Clean Jim, Dirty Harry, and Barry the Beer-Drinker
The conservative press lost no time in converting the Henry Louis Gates affair into a morality play that pitted a loose-lipped race-baiting President against a squeaky clean policeman with an excellent record in what is politely termed "minority relations." To cap the list of Sgt. James Crowley's virtues, conservatives triumphantly point to his five-year record at a nearby police academy in "teaching his fellow officers about racial profiling," as our friend Pat Buchanan put it so delicately. What, precisely, does "about racial profiling" mean in Cambridge? It means: how to avoid racial profiling. As the head of academy (alas, his name is Thomas Fleming) explained to the AP, " The course, called "Racial Profiling" teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community "and how you don't want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from."
What is racial profiling, if not an acknowledgment that different racial and ethnic groups are statistically more likely than other groups to engage in different sorts of illegal behavior. The Irish, who have a genetic weakness for alcohol, are too prone to get into fights, while Sicilians and South Italians have demonstrated an amazing ability to organize extortion, protection, prostitution, and gambling rackets. When O.J. Simpson kills a white woman or engages in other violent acts, he is simply living up to a statistical stereotype that informs us that African Americans, who make up less than 15% of the population, commit roughly 50% of violent crimes. And, O.J. is as exemplary a representative of his group's criminality as Bernie Madoff, John Gotti, Mohammed Atta, and Joaquin "El Chapo" Loera Guzman (a billionaire Mexican drug lord who made the exclusive Forbes list in 2009) are of theirs.
Obviously, most Sicilians are not crime lords and most Jews are not international swindlers. One has even heard of Jews who murder their wives and Mexicans who swindle investors. "And WASPS, what about WASPS?" some of you are undoubtedly asking. Their crimes are often on as massive a scale as Madoff's and usually papered over with hypocritical justifications, such as patriotism or democratic human rights or the free market. I suppose it is enough to mention such names as Jim Fisk and Jay Gould, Warren Harding and Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Dick Cheney to suggest the astonishing range and success of Anglo-Saxon American villainy. But police departments and insurance companies must both take account of ethnicity—along with sex, age, class, education—in drawing up general policies. Young white male high school dropouts tend to get into automobile accidents more often than middle-aged Asian female professors, and the New York police would be ill-advised to crack down on Upper West Side Jewish stockbrokers, when they are searching for someone who knocked over a liquor store.
To defend the public, police departments have to practice ethnic profiling. To the extent they refuse to profile, they are failing in their duty, though I like to think that in cities less enlightened than Cambridge, all this repudiation of ethnic profiling is so much political rhetoric. But even this rhetoric has a demoralizing effect on the American people. It is also dangerous. The news media will tell us everything that is known about a serial killer—except his race and (if he is Muslim) religion. The local "Crime Stopper" will often tell you to "be on the look out for" a male in his mid twenties, medium build, dark hair, etc., without ever mentioning his race. How in the world are we supposed to protect ourselves, if we don't know whom to look for? The simple answer is that the people who run police departments—I do not speak of the officers themselves—often do not care. Race is only a factor when the victim is black. There would have been no "Gates Gate" if the tenured faculty member had been a straight white Christian male—the rarest of rare minorities on an Ivy League faculty. Too many police departments today are more interested in shielding us from the truth. As a result, they refuse to protect us from the ugly reality of violent crime.
One of the more obtrusive consequences of the campaign against racial profiling is the inconvenience to which passengers are subjected in airports. Mohammed Atta's more radical brother, dressed in turban and robes, can sail through security, while TSA gives the business to a sweet old lady from Alabama or—and this happened to a group of kids I was taking to France—a home-schooled girl who dressed like a refugee from the 1950's.
Inspector Harry Callahan would not have shrunk from ethnic profiling, nor would he have gone to the White House to sip a Belgian brewski with a man who had slandered him and then refused to make an actual apology. Obama took a page out of the Clinton book when he spoke about "calibrating" his remarks—a phrase as dishonest as it is illiterate. Sure, Harry Callahan is a fictional character made up by Don Siegel and his writers, but he represented something real in American cops of earlier times. He had the guts to stand up not only to criminals but to all the corrupt effeminates who are in charge of the criminal justice system. He constantly put his life and career in danger because he cared about protecting the public, which is why, as his Mexican-American partner comes to realize, he is called Dirty Harry. " Now I know why they call him 'Dirty' Harry. He gets the sh-t end of the stick every time."
Clean Jim Crowley is cut from another cloth. He may be the finest officer in Cambridge, in Massachusetts, in the whole United States, but in promoting racial sensitivity and opposing racial profiling, he is defending a leftist political system and not the citizens of America who are robbed, raped, and murdered by "ethnically diverse" criminals. I have witnessed, up close and personal, what happens when white people make the mistake of trying to defend themselves from black criminals and fight back. If the officers on the scene are black—or as racially sensitive as Sgt. Crowley—it is the victims who may be arrested. At best it is, as one officer told me, a "he said/he said" situation. The best advice I have received from the police is to install alarms and security cameras in my house.
I know there are still plenty of good cops in our country. Some of them even read Chronicles. But if Clean Jim Crowley can be praised as among the best police officers America has to offer, we might be better off without police departments. We could keep the money we spend on their inflated salaries and benefits and invest in private security agencies that will work for us instead of for governments that do not care, literally, whether we live or die.
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All I can say about Sgt. Crowley is that if he's an expert in profiling, then I'm wondering why he thought an old black man with white beard and a cane was a burgler? Strange.
Of course that excuse the neighbor who works for Harvard's PR department and apparently couldn't even recognize one the school's more notable professors on his own front porch.
And what monsterous crimes did Warren Harding ever commit? Yes he imbibed whisky despite Prohibition and had affairs. And yes he surrounded himself with crooks like Harry Daughtery and Albert Fall who were largely behind Teapot Dome. But I don't recall him being personnally corrupt, deveious, or someone to be put on the same wretched plate as Dick Cheney or Robert McNamara.
burglar...pardon my spelling error.
Please do not put words like "monstrous" in a writer's mouth. Despite the current libertarian/conservative rage to glorify Harding, he was a man of low character who rewarded political cronies--the so-called "Ohio Gang"--with jobs that permitted them to loot the country. Not to blame him directly for this would be like exempting George Bush from any responsibility for Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz. Ohio Republicans like Grant, Harrison, McKinley were generally disastrous. But, since Harding is not the subject of this piece, I am not going to waste any time repeating what decent people like fellow-Ohioan Louis Bromfield among many others--said about Harding. That such a low character could be elected president is all that needs to be said about American democracy. Frankly, the name of most any President of the 20th or 21st century would fill the bill.
"African Americans, who make up less than 15% of the population, commit roughly 50% of violent crimes."
In fact most of those crimes are carried out by young black males, comprising perhaps 3% of the American population. The remaining 97% doesn't know what to do. Odd.
I suspect Massachusetts will now create "Jim Crowley" laws to discourage racial profiling.
The continuing plethora of opinions and judgments about the Crowley/Gates encounter by non-witnesses continues to amuse me.
“African Americans, who make up less than 15% of the population, commit roughly 50% of violent crimes.”
White boys who are prone to violence join the military or the police force, where their actions aren't counted as violent crimes -- but should be.
I don't follow the logic. First, perhaps one might suggest that a crime is not a crime when the action is legal? Second, the argument rests on the fallacious supposition that all ethnic groups are equally prone to violence and to violence of the same type. All the available evidence suggests quite the contrary.
"Ohio Republicans like Grant, Harrison, McKinley." Don't forget Garfield, even more crooked than the rest.
Crowley probably took the "scholar" Gates into custody because he had been trained to be especially protective of Harvard celebrities, i.e., for his own good. Imagine if someone else had made a similar disturbance near Gates's residence and the policeman had not made an arrest. He would have again been guilty of racism---not protecting the black celebrity.
By the way, who was that other guy? And where was the mysterious Mrs. Gates? Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a clue to her identity or existence.
Garfield had been in office for about four months, I believe, when he was shot, never to recover from his wounds. That did not leave him a great deal of time to play the scoundrel in the White House. He did, as I recall, preside over the court martial of Lincoln's war criminal cossack, JB Turchin, and overruled the majority that wanted an acquittal. Besides, he could write Latin and Greek simultaneously. He may not have been much of a classicist, but it is a wonderful parlor trick. He was, i is true, implicated in the Credit Mobilier scandal, but I don't know to what extent he was guilty. On the other hand, he was an attorney who defended the defendants in the Ex parte Milligan case against pro-Confederate northerners. He must have been a crook or he would not have made it in the Republican Party.
Well, I don't follow your logic either, Dr Fleming. I did not assert that all ethnic groups are equally prone to violence, so I don't know who you're responding to with that comment.
As for your comment about the "legality" of military or police violence, I'm surprised to see you taking what appears to a positivistic tack. Surely "crime" can be understood with reference to higher standards of justice?
A) Crime is not ordinarily a moral but a legal term. We can only use the language we have inherited. Something may be quite wrong without being a crime, but a soldier who obeys lawful orders is usually not even unusually immoral, except in the Byzantine tradition. As I have pointed out elsewhere, a conscript (to take the extreme case) is not permitted to disobey orders unless they are completely contrary to his inherited moral tradition, as in, "Go rape that woman."
B) The only conceivable reason for making the counter-factual statement that young white males are as violent as young blacks is the assumption that there is no racial or ethnic variation in violent propensity, and this assumption is further buttressed by the assumptions that 1) a significant number of violence white males enter the police of military and 2) that boldness is necessarily a bad thing. A young Mick who gets in fights is not at all the same thing as a gang-banger.
For these conversations to have any utility at all--and I fear they do not--it is necessary to think through one's assumptions before making broad generalizations.
I doubt that there is such a thing as conservative press anymore.
Obama used this opprtunity to send a message. The message is, that those that he wants to be in charge, the new ruling elite, although they appear to be in charge, like Mr. Gates, are not empowered yet. The second part of the message is that more community organizing and strife is needed to defeat the past. That past would be us, the conservatives. Thus we have to be careful in our response. If we as conservatives right now find faults with law and order issues including racial profiling, with past presidents and vice presidents, past corrupt northern white protestant politicians, southern democrats etc., we are only setting ourselves up to be the useful idiots for the current rampaging marxist enemy. instead, We need to point out how marxists are wrong. After we defeat them, we will have plenty of time to ponder about our own failings during the next republican administration. As for the seargent involved in this affair, he played it cool and that is why he will be allowed to keep his job.
And at the "beer summit" only the rozzer had the nerve to quaff a decent brew -- Blue Moon. The two soul brothers wimped out with lite beers. For shame! They probably wanted a Mickey's Malt Liquor or maybe a Steel Reserve 211, but cameras were watching and they couldn't afford living up to the stereotypes. If I was Crowley I'd have ordered Popeye's and a slice of watermelon just to be a tool.
I forgot to mention Joe "the Plagiarist" Biden opted for Buckler non-alcoholic barley pop. How the Democratic Party has fallen. Cigars were not involved at all. Ah, life in the Gelded Age!
Mr. Gervaise @ 16
Your words:
"....If I was Crowley I’d have ordered Popeye’s and a slice of watermelon just to be a tool."
I fried chicken just tonight and ate one of the best watermelons I have ever had, a big dark green "cannon ball." Soul and Southern are awfully close. I doubt that Officer Crowley wanted to take the chance that he might be "seen" as a Southerner By the way, my dog, Beau, eats fried chicken and watermelon, which further complicates things.
"White boys who are prone to violence join the military or the police force, where their actions aren’t counted as violent crimes — but should be."
May we then add to that 50% of violent crimes committed the additional percentage carried out by black children who have joined the military and/or police force? Be warned - that just might bring the total up close to, say, 80%.
Corky writes:
"White boys who are prone to violence join the military or the police force, where their actions aren’t counted as violent crimes — but should be."
Huh? If a soldier or sailor commits a rape, robbery or murder they certainly are counted as violent crimes. And as a veteran I can tell you that the racial dynamics of crime in the Army are the same as in society at large.
"But if Clean Jim Crowley can be praised as among the best police officers America has to offer, we might be better off without police departments. We could keep the money we spend on their inflated salaries and benefits and invest in private security agencies that will work for us instead of for governments that do not care, literally, whether we live or die."
Right. And get yourself and your kinfolk some guns and learn how to use them, safely but effectively.
Also, as a cop once advised, if you have to use a gun defend your home, make sure when the authorities arrive they hear only one story.
Some good advice from Charley Reese -- who unfortunately retired a year ago:
"The best self-defense tactic is to avoid putting yourself in a position where you will need to shoot. The majority of violent crimes are committed in certain neighborhoods. You know where they are. Stay out of them. Don't mope about looking vulnerable. Secure your home and secure your car. You don't have to be grim to be alert.
"Two more points: Before you buy a gun for self-defense, make sure you are psychologically prepared to take a human life. That's not a minor thing. Death is irrevocable. There are always consequences. If you aren't prepared to deal with them, then you're better off buying pepper spray and a pair of running shoes.
"Secondly, learn to use your gun. That means lots of practice. If an attack comes, it will come unexpectedly and suddenly, and you won't have time to fumble around wondering where the safety catch is. Always shoot to kill."
(From the column, "Arm Yourself.")
I don't think Diry Harry would have drank a Belgian beer. He strikes me as an extra stout sort of fellow.
4 Comment by tito perdue on 5 August 2009:
“African Americans, who make up less than 15% of the population, commit roughly 50% of violent crimes.”
In fact most of those crimes are carried out by young black males, comprising perhaps 3% of the American population. The remaining 97% doesn’t know what to do. Odd.
The Mohammedan world took 10 times more black African slaves than did the European world. They made eunuchs of at least 95% of the black makes, including the half-black sons of black women and Arab/Turkish men. They never had a black crime problem.
Thanks to Bernie for an additional clarification I had failed to make. Crimes committed by soldiers are routinely punished. Service in an unjust war is not a crime, because the soldier did not make the decision to go to war. Mercenaries are morally obliged, however, to judge the justice of the cause they serve, and while one might apply that standard to men who volunteer for the sake of the money and career training, it is unrealistic to assume that an 18 year old American has a clue as to what is going on in Iraq or the Balkans. It is the President, his cabinet, and the Congress who should be blamed, not the poor devils sent to do the dirty work.
"...it is unrealistic to assume that an 18 year old American has a clue as to what is going on in Iraq or the Balkans..."
What about the military academy-trained pilots of the fighter bombers who drop ordinance on, say, passenger trains or civilian infrastructure?
This is a difficult question. One might say, generally, that a man with a degree who embraces a profession has an obligation to understand the rights and wrongs about what he is doing. I wonder how many do? I think one can also distinguish between wars of national survival, as WW II, and wars undertaken for some strategic objective, however laudable. While the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima was quite wrong, it is also important to note that the Germans and Japanese also fought dirty and posed a serious threat. What threat to Americans was posed by the people of Novi Sad riding to work in the morning when the US Air Force bombed their bridges? I saw on televsion an interview with a young Navy boopsie who pushed buttons to send missiles. She explained it was not her job to think about where the missiles actually went or whom they killed. What would say of someone who fired off machine gun rounds at random into a crowd? So, yes, I see your point exactly. But even the best educated officers I have met, with only exception (Jim Stockdale), seemed to have no moral understanding of what they were doing. Perhaps, though, ignorance is not so much an excuse as a condemnation of a nation of moral imbecilles.
PS I have a Catholic friend, retired officer who served in Vietnam. He says alternately that the CIA did not get into the drug business but, besides, they were justified under the circumstances, because Congress was spoiling their dirty ops. This is a man with a PhD in the humanities and is well-read in Catholic theology.
This establishes a "slippery slope" of morality, does it not? One man's (nation's) war of "strategic objective" is another man's (nation's) war of "survival". American survival was not threatend by the American war on Iraq, but the view was very different from those on the receiving end of the missiles. Would this example than justify, say, an opponent's unleashing of bombings of financial centers across the US in order to stall a war against his nation whose very survival he saw threatened? Or, should we just conclude that war is ONLY justified as a defense of survival or act to bring to justice culprits of EXPLICIT crimes? Otherwise the very act is a crime and its executors criminals?
I fear I did not express myself clearly enough. I was not distinguishing between just and unjust wars but between unnecessary wars, whether just or not, and wars in which defeat brings subjugation or even annihilation. Of course the Iraq war is both unjust and unnecessary. My point was only that I can understand why both sides in WW II committed atrocities. I can also understand why Iraqis, attacked by a superpower, resort to terrorism. What I do not fathom is the American justification for atrocities committed in a war whose loss would only cost us money and prestige but would pose no threat to our survival.
I think we were getting at the same point. Neither can I fathom the final point you make, other than its orchestration by evil men.
#6 Ninety-five percent of what any intelligent human being knows is NOT what he witnessed first hand. A cow on the other hand knows only what she has witnessed.
Dr. Fleming, @26: "I saw on televsion an interview with a young Navy boopsie who pushed buttons to send missiles."
Aside from everything else, only in a completely perverse nation would young girls have such a killer's job, even if they are sitting in an air-conditioned room in Tampa while doing it.
What Mr. Fleming says about profiling is true.
But Crowley could not have a job on a police force if he
had said the same thing when he was being interviewed for a job.
I don't know what Crowley might have said on the subject of profiling when he was talking to rookie cops in the class he taught. He might have said, accurately enough, that "profiling is a bit of garbage that we have to pay lip service to, but in practice we have to notice and communicate to other law enforcement officers any feature that will help identify a person who is suspected of committing a crime."
Back before political correctness kicked in, these were the very kind of things that officers on "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blues" said.
#1 "All I can say about Sgt. Crowley is that if he’s an expert in profiling, then I’m wondering why he thought an old black man with white beard and a cane was a burgler? Strange."
Actually, this is a perfect example of NOT profiling. And warning police not to profile was what he taught.
@31
"...of what any intelligent human being knows..." (emphasis added)
Was "polemiscat" there? Does he(?) know exactly what was said during this unrecorded conversation, by whom to whom else, with what tone of voice and under what circumstances etc. etc.? Hate to tell "polemiscat" this, but the opinion of a hypothetical bovine witness and his own--in re what actually happened in Crowley/Gates--have equal standing. In fact, in a courtroom, I'd lean toward the cow's account.
Having thus opined about others' opinions re an event none, that I know of, were present at, I hereby award "polemiscat" a golden opportunity to demonstrate that he was an eye and ear-witness to Crowley/Gates.
Moooooooo!
Imagine you come out of a theater with your wife and daughter late at night. You are in the middle of the block, and your car is parked a block over. You can either go left and around, or right and around to get to it. At the left corner is a group of young black males, and at the right corner is a group of elderly oriental women. Which way do you go?
Congratulations! You just profiled for RACE, SEX AND AGE.
Bookem' Dr.Fleming!!!! As one of 3500 police officers of a major southwestern city (Phoenix), with 25 years street experience, I'm a glad to read this outstanding piece by Dr. Fleming. What Law Enforcement has turned into since the start of my career with regards to "race" is at best a political joke; at worst criminal. Of course, it started long before I put on a blue uniform and that is the result no doubt of the influence of the Left and idiocy of teaching "Criminal Justice" instead of enforcing it. No self-respecting street cop, whether white, black, red, yellow, or polka dot is ignorant of the debacle when it comes to race-we all see and experience it. What I could tell you about the drop in the crime rate in my city and the correlation with the exodus of illegals would astonish even the readers of Chronicles. Of course, this is never mentioned in the local Gannet rag; instead the public is treated to a never-ending barrage of sad stories about those forced to leave the state because of the new employer sanction laws, and that bad, mean ol' Sheriff Joe Arpaio; perhaps a ham to be sure, but at least a cop enforcing the laws. Your right Doc, Harry would have never put up with it!
The present article is an example of why I visit this site daily. Dr. Fleming cuts right to the core of the issue without paying obeisnace to the liberal gods. I can only imagine the gnashing of teeth form other quarters. Har! I love it!
Thanks, Pete, for the kind words. I don't like criticizing the police, because of men like you. You should have been at this year's Summer School. McGrath celebrated the Texas Rangers, while I wnet over the records of John Wesley Hardin, Wyatt Earp, and Jesse James. There was more blood spilled than in a Korean revenge film.
Anbd thanks to MAP. I had been mulling over the subject, on the way to Greece, but the good news about the Weekly Standard deflected me.
"Please do not put words like “monstrous” in a writer’s mouth"
Fair enough and your arguments about Harding's responsibility in surrounding himself with crooked fellows ala Bush II surrounding himself with Cheney and Rumsfeld is a good point as well. However the WASP's you listed from "Jim Fisk and Jay Gould, Warren Harding and Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Dick Cheney" run the gamut from the crooked to the truly monsterous and evil. I myself don't put all such persons on the same plane when considering what they've done.
I think the efforts to rehab Harding among conservatives and libertarians is a function of lack of any other credible alternatives in the office. (While libertarians don't like his support of tariffs at least it was a constitutional function.) After they have finished bashing Lincoln and FDR, the conversation often goes something like this: "Well then who do you like?"
I think there is a bit of shock value and contrarianism as well associated with dropping Harding’s name after bashing Lincoln and FDR that some libertarians relish.
"Perhaps, though, ignorance is not so much an excuse as a condemnation of a nation of moral imbecilles."
I prefer the term coined by Southern novelist James Lee Burke, "morally retarded". It fits many politicians and a quite a few modern policemen.
"Back before political correctness kicked in, these were the very kind of things that officers on “Hill Street Blues” and “NYPD Blues” said."
'Hill St. Blues'wgich ran in the early 1980s may have been before PC completely took over, but 'NYPD Blue' was thoroughly PC. Recently, there was an HBO series, "The Wire" which tended to show the hypocrisy of PC politicians. That series was also good at illustrating how cops and criminals had more in common with each other than either group did with the citizenry.
The flower symbolism associated with tulips is fame and perfect love. The symbolic meanings also change with the color of the tulips. Red tulips mean "believe me" and are a declaration of love. Variegated tulips mean "you have beautiful eyes." Yellow tulips mean "there's sunshine in your smile." And cream colored tulips mean "I will love you forever." Tulips are the foremost national symbol of Holland, rivaling wooden shoes and windmills!
Gates sent tulips to the neighbor who called the rozzers. Maybe he's smarter than I originally gave him credit for. Or maybe he just wants to do her!
#43 "‘Hill St. Blues’wgich ran in the early 1980s may have been before PC completely took over, but ‘NYPD Blue’ was thoroughly PC. Recently, there was an HBO series, “The Wire” which tended to show the hypocrisy of PC politicians. That series was also good at illustrating how cops and criminals had more in common with each other than either group did with the citizenry."
Mr. Roberts, you are probably right about the differences between the two police programs I cited. PC grew through the years. I do remember in one or the other that the cops tried to get around the Miranda ruling and also tried to get information from suspects before they were told they had a right to have an attorney.
I haven't seen the HBO series, "The Wire." Sounds interesting. I'm convinced that audiences in early movies and television ---in identifying with the police --- often approved of tactics that were less than fair and legal. The series "Mission Impossible" had as its basic thesis that justice could not be achieved through legal means. So in every episode the "known" criminals were deprived of their rights and were deceived and even psychologically tortured. Another of the same kind was the "A Team." Even in "Oklahoma" the kangaroo court at the end gave a less-than-full inquiry into the death of Judd.
All of this is to say, justice is always a little imperfect and sometime very imperfect. But knowledge of that fact cannot persuade civilized society to abandon the attempt to bring about justice in each case. As Kant says the good will is not good because of what it accomplishes or because of its adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of its willing.
Re "Hill Street Blues" et al. (with apologies to the late Rod Serling):
Submitted for your consideration: Dirty Harry Callahan and Mick Belker as partners.
Now there's a "crossover" match made in PC Hell!
When it comes to police shows on TV the worst are Fox' additions to the low-budget line-up: AMW and COPS. The purpose of these shows is to soften the blow of the ever-expanding police state. AMW often reminds me of the scene in Fahrenheit 451 where the red Jag drove through the neighborhood telling subjects to be on the lookout.
And now Little Smoking Barry and his toadies have established a snitch website that disgruntled voters can use to turn in their neighbors who don't like the health care scam. I suggest you visit your neighborhood library and enter names found on tombstones in your local cemetary so that they will be rightfully stricken from the voter rolls.
Let's play this up for all it's worth and have some anti-federal fun while we're at it.
The best police TV show was Barney Miller.
Several weeks ago I set my alarm off. The police arrived.They asked to see my identification.I showed it to them.They left.
Mr. Kenny, I do not believe "the planters" as a class are guilty as you charge, though some small percentage doubtless deserve condemnation. Remember, this is the class that essentially founded the U.S. and produced most of the greatest Americans. You are repeating what was largely an envious abolitionist fantasy. The greatest concentration of mixed bloods is in the North and the greatest concentration of pure bloods in the South, especially the rural South. Gates's mix apparently came from town dwellers on the margins of the South (West Virginia), not from the plantation region.