It's racist...but is it true?

If you haven't heard about the Bill Bennett controversy, here's a short summary: Bill Bennett, claiming that positive social side effects of abortion are no justification for abortion, stated his belief that:

"If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

Most of the controversy has focused on Bennett's racism - the fact that he seems to believe that black babies are somehow destined to lead more criminal lives. But think for a moment...is his claim true?

If black people suddenly vanished from the U.S., would the crime rate go down? Not necessarily. Yes, black people commit most kinds of crime at higher rates than other races in the U.S. But it seems possible that the crime rate would rise among other racial groups, keeping the overall crime rate steady. With America's traditional underclass gone, other groups might "pick up the slack." So Bennett is wrong when he says that aborting black babies would definitely decrease the crime rate.

Also, by making such a statement, he showed that he believes that race is more of a predictor of criminal behavior than non-racial factors. That is, incidentally, what we call being "racist."