcement….”
One thing that the press release failed to show was that the law was actually being discriminatorily applied. It merely cited studies that showed that minorities were more likely to be cited under the law; however, disproportionate numbers do not necessarily mean discrimination was the cause. What if, in fact, minorities were more likely to ride a bike without a helmet? The actual truth did not matter. You see, for the woke, if all races and ethnicities are not proportionately represented in anything—whether in a company, in college admissions, or in the application of a bike helmet law—bigotry and discrimination are the only reasons why. There can be no other explanation.
So the fact that a Seattle helmet law was designed to prevent serious head injuries did not matter to county officials; because minorities were more likely to be cited under the law, the law had to go. Better to have more head injuries and more suffering than to have minorities being cited more. This is the insanity that wokeness produces. And thus Western Civilization fell….