Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld slapped down Jesse Watters’ argument Thursday that the “lack of fathers” has led to increased crime rates.
“I don’t know if you saw, Dana, in The Wall Street Journal the other day, the Jason Riley op/ed,” Watters said to Dana Perino about an article titled, “The Biggest Root Cause of Crime Is Fatherlessness.”
Watters continued:
This has been studied…it’s proven now that the criminal justice system is not against Black Americans. They are treated equally by the criminal justice system because they commit a disproportionate amount of the crimes, and then when they are in front of the court, they are actually treated more leniently, in terms of sentencing. The main driver of crime in the African American community and in the White community, is a lack of a father. It’s poverty and lack of fathers.
Now, if you go back to the ’30s and the ’40s, the African American community, there was more racism in this country, and there was more poverty in the Black community. But the crime rate in the Black community was very, very low. And you know why that was? Fathers were there. That’s the key issue.
“But tell that to people and that doesn’t help anybody. ‘Oh, I’ll just go out and get a father, I’ll bright back!’” Gutfeld said. “This is the problem with the Republican message, telling people that, ‘Oh, we just need more fathers,’ doesn’t help anybody. You’re going to have to live with the reality that the world is changed. It’s not the— dads aren’t coming back for a lot of people.”
Watters tried to lighten the conversation by declaring, “I am still fighting for the dads, Greg. I’m not giving up on dads.”
Jessica Tarlov then chimed in: “America’s dad, Jesse Watters.”
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
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