There are a few people in the United States, sometimes known as "community leaders" who
have set themselves up as professional victims of society's injustice, whether real or
imaginary. Their leadership positions are made more secure if they
can convince their malleable followers that times are tough and all of
society's problems result from white racism and a lack of federal
funding.
Get
that chip off your shoulder and just play the cards you were dealt.
Too many people believe that black people can't succeed without the government's
help, but those who do, or tell others they can, must be vilified as "Uncle
Toms."*
Yeah, sure, everybody's a victim. Stop your
whining.
Shakedown, white guilt, several generations,
quotas, racial preferences.
Blacks
should reflect on conservatism. When I talk with other blacks
about their view of the GOP, they see a party that harms African-Americans. I
see a party of personal responsibility, values and smaller government that acts
to make all people self-reliant — a goal of our nation's finest
black leaders, too.
Whites Can't Make
Blacks Happy. One of the creepy things about our "need to have a conversation about race" is
the assumption that whites can somehow make blacks feel better, or be happier, or be more self-accepting.
Nobody has the power to do that, except what individuals do for themselves, one person at a time. … Far
too many black people don't feel good about themselves, and are constantly looking for answers from somebody
else. That quest for the impossible has been turned into an accusation against the invisible but
all-powerful white racist establishment.
Perpetual Victimization for Perpetual War.
Perpetual victimization is the worst thing that can be done to someone. It means conceptually depriving
them of their free will and treating their every action as a reaction. Yet perpetual victimization is at
the heart of Western liberalism, it is the very same premise that once promoted eugenics against the poor and
throughout the 20th century has promoted and sought to keep minorities helpless and victimized, rather than
self-empowered.
The Wright Cost of
Anger: Here's the "victicrat" mindset: Kids having difficulty performing well on standardized
tests? Blame "cultural bias." Get pulled over by a cop? DWB — driving while black. A
disproportionate number of blacks in prison? A racist criminal justice system that "targets" blacks for
prosecution and imprisonment. Katrina? As Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., put it, "ethnic cleansing by
inaction." Difficulty qualifying for a loan? Blame banks' devious plan to prevent blacks from
getting "access to capital."
Watermelon Art at California Fair Said to Be
Racist. Colusa County officials are defending their display at the California State Fair after a
black couple complained that a caricature of a smiling watermelon seed was racist. The "Waldo Watermelon Seed"
drawing was removed this week after the couple said the image evoked negative stereotypes about blacks.
Frustration
and Optimism in New Orleans. [Scroll down] "I think it's bad," said Merline Kimble, 59, a
music promoter from the Treme neighborhood who recently returned to New Orleans. "For people who want to
come home, rent is more expensive, utilities are more expensive, everything's more expensive. Nobody's
doing anything to get people home."
The Editor says...
Billions of dollars have been spent on New Orleans since hurricane Katrina, and yet there
are people who say "nobody's doing anything."
Could Obama's rise signal the
end of black victimology? Victimology, in the view of black writer John McWhorter,
is the theory that (1) African-Americans are continuing victims of racism and discrimination,
and (2) their progress consequently depends chiefly on acts of repentant benevolence by whites — in
the extreme case, reparations for slavery. Jesse Jackson is the best-known victimologist, but far
from the only one. They all must experience acute ambivalence as they view Senator Obama.
For
America's Scholars Of Race, An Obama Dilemma. What bothers Brown University economist
Glenn Loury is that Obama's election would fundamentally change the rules of race in America, yet that
victory would come with the overwhelming assent of black people who have no idea that is what they are
agreeing to. "They're voting for the end of affirmative action and they don't even know it," said
Loury, who is black. "They're voting for the end of race and they don't even know it."
The Editor says...
In other words, black activists don't want racism to go away. They thrive on it.
By claiming to be victims of other people's racism, they have an open-ended excuse for their own
shortcomings. That's what perpetual victimhood is all about.
Talking Back
to a Black Man: A few weeks ago, I was listening to a radio talk show when a black man called
in to take Barack Obama to task for suggesting that black men were sloughing off their responsibility as
fathers. The caller didn't deny recent data that indicated that 80% of black babies were being born
to unwed mothers. Instead, he said that this dire situation wasn't the fault of irresponsible young
men and women, but, instead, was the logical result of rampant racism in our country.
NAACP head: Obama win won't solve racial
injustice in U.S. The chairman of the NAACP says racial disparity will remain an issue in America whether
or not Barack Obama is elected as the nation's first black president.
Obviously the NAACP will never be satisfied, no matter what happens. This page is
dedicated to people who can never be content -- people who always need someone else to blame for
their troubles. The NAACP has
figured out how to keep this discontent churned up and turn it into a business.
Obama: Too Little, Too Late. [In]
"Dreams from My Father", [Obama] describes in vivid detail his first meeting with [Jeremiah] Wright, whom he quotes as
warning him: "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will
be." Apparently these words didn't set off warning lights. To the contrary, the young, Ivy-League educated
Obama, who had been raised in Hawaii by his white grandparents and attended prep school there, seemed to be seeking a
vicarious sense of victimhood in Wright's church.
Jeremiah Wright's Wider
Toll: Through my work with the Illinois governor's task force on human services reform and its efforts to
reduce welfare dependency, I have encountered misguided community "leaders" like Wright who tell their followers, for example,
that the job market is stacked against them and that the jobs that are available aren't good enough — that they are
entitled to more. The underlying message: You can't win because of who you are, regardless of what you do.
The
Rev and the Global Victims' Club: The saddest aspect of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's tirades is
neither his dishonest charges, nor his egocentric claim to speak for all black churches, nor even the harm he's
done to the dreams of his best-known parishioner. The sorrow and the pity of it all is that the Chicago
pastor, who's reveling in his 15 minutes of fame, is only one of many demagogues in all races and creeds
who foster cults of victimization around the globe. And nothing is more certain to keep those at the
bottom down than self-appointed messiahs who assure them they'll always be victims.
More information
about Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
A Report from the
White Community: I did not spend a moment today thinking about how to keep the black man down. Just
another day. I can't remember ever getting a memo about, or an invitation to a strategy meeting on keeping the
corporation white. So stop telling me everything is my fault. … I am aware that racism still exists. It is
a sad part of the human condition. But it is no longer institutional in America and to the extent it exists,
it runs both ways.
Blacks,
Banks and "Institutional Racism": In today's online information age, don't many borrowers apply for
and obtain loans either online or via telephone, with the loan officer completely unaware of one's race? … Don't
at least some white borrowers pay interest rates as high, if not higher, than those paid by blacks?
House Majority Whip:
Climate Change Hurts Blacks More. Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue.
It's now an issue of race, according to global warming activists and policy makers. "It is critical our
community be an integral and active part of the debate because African-Americans are disproportionately
impacted by the effects of climate change economically, socially and through our health and well-being,"
House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said July 29.
Cultural Affirmative Action:
In a way, I prefer the old, overt affirmative action. While it was government-sanctioned discrimination, at
least it was, in some measure, more honest than our cultural affirmative action. There is such a thing.
It's when people in the market and media privilege others — sometimes unconsciously — based
upon the latter's identification with a "victim group."
Black Reparations: The Ultimate Prize.
In the years much closer to slavery than we now live, blacks founded and ran their own towns, owned and prospered on millions
of dollars worth of land, formed so many successful businesses that it necessitated formation of the National Negro Business
League, directed their own schools and colleges — all of this long before the 1950s. Yet now, according to
the custodians of the race, the "residue" of the slave experience pierces so deeply into the psyches and immediate lives of
blacks, that only more monetary resources from whites can heal the wounds and finally eliminate what these worthies are
calling the "lingering negative effects" of slavery.
What does Obama's victory mean?
Today, if black Americans' gross domestic product were measured separately, it would be the 16th-richest
country in the world. Nearly 80 percent of blacks live above the poverty level, contrasted with
65 percent 40 years ago. The greater percentage of blacks live either middle-class or better
lives. The employment rate for married black men equals the employment rate for married white men.
The average black woman with a college degree makes more money than the average white woman with a college
degree. The highest percentage of blacks in American history — 46 percent —
own their homes.
Racial
Hoaxes and the NAACP: The major problems confronting a large segment of the black community
have little or nothing to do with racism -- problems such as unprecedented illegitimacy, family breakdown,
fraudulent education, crime and rampant social pathology. If white people became angels tomorrow, it would
do nothing to solve problems that can only be solved by blacks.
America's Newest 'Victims':
There's a new class of victims in America: former NFL players. … There's no doubt that many
former players are physical wrecks. But should we feel sorry for them? After all, many
players reveled in the fact that they could punish their bodies week after week and continue to
play. Noticeably absent from this debate is any discussion about the personal responsibility
these players bear for their post-career conditions.
Blacks must drop victimhood and reclaim dignity.
When restaurants, laundries, hotels, theaters, groceries, and clothing stores were legally segregated, black people
opened and ran their own. Such successes provided jobs and strength to black economic well-being. They
also gave black people that gratifying sense of an interdependent community with people working to help each other.
During legal segregation, white racists destroyed some of these economically independent communities. To
their credit, our ancestors did not accept victimhood. They fought back as individuals and as a people.
Most refused to become passive victims of the system.
At Last! People for whom
indignation is a way of life — and there seem to be an increasing number of such people — repeatedly
have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal.
Pay Up, Honky. "Black people,
wake up!" shouts the ad running in local black newspapers. "Do not spend your money with Kohl's Department
Stores or T-Mobile Wireless … Help us prove their racist stereotypes wrong." From the hyperbolic tone,
you'd think the companies had installed whites-only drinking fountains. But the outrage stems from
something a bit more pedestrian. Black newspapers are crying discrimination because the two companies
don't spend enough money with … black newspapers.
Misstep
in a Liberal Minefield: For decades, liberals, believing that "self-esteem" is a universal
entitlement that is endangered by nearly universal insensitivity, have striven to make everybody exquisitely
sensitive to slights. Liberals have become industrialists as an indignation industry has burgeoned.
It writes campus speech codes, infests corporations with "sensitivity training" workshops and
"consciousness-raising" retreats, and generally enforces the new right to pass through this vale
of tears without tears or even being peeved.
Step Down Off the Slave Auction
Block. What if a long line of whites showed up at every black-owned business in America.
What if they had qualified credentials and demanded to be hired, promoted and loved? What if the black
owner refused to fire one of his tried and true black employees just to make room for the white applicant and
to have equal representation of all races in the workplace?
America's Unhappiest
Millionaire: Michelle Obama's gospel of misery. By her husband's logic, Michelle Obama must be a heavily
armed xenophobic religious zealot, because boy is she bitter. [A] C-SPAN video of a speech delivered by Mrs.
Obama in North Carolina last Friday [5/2/2008] is characteristic of her peculiar recent performances on the stump. It
is an hour-long talk to supporters who just want something to cheer about, and who get some opportunities at the outset, but
then find themselves treated to a profoundly and relentlessly negative vision of American life.
Modern Liberals,
Whine Connoisseurs. Michelle Obama whines about the burdens of paying for piano lessons and summer
camp for the kids, and the paying off the student loans for her two Ivy League degrees. "The salaries don't
keep up with the cost of paying off the debt," she complained when the Obamas cleared half a million a
year … Barack Obama understands the language of victimhood and uses it effectively. And
victimhood has become a central tenant of modern liberalism.
Hillary's
Hurdles: Dubious Donors. Asian-American groups don't like the increased scrutiny that Hillary
Clinton's mysterious Chinese dishwasher donors are getting. … In the wake of eye-opening investigations by
The Post and the Los Angeles Times of more dubious foreign funny money flowing into Hill's coffers, ethnic-grievance
groups are stepping forward to condemn these stories as examples of "negligent journalism." Yep: The
newspapers are guilty of "negligence" because they actually broke news instead of covering it up.
Self
Sabotage Preventing More Black Entrepreneurs. During a recent speaking engagement at
a DC high school, I talked about the importance of cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit. … Nearly
every student in the audience was black. Their response was heartbreaking. One student after
another told me that the white people would prevent them from becoming successful entrepreneurs. These
kids were only teenagers, and they had already given up.
It's a vast white wing conspiracy.
Nagin
Suspects a Plot To Keep Blacks Away. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has suggested that the
slow recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina — which has prevented many black
former residents from returning — is part of a plan to change the racial makeup and political
leadership of his and other cities.
Left
Off Debate List, New Orleans Sees Politics at Play. When presidential debates are in the news,
it is usually because of something a candidate says. But the omission of New Orleans this week from the
roster of four cities that will hold the 2008 debates raised the question of whether politics was behind the
site-selection process.
The Editor says...
After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, the people of New Orleans quickly came to expect politicians
to pander to them at every opportunity. It's getting old.
Hip
hop: Popular culture is white culture. This isn't because of some anti-minority
agenda. This isn't because TV and music executives aren't part of the community. It's
because there are more white people than black people. Therefore, there is more advertising
money in appealing to the pop culture sensibilities of white people.
Ammunition
for poverty pimps: Since President Johnson's War on Poverty, controlling for inflation,
the nation has spent $9 trillion on about 80 anti-poverty programs. To put that figure in
perspective, last year's U.S. GDP was $11 trillion; $9 trillion exceeds the GDP of any
nation except the U.S. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita uncovered the result of the War on
Poverty — dependency and self-destructive behavior.
The Offensiveness of Taking
Offense. Whether it's an off-color joke or colorful commentary, it's now hard to make anything
but the most plain vanilla statements without offending somebody. … Screaming "That's offensive!" is
nothing but a ploy. … They just don't happen to like what you're saying.
Seattle's Culture of Victimology and
the Shooting of Jews. How could it happen? In Seattle, of all places, a city of moderation
and diversity? On Friday, July 28, a man barged into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater
Seattle. It is alleged that, armed with two handguns, Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, killed one woman and wounded
five others.
Discriminating against the 'brown
coin'. In the renewed debate over whether to rid our currency of the penny, it's awfully
conspicuous that the coin being targeted for elimination is the one coin that's a different color from
the rest. More precisely, it's the coin that's "copper" amid a sea of "silver" ones — that
is, the brown coin amid a sea of white coins. It also happens to be the coin paying tribute to the
president who freed the brown people, in contrast to the white coins, which sport presidents who were
slaveholders.
"Master"
and "slave" computer labels unacceptable, officials say. Los Angeles
officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the
terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable
and offensive.
Editor's Note:
The senselessness we know as Political Correctness will thrive as long as there are
spineless politicians who dignify and legitimize absurd complaints by
failing to ignore them. This is exactly the kind of nonsense for which California is
famous. How will it help anyone to remove the words master and slave
from computer equipment, or from the dictionary? How else could you explain the
operation of a J-K flip-flop? (See diagram above.)
And another thing...
The words "Master" and "Slave" were originally used to describe the operation of the
Loran navigation system. (Now the "Slave" stations are called "Secondary" stations.)
If one computer component is the slave of another, should we feel sorry for it and try to set
it free? (What if the computer is shackled by
a Master padlock?)
The
Essence of Liberalism: Embracing Life's Losers. The rhetoric of today's left shows that they
see society divided between the privileged and the powerless, the favored and the unfortunate, victors and
victims. Liberals feel an irresistible instinct to take sides with the less fortunate. While the
right wants to reward beneficial choices and discourage destructive directions, the left seeks to eliminate or
reduce the impact of the disadvantages that result from bad decisions.
The politics of
disparity: Class warriors incessantly complain of the expanding gap between "rich"
and "poor," by which they mean the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor. In fact,
all boats rise with the tide — the poor are getting richer, too. Unfortunately, too many
Americans believe the lie because of its constant repetition in the media and in our public schools.
Wal-Mart Imagemaker Quits Amid PR
Flap. In the [Los Angeles] Sentinel interview, Young was asked about whether he was concerned
Wal-Mart causes smaller, mom-and-pop stores to close. "Well, I think they should; they ran the 'mom and
pop' stores out of my neighborhood," the paper quoted Young as saying. "But you see, those are the people
who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold
out and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews,
then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs; very few black people own these stores."
Black Unemployment Drops
Under Bush. Anybody keeping up with the African-American unemployment rate
would know that it is at one of its lowest levels ever. … Currently, black unemployment
is 9.4%, which is significantly lower than the 10% it averaged in the Clinton years.
For L.A. homeless: a gym,
movies, and hair salon. The city opens a $17 million shelter Monday [4/18/2005]
amid controversy that funds would have been better spent on affordable housing.
[What's more affordable than "free?"]
The race card
— 2005. The Democratic Party continues to play the race card for political gain.
Remember the claims by John Kerry and others of one million black voters disenfranchised in Florida during the
2000 presidential election? Peter Kirsanow, a black attorney and member of the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights, says the commission's six-month investigation failed to find any evidence of black voter
"intimidation." "Not one person was intimidated," says Kirsanow, "[or] had their vote stolen. There
was no disenfranchisement … no truth to any of those allegations."
Opportunity
is not black or white. Race matters only to those who want to continue to keep the nation
divided. Some individual Americans may from time to time stand in your way, but America does
not. America is defined by its ideals, not by its limitations.
Hurricane Katrina,
the race card, and the welfare state. Maybe someday one of the news anchors
will ask one of the so-called civil rights leaders the following question: Doesn't the
demand for race-based preferences, set-asides, private sector anti-discrimination laws, social
welfare programs, and social "safety net" programs all conspire to say one
thing — "You are not responsible"?
Victims. The
problem is the government gives of the excess fruits of some people's labors to others who do no
labor at all. Food stamps, housing, and welfare — all are given away. Why
work when the government will give you your basic needs? In this circumstance, when hard times
come people are not prepared to deal with them. So yes, government failed, but its failure is
its active role in the slow, steady decline of its citizen's sense of personal responsibility and
accountability.
We're all
victims. Critics have noticed that nobody is responsible for anything anymore,
since almost everyone is a victim. Here are the top 10 victim stories of 2005.
Michael
Jackson & the Race Card— Don't leave home without it. It works. Just ask O.J. Simpson.
A few words about O.J. Simpson
and Michael Jackson: Before the cuffs went on, Simpson and Jackson couldn't have found black
America with a road map. The jock had ensconced himself in chichi Brentwood where he was said to have
built a world in which about the only thing black was the busboys at the four-star restaurants. The
moonwalker had — one of his top aides told me this once — peeled his skin the color of
bones and carved himself a nose that would not be out of place on Tinker Bell, because his African features
were abhorrent to him. Yet, to listen to Jackson's brother Jermaine and Simpson's lawyer Johnnie Cochran,
during their respective trials, they were some combination of Emmett Till, Rosa Parks and Kunta Kinte, targeted
for the color of their skin, not the content of their criminal files.
Do poor
blacks need to hear "millions more" excuses? Am I suggesting that blacks in America
today do not have to contend with the burden of racism? Of course I am not. What I do
claim is that the most damaging racism in our community is what it hears from its own leaders. It
is the message that black citizens cannot and should not be treated as free and personally responsible
individuals.
'Aunt Jemima' Sues After Council Meeting
Ban. An activist arrested after disrupting a City Council meeting dressed in an Aunt Jemima
costume and banned from attending meetings until the end of March has filed a lawsuit claiming her rights
were violated. Jackie Brown filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to have the ban declared
unconstitutional as well as unspecified damages and attorneys fees, The Florida Times-Union reported
Monday [2/13/2006].
Intolerable. [John]
Banzhaf's action followed an appellate court ruling that will allow Native American groups to challenge
the Washington football team's trademark on "Redskins." The federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
has already ruled that the word Redskins is racially derogatory and offensive.
Black Activist Decries Civil Rights
Apologists. The Senate apology for lynching perpetuates the "Posture of the Victim".
Responsible
voting: Since 90 percent of the black vote goes to Democrats, it is
especially important for Democrats to scare blacks, in order to get a large
turnout. Charges of "racism" have been used for this purpose in the past
but it is hard to make that stick against an administration with the first black
Secretary of State and the first black National Security Adviser in the White
House. The ploy this time is to claim that Republicans are trying to "suppress"
the black vote "again." Senator Kerry has stooped to this, despite the fact that
many of the voting booth problems in Florida in 2000 occurred in precincts
controlled by election officials who were Democrats.
Fables
Democrats tell themselves: The U.S. Civil Rights Commission began investigating
charges of voter disenfranchisement in 2001. They investigated every tale of roadblocks,
intimidation and registration anomalies. They found not a single African American who
had been harassed, intimidated or prevented from voting at any polling place in Florida.
The oldest
fraud: Election frauds are nothing new and neither are political frauds in
general. The oldest fraud is the belief that the political left is the party of
the poor and the downtrodden. The election results in California are only the
latest evidence to give the lie to that belief. The most affluent counties
were where Kerry had his strongest support.
Victimhood:
Rhetoric or reality? If you listened to the rhetoric of black politicians and civil rights leaders, dating
back to the Reagan years, you would have been convinced that surely by now black Americans would be back on the plantation.
According to them, President Reagan, and later Presidents Bush I and II, would turn back the clock on civil rights. … We
can now recognize this rhetoric as the political equivalent of the "rope-a-dope."
Five reasons to
fear the Democratic party: Reason #3 - The Professional Grievance-Mongers. The ethnic shakedown artists who
have sued over every slight and hyped every faked claim of a hate crime are America-bashing
enablers of the worst sort — and they are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.
Conservatives,
liberals and blacks: According to a Washington Times story (July 14, 2004), Democratic
hopeful Sen. John Kerry, in a speech about education to a predominantly black audience, said that
there are more blacks in prison than in college. "That's unacceptable, but it's not
their fault," he said. Do you think Kerry would also say that white inmates are
faultless? Aside from Kerry being factually wrong about the black prison
population vs. the black college population, his vision differs little from one that
holds that blacks are a rudderless, victimized people who cannot control their destiny
and whose best hope depends upon the benevolence of white people.
Understanding Income Inequality in the United
States: The top fifth of U.S. households (with incomes above $84,000) remain perennial targets of
class-warfare enmity. These families, however, perform a third of all labor in the economy. They
contain the best educated and most productive workers, and they provide a disproportionate share of the
investment needed to create jobs and spur economic growth. Nearly all are married-couple families, many
with two or more earners. Far from shirking the tax burden, these families pay 82.5 percent of total
federal income taxes and two-thirds of federal taxes overall. By contrast, the bottom quintile
pays 1.1 percent of total federal taxes.
The grand
fallacy The grand fallacy of our times is that various groups would be equally represented in
institutions and occupations if it were not for discrimination. This preconception has undermined, if
not destroyed, the crucial centuries-old legal principle that the burden of proof is on the accuser.
The Great Black Church-burning
Hoax: Responding to the reported wave of southern black church
burnings, President Clinton proclaimed that "Racial hostility is the driving force" behind
the church burnings and said, "I want to ask every citizen in America to say we … we are
not slipping back to those dark days." Okay, Mr. President, I'll say it. I'll
say it because this "epidemic of hatred" is a fraud. A myth. A
deliberate hoax.
Crime Study Doesn't Show
Racism. In [a recent] report, the Sentencing Project, an advocacy
group that favors alternatives to prison, estimates that on any given day 32 percent
of black men ages 20 to 29 are serving a criminal sentence. That's 827,400
young black men. But what most of the news stories didn't tell you was that the
majority were not behind bars but on probation or parole.
Victimhood: The
Status Of Underdog Is Vastly Overrated. Domestic policy has been skewed
too much in favor of the unsuccessful. I sometimes wonder why I bother working,
saving, investing and doing the things that help people get ahead when the government
goes to great lengths to help those who do not do those things.
The Bill Cosby Subsection:
Hooray for Bill Cosby! He has publicly stated the things that
many of us have believed for a long time. But if I had said the things
Bill Cosby said, it would have been called "venom" and "hate speech", and I would have been
labeled a bigot.
The Bill Cosby revolution:
Dr. Bill Cosby (Ph.D. in education, University of Massachusetts) has become a major, forthright spokesman for
what can and must be done to carry forward the work of earlier generations of black leaders in what A. Philip
Randolph called "America's unfinished [civil rights] revolution."
Bill Cosby Is Truly Free. The
paradox is stunning. A black man, Bill Cosby, can afford to give millions of dollars to black colleges
… and does. The country has a black Secretary of State and black female National Security
Advisor. The Williams sisters are breaking records in tennis, and Tiger Wood has set records in the game
of golf that will last a generation or longer. And yet black leaders, and by extension the black
community, are still more concerned about what white folks think.
Cosby tells parents to
take more responsibility. Entertainer Bill Cosby, who has sparked controversy for biting public
remarks about blacks and parenting, delivered a strong charge to parents Wednesday [12/6/2006]: Step
up. "It's not the schools. It's not the streets. It's not even the church," said Cosby,
speaking at a conference hosted by Chicago Public Schools. "You've got to build confidence in your
child in your home."
Cosby Says His Opinions Are
Consistent. Bill Cosby says the opinions he's expressed in his controversial prodding of fellow
blacks are consistent with what he's done as an entertainer for more than 40 years. In several
forums this year, the 67-year-old Cosby has criticized some black children for not knowing how to read or
write, said some had squandered opportunities the civil rights movement gave them and unfairly blame whites for
problems such as teen pregnancy and high dropout rates.
Malign Condescension - or Benign
Neglect? By now you've probably heard about what Bill Cosby's up to. On
May 17 [2004], at a Washington, D.C. event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of
Education, Cosby delivered a jaw-dropping tirade on the failure of many lower-class blacks to get their
acts together.
In case you missed it, here is what Bill Cosby said, as reported by the Washington Post and
Associated Press:"The
lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not
parenting. They are buying things for their kids: $500 sneakers for what? And won't
spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' I can't even talk the way these people talk: Why
you ain't? Where you is? And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And
I heard the father talk. Everybody knows it's important to speak English — except these
knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of
your mouth."*
An ovation
for Bill Cosby: Cosby did not come boasting of progress, basking in satisfaction
or marking a half-century of racial uplift. Instead, he slapped the audience with the
rhetorical equivalent of a cold fish. In Cosby's big picture, too many black Americans
today aren't raising their children correctly.
Three cheers for the
Cos. For years, I've argued that most of the problems many black Americans face today have little
or nothing to do with racial discrimination. For the most part, the most devastating problems encountered
by a large segment of the black community are self-inflicted.
The Cos
again. Yesterday's gross material poverty among blacks is all but gone. In all too many
cases, it has been replaced by the worse kind of poverty — poverty of the spirit.
Three cheers for the Cos,
Part II: Bill Cosby's May 17 remarks at a Washington, D.C., gathering commemorating the 50th
anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision continues to draw controversy and
debate. That's good.
Cosby's message stings, as it
should. Cosby specifically addressed problems in education and talked about 50 percent
school dropout rates of black children. Now if any fundamental reform has deep support in the black
community it is school choice. For a laundry list of solid reasons, parents should be empowered to choose
how and where to educate their children and black parents, particularly low income black parents, know
this. Yet, black leadership continues to support the government school monopoly.
"Friends" of blacks:
Reactions to Bill Cosby's recent criticisms of some counterproductive ghetto behavior patterns have ranged from
applause from some in the black audience that heard him to a cheap attack from white liberal Barbara Ehrenreich
in the New York Times. "Billionaire bashes poor blacks" is the way Ms. Ehrenreich puts it.
Societal Decline: When
Bill Cosby dared to criticize the condition of parenting among lower-income blacks, many
leaders of the black community took him to task for challenging the conventions of
Political Correctness. An unspoken Iron Curtain has obstructed even black Americans
from engaging in honest criticism about the need for other blacks to exercise greater
parental responsibility. However, many blacks, including some who are leaders,
were glad that Cosby spoke up even though they may not be in total agreement with his
comments. They at least appreciate that he initiated an honest debate.
Cosby under
fire: Even though America's long-lasting warmth for Cosby and his classic 1980s
series "The Cosby Show" lingers, inside the black community, Cosby is a lightning rod for
criticism and abuse.
Cosby's challenge to
poor: Climb up. Why does Bill Cosby keep coming back to Detroit? Because Detroit
needs him, and many Detroiters know it. They need someone to ask the questions he has been asking for
two years now about why anyone would use poverty as an excuse to be irresponsible. They need someone to
start that conversation instead of continuing the one about how racism and discrimination put poor black folks
in poverty so it is only just that something else get them out.
The Debate Continues. Who speaks
for black America, and for poor blacks in particular? This question has been asked almost as many times
as the sun has risen and set, since the end of slavery, yet it continues to stir debate and increase tensions
among middle- and upper-income blacks. … Thanks to Bill Cosby — actor, entertainer,
businessman, and philanthropist — blacks and whites across the country have been taking sides again
for the past year-and-a-half. Cosby has managed to rekindle a century-old discussion with new passion.
Blacks Must Keep Their Eyes on the
Truth. [Juan] Williams would be just fine if he had denounced Bill Cosby instead of championing
the comedian's opinions and basing [his new book] Enough on substantial research that corroborates
Cosby's attacks on the self-destructive behavior in the black lower class. "What happens," says
Williams, "is that you become some sort of a leper if you don't lockstep your opinions in line with white
liberals. They run the programming of CBS, NBC and ABC, and they don't want you to rock the boat of
received opinion."
Cosby's
message calls for responsibility. Actor and activist Bill Cosby dropped in on one of New Orleans'
most troubled public schools Friday afternoon [10/20/2006] to tell students that education is their ticket up
and out of the poverty and violence that have left many of them with sadness masquerading as anger.
These
days, Bill Cosby's critique is connecting. An interesting thing has happened in the three years
since Bill Cosby got blasted for, among other things, describing his people as "those people." Somewhere
along the way, he became one of "those people," connecting with black folks — especially poor
black folks — in a way he never had before.
Critics
soften hits on Cosby message. Civil rights activists and scholars are softening their criticism
of Bill Cosby's message to black Americans to stop blaming racism for their problems and engage in more
personal responsibility. While black leaders still differ on the role institutional racism plays in the
social ills of blacks, Mr. Cosby's new book, "Come On, People" is not receiving the same backlash its
author did when he first publicly spoke out on the matter in 2004.
Bill Cosby Is Right, Again. Bill
Cosby's status as sage is confirmed by the release of his new book, co-authored with Dr. Alvin Poussaint of
Harvard Medical School, Come On People: On The Path From Victims to Victors. Cosby and
Poussaint remind us that black America's hope for escape from abysmal self-destruction is moral
formation — not government programs or blaming white people.
For
English, please press '1'. Two politicians in Maryland are now in trouble
for stating the obvious: People who work in customer service should speak
English. And out-of-control multiculturalism is to blame for the failure to
preserve America's common language. The professional victims are up in arms
as usual — demanding apologies, whining to the press and clamoring for government
subsidies to nurse their hurt feelings.
Work pays! Those
for whom indignation is a way of life often inform us of the fact that families or households in the top 10 or
20 percent in income make far more money than people in the bottom 10 or 20 percent in income.
What they almost never inform us of are how much money they are talking about and how many people in these
different brackets actually work.
Mayors' Claims of Growing Hunger Appear Wildly
Exaggerated. The US Conference of Mayors has released its annual report on hunger and homelessness
in America. The mayors have released a similar report each year since 1987. The report measures
"hunger" by the number of persons using food banks or soup kitchens. The Conference of Mayors has reported
that the number of persons using food banks or soup kitchens in major cities has increased substantially in each
of the past 16 years, and it is expected that a similar increase will be reported this year. The mayors'
hunger reports, however, are vague. They do not give the number of persons using food banks or soup
kitchens. Instead, they merely report the rate of increase in use compared to the prior year.
Racism
Charge Is A Clunker: Once the numbers are cooked and disparate impact is
shown, the heavy legal burden of disproving racial discrimination falls on the
defendant. (For that, blame the 1991 Civil Rights Act — one of the most disastrous
bipartisan legacies of former President George Herbert Walker Bush.)
White
guilt, black exploitation: Few Americans have heard of the National Slave Memorial Act (HR 196) that
proposes to erect a National Slave Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Liberal
segregationist in the schools: The spirit of George Wallace is alive and well — among left-wing
zealots in some of America's most "progressive" taxpayer-funded schools. In Oberlin, Ohio, local school board president
Tony Marshall argues that only black high school teachers should teach "black history."
Children's
Nursery Rhyme Triggers Racial Discrimination Lawsuit: A Southwest
Airlines flight attendant's use of a popular children's rhyme - "Eenie, meenie,
minie, moe" - has resulted in a federal racial discrimination lawsuit against
the airline filed by two African American women asking for unspecified financial damages.
Update:
Southwest
Airlines Cleared in Race Discrimination Lawsuit. A federal jury has decided that a Southwest
Airlines flight attendant did not discriminate against two black passengers when she
used a nursery rhyme to get passengers to pick their seats.
Black-casualty
myth shattered: In fact, it is whites who serve on
the front-lines in disproportionate numbers.
Death Penalty by the Numbers: Inasmuch as
black murderers commit about half of all homicides in the United States, the numbers make it clear that the
death penalty is imposed with disproportionate severity not on blacks, but on whites.
Republicans and Civil
Rights: In the 26 major civil rights votes after 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil
rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored
civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.
Family Secrets:
[T]oday's unprecedented illegitimacy and weak family structure has nothing to do with discrimination and slavery. It's
explained better by promiscuity and irresponsibility, and as such it's not a civil rights problem.
Truth: If ever a black woman
should have screamed "black liberation" with a southern accent, that woman would have been [Oseola] McCarty.
But she did not. What she did do was save her money for seventy-eight years. Year after year, she
washed clothes day and night. She saved what she could. She did not marry. She did not have
children out of wedlock. And at the end of her days, Ms. McCarty gave all of her life savings,
$150,000, to create a scholarship for black students.
Black students allegedly behind racist
graffiti: Three African-American students at the University of Mississippi have been accused of
writing racist graffiti on doors outside rooms of two other black students in the Kincannon residence hall on
the Oxford campus.
Hate crime hoax at Ole
Miss: A terrible racial incident took place at Trent Lott's alma mater last month. But you
won't hear about it from Dan Rather or Time magazine or The Washington Post or the NAACP. That's
because what happened at the University of Mississippi in the early morning hours of Nov. 6 has all the
markings of a fake hate crime: An apparent racial hoax committed by black students against black students,
but blamed on whites — until the suspects were nabbed last week.
Sob Your Way Into
College: Many of the freshmen entering California's public university system this fall will owe
their college opportunity not so much to great test scores but to hard-luck stories, such as surviving a shooting,
dealing with the death of a close relative or growing up in a single-parent household. Conservative civil
rights activists suspect that this post-"affirmative action" admissions policy is little more than an end-run
around the voter-passed prohibition against racial preferences.
Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams: Grace Under
Fire. For over 30 years, Thomas Sowell, currently with the Hoover Institution, and
Walter Williams, chairman of the economics department at George Mason University, led the charge against
the "victicrat" mindset. Through decades of weekly columns, books, speeches and lectures before
often-hostile crowds, they long argued that racism cannot be blamed for poverty, crime, illegitimacy,
and under-performing schools.
The Friends
of James Ujaama: In the name of "African American Unity," the political
friends of James Ujaama refuse to believe he is anything other than a benign minority
community activist under attack by a biased government. This self-serving love
of racial demagoguery is blind, dumb and dangerous.
Naming Names in "Africa-America": The
so-called "slave names" that so many blacks began repudiating in the 1960s, were neither given to them by
slaveowners nor were they usually the slaveowners' family names. They were names chosen despite
prohibitions, in order to symbolize family ties that were often stronger than those in today's ghettoes.
Cronyism 101: The Perks
of Being "Disadvantaged". The "Disadvantaged Business Enterprise" program, run by the U.S.
Department of Transportation and adopted by states and cities across the country, is one of the most
atrociously corrupt government endeavors in existence. Opportunists of all colors have used the racial
set-aside law to win billions of dollars worth of federal contracts for themselves and their friends under the
guise of being "victims."
A Usable
Black History: A better, more usable history would be one that gives greater
emphasis to black successes in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. That kind of
history inspires, instead of breeding victimhood.
Black History
Month: What is called Black History Month might more accurately be called "the sins of
white people" month. The "sins" of any branch of the human race are virtually inexhaustible, but
the history of blacks in America includes a lot more than the sins of white people, which are put front
and center each February.
Remembering to color inside the
lines: A new book by a black writer takes sharp and refreshing exception to the notion that
nurturing victimhood is the route to success. His title,
"The
Envy of the World: On Being a Black Man in America," is ironic, but it suggests a direction away
from the victim mentality. Ellis Cose, the author, acknowledges the paradoxes of being black, but
seeks to inspire in a new way, looking ahead at black potential rather than nurturing grievances over slavery
and the oppression of the past.
History vs. Hogwash:
From time to time someone tells me that I would not have been able to do this or that without affirmative
action. But everything that I have done was done by other blacks before me — and therefore
long before the civil rights revolution of the 1960s or affirmative action.
A New Strategy for Racial
Quotas: "Comprehensive Review". If your father beats your mother up or abandons her, or
you've made a few suicide attempts, you're moved up a notch or two over the more academically qualified
students who are short on familial pathology.
Race and
Entitlement: At a recent meeting in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus Institute and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a who's who of leftist
minorities, seven representatives from both communities took to attacking a pair of their favorite
boogiemen, the judicial and political systems.
Harvard
Prof, Involved in Political Flap, Labeled "Intellectual Lightweight": Cornel West, the Harvard
professor and author at the center of a racial controversy at the prestigious school, is being criticized for
his contributions to academia by both the political left and right. Author David Horowitz said West is
"an incredible intellectual lightweight" who has only achieved success by playing racial politics.
"African American" Blackmailers Come to
Harvard: At a meeting in October, the new Harvard President reportedly urged Professor Cornel
West to help combat Harvard's rampant grade inflation, singling out his so-called "Introduction to Afro-American
Studies" as a prime example of the problem. Oops!
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