Heather Mac Donald

Violent crime has been rising sharply in many American cities after two decades of decline. Homicides jumped nearly 17 percent in 2015 in the largest 50 cities, the biggest one-year increase since 1993. The reason is what Heather Mac Donald first identified nationally as the “Ferguson effect”: Since the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, officers have been backing off of proactive policing, and criminals are becoming emboldened. This book expands on Mac Donald’s groundbreaking and controversial reporting on the Ferguson effect and the criminal-justice system. It deconstructs the central narrative of the Black Lives Matter that racist cops are the greatest threat to young black males. On the contrary, it is criminals and gangbangers who are responsible for the high black homicide death rate. The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer use of force and explodes the conceit of “mass incarceration.” A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that “black lives matter” than today’s data-driven, accountable police department. Mac Donald gives voice to the many residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want proactive policing. She warns that race-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. This book is a call for a more honest and informed debate about policing, crime, and race.

美國社會從大學到職場，正處於崩壞的危機當中。有害的觀念正從高等教育機構開始傳播出去，破壞了人文價值觀，使得不包容異議的現象加劇。並在更大的文化規模上，擴大了人們的分歧。喬叟、莎士比亞和彌爾頓的作品竟代表迫害；美國歷史竟算暴政。教授若糾正學生的寫作文法和拼寫方式，或是雇主按自身需求設定聘用標準，竟被認為是種族和性別歧視！這種趨勢若延續下去，等學生進入職場，他們便會相信人們是由膚色、性別和性別取向來定義的，而基於這些特徵的迫害，就是生活在美國的感受。若有人想發表演講，挑戰這些所謂的校園政治正確觀念時，便會遭人使用暴力的方式噤聲。大學原本該是學習場所，如今成了培養受害者的溫床。本書認為，這些問題的根源是，人們堅信美國普遍存在著種族和性別歧視，這種想法已導致社會和學術界的多元化官僚文化如癌細胞一樣惡性擴散。多元化的行政官僚譴責社會重視成就的取向是種歧視，因此在招募學生和人員時，行政官員或公司主管會執行配額制，這等於是在教學生和成人把自己視為永久的受害者。影響所及，從#MeToo的狂熱運動開始，如今曖昧調情和犯罪行為的界線變得模糊不清；更嚴重的是，出現了隱性偏見和多元化這類強制要求的培訓課程，把一般各種的人際互動都解讀成種族歧視。希瑟·麥克‧唐納為此感到憂心，所謂多元的真正意義，應該是建立對話的橋樑，從自身狹隘的視角中走出，擴展自身經驗，但如今卻成為分裂社會、造成對立的藉口。美國正在創造一個心胸狹窄的國家，預設大家會遭受到不公義的情況，而這麼做正危及到美國的競爭優勢，並且為了假性平等而扼殺了真正的多元價值。作者認為，西方文明之所以建立，是透過過往人們一步步奠基的，偉大的作家、作曲家和藝術家遺留下來的經典作品，最能展現這樣的精神和價值，並激勵我們表現出人性最好的一面。本書集結作者數十年來對於這個主題的研究和文章，呼籲人們要減少受害者心態，恢復可以自由地追求真理的傳統，用開放心胸去探索事物和表達觀念，如此發掘出共通的人性。

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, all of the major institutions of American society and culture – from corporations and universities to media and entertainment to the arts and sciences – have embraced the view that the only way to reckon with systemic racism is to ensure equality of outcome. In her brand new book, When Race Trumps Merit, Heather Mac Donald exposes how the application of such a radical theory is not only undermining our academic standards but is poised to cause real harm and damage to society by lowering standards in science and medicine, erasing classic music and art, undermining military preparedness, and compromising the safety of our cities—and will ultimately eradicate Western civilization as we know it.

Critics have attacked the foolishness of some of today's elite thought from many angles, but few have examined the real-world consequences of those ideas. In The Burden of Bad Ideas, Heather Mac Donald reports on their disastrous effects throughout our society. At a Brooklyn high school, students perfect their graffiti skills for academic credit. An Ivy League law professor urges blacks to steal from their employers. Washington bureaucrats regard theft by drug addicts as evidence of disability, thereby justifying benefits. Public health officials argue that racism and sexism cause women to get AIDS. America's premier monument to knowledge, the Smithsonian Institution, portrays science as white man's religion. Such absurdities, Ms. Mac Donald argues, grow out of a powerful set of ideas that have governed our public policy for decades, the product of university faculties and a professional elite who are convinced that America is a deeply unjust society. And while these beliefs have damaged the nation as a whole, she observes, they have hit the poor especially hard. Her reports trace the transformation of influential opinion-makers (such as the New York Times) and large philanthropic foundations from confident advocates of individual responsibility, opportunity, and learning into apologists for the welfare state. In a series of closely reported stories from the streets of New York to the seats of intellectual power, The Burden of Bad Ideas reveals an upside-down world and how it got that way.

Brilliant journalist Heather Mac Donald investigates the workings of the police, the controversy over racial profiling, and the anti-profiling lobby's harmful effects on black Americans.

Undoubtedly the United States needs a liberal and welcoming immigration policy, geared to the needs and interests of the nation. In this urgent new book, three astute observers argue that we have lost control of our southern border, so that the vast majority of our immigrants are now illegal Mexicans. Poor, uneducated, and unskilled, these newcomers add much less to the national wealth than they cost the taxpayers for their health care, the education of their children, and (too often) their incarceration. The Immigration Solution proposes a policy that admits skilled and educated people on the basis of what they can do for the country, not what the country can do for them.

Does your workplace have too few black people in top jobs? It’s racist. Does the advanced math and science high school in your city have too many Asians? It’s racist. Does your local museum employ too many white women? It’s racist, too.After the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, prestigious American institutions, from the medical profession to the fine arts, pleaded guilty to “systemic racism.” How else explain why blacks are overrepresented in prisons and underrepresented in C-suites and faculty lounges, their leaders asked?The official answer for those disparities is “disparate impact,” a once obscure legal theory that is now transforming our world. Any traditional standard of behavior or achievement that impedes exact racial proportionality in any enterprise is now presumed racist. Medical school admissions tests, expectations of scientific accomplishment in the award of research grants, the enforcement of the criminal law—all are under assault, because they have a “disparate impact” on underrepresented minorities.When Race Trumps Merit provides an alternative explanation for those racial disparities. It is large academic skills gaps that cause the lack of proportional representation in our most meritocratic organizations and large differences in criminal offending that account for the racially disproportionate prison population.The need for such a corrective argument could not be more urgent. Federal science agencies now treat researchers’ skin color as a scientific qualification. Museums and orchestras choose which art and music to promote based on race. Police officers avoid making arrests and prosecutors decline to bring charges to avoid disparate impact on minority criminals.When Race Trumps Merit breaks powerful taboos. But it is driven by a sense of alarm, supported by detailed case studies of how disparate-impact thinking is jeopardizing scientific progress, destroying public order, and poisoning the appreciation of art and culture. As long as alleged racism remains the only allowable explanation for racial differences, we will continue tearing down excellence and putting lives, as well as civilizational achievement, at risk.