On Sunday, Jessica McBride had a great post on Eugene Kane, and his failure to accept the truth when it’s coming the sources. Eugene Kane is a liberal columnist for the Journal Sentinel, who is always moaning about the injustice and racism in the world. Nothing is ever the fault of the individual. It is always the fault of the cruel, cruel world, which is run completely by racists.

Kane’s column on Saturday focused on his visit to a youth prison. In typical Kane style, we don’t start off by acknowledging that the boys in this prison have committed serious crimes. Nope. It’s the fault of the racist system:

Wisconsin is among the top states in the country when it comes to locking up black men. The rate is 10.6 times the rate for white men, according to a report last month by The Sentencing Project, a non-profit advocacy group. That’s the kind of recognition that earned us the title of “Ten Worst Places to Be Black” from a national online publication a few years ago.

The youth inmates told Kane about being in prison and he wrote:

Most times, I try to keep my message upbeat (after all, prison officials invited me to say something positive) but during a visit last month to the Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility, a comment from an inmate floored me.

He talked about his younger brother, who actually considered it a badge of honor to have an older sibling in prison.

“It’s like he looks up to me because I’m in here,” he said, clearly disturbed. “I want to tell him, ‘You wouldn’t think that way if you were in here.’ “

Sounds to me like this inmate understands exactly why he is in prison. It’s not because of a racist system. It is because of a problem in a culture that glorifies prison. And it takes a child to point this out to Kane?

Yet Kane instead chooses to focus the rest of his column on the racist system:

Black guys commit more crimes than anybody else, end of story.

But it’s really not that simple, no matter how many people want it to be true.

When black people make up only 6% of the Wisconsin population but 45% of the prison population, the only people who actually believe African-Americans are the only ones using illegal drugs, stealing property, driving drunk or committing violent crimes must be convinced black folks are truly a demon spawn.

But if you reject the racist position that blacks are more criminally inclined than other people, the numbers do suggest the criminal justice system somehow finds it much easier to send black guys to prison, which is essentially what many speakers at a series of community forums have told the commission members all over the state.

One thing that contributes to the disparity is racial profiling by law enforcement, which many insist doesn’t exist even as it remains a nagging reality for many minorities.

I think the community at large wants criminals to take responsibility for their actions. And when one does (a child no less), liberals like Kane ignore it and still scream “racism.”