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.
Recently I observed President and Mrs. Barack H. Obama on television at the dedication of the
Martin Luther King memorial in Washington, DC, singing We Shall Overcome (Someday) and
I was struck by the unmitigated gall exhibited by this couple. He's the President of the
United States, yet he still whimpers about overcoming ... someday.
It's never enough. No matter how many years of "affirmative action" the country endures, no matter
how many hiring quotas, preferences and special privileges are lavished upon blacks — based
entirely on skin color — it's never enough. No matter how many black millionaires
there are, it's never enough. The so-called black "community leaders" still hope to "overcome
someday".
Shakedown, white guilt, several generations,
quotas, racial preferences.
Thoughts on Trayvon Martin
and George Zimmerman. [#1] For liberals, it is always 1962, and we are always in Mississippi. ... [#2] This incident,
whatever you think of it, has nothing to do with the Civil Rights template. The neighborhood where the incident happened is
multiracial, only about 50% white. The man who shot Martin, George Zimmerman, is a Hispanic who has African-American relatives
and may himself be partly black. He appears to be something of a nut, obsessively calling 911. He evidently thinks
that he is a some kind of neighborhood watchman, but he has no official capacity of any sort and is unknown to the national
neighborhood watch organization. Whatever he did, he did on his own, and not as part of some sort of movement or
political faction.
What About the Kids Who
Behave? The Obama administration is waving around a new study showing that black school kids are
"suspended, expelled, and arrested in school" at higher rates than white kids. According to the report, which
looked at 72,000 schools, black students comprise just 18% of those enrolled yet account for 46% of those suspended
more than once and 39% of all expulsions. ... The data were compiled by the Education Department's civil rights
office, which probably thinks that it's doing black people a favor by highlighting these racial disparities and
pressuring schools to reduce black suspension rates. No thought, it seems, was given to whether this course
of action helps or harms those black kids who are in school to learn and not act up.
The Big Hoax.
The biggest hoax of the past two generations is still going strong — namely, the hoax that statistical
differences in outcomes for different groups are due to the way other people treat those groups. The latest
example of this hoax is the joint crusade of the Department of Education and the Department of Justice against
schools that discipline black males more often than other students. ... If black males get punished more often
than Asian American females, does that mean that it is somebody else's fault? That it is impossible that
black males are behaving differently from Asian American females? Nobody in his right mind believes that.
But that is the unspoken premise, without which the punishment statistics prove nothing about "equity."
The race card is a joker.
When I watch MSNBC and read plenty of liberal commentary online, I get the distinct feeling that I am not living in 21st century
America, but in some imagined past where racism is still an all-pervasive, all-powerful bogeyman. ... MSNBC's white anchors seem
to think they know more about race and racism than I do. Their obsessed daily rants insist that almost everything
the Republicans do is really about sending messages to white people about black people.
Black
History Month: The Left's Favorite Time of the Year. Alas, another Black History Month... or as
the left likes to view it, their annual "Opportunity To Exploit Race Month." It is the month in which
liberals attempt to convince us that race relations in America have progressed very little since the days of
police unleashing dogs on civil rights activists. Rather than presenting a balanced, honest look at
black history, leftist schoolteachers and the media say America is still racist and whites should feel
eternally guilty.
Internet Access
Is Not a Human Right. Over the past few years, courts and parliaments in countries like France
and Estonia have pronounced Internet access a human right. But that argument, however well meaning, misses a
larger point: technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself. There is a high bar for something
to be considered a human right. Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead
healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience.
Victimology
and the Phony 'Digital Divide'. [Scroll down] Liberals want designated victim groups to
be on a moral pedestal, immune from any criticism, while they blame "society" for their problems in life.
Black people are allowed to describe white people's motives, attitudes, behavior, and institutions, but non-blacks
are not allowed to return the favor. There is hypocrisy inherent in this rule of multicultural
etiquette. ... There is an extraordinary sense of entitlement present in this attitude, which reserves for
minorities the right to be seen as perpetual victims, while no one else is allowed to offer criticism of their
never-ending state of victimhood.
'Internet
access not a human right,' says 'Father of the Internet'. "Internet access is not a human right,"
wrote Vinton Cerf in an OpEd in the New York Times on Thursday. Cerf is a prominent computer scientist who
worked on the DARPA project that gave rise to the Internet, and is revered as the "Father of the Internet."
Cerf, who wrote the piece in response to the United Nation's drive towards declaring Internet access a human right,
is Google's Chief Internet Evangelist. He argued that "technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself."
There is a Martin Luther King Boulevard in
every big city, and they're all dangerous places.
Quote of the day. Instead of
complaining about people avoiding a ghetto, how about fixing up the ghetto? There is no sane reason for
ghettos to exist. School integration became the law of the land 57 years ago. The end of job
discrimination against blacks became the law 46 years ago. Affirmative action came into being
40 years ago. Trillions have been spent on programs designed to help the poor get out of poverty,
or at least ease the pain. And yet no one in their right mind would drive down any Martin Luther King
Boulevard after dark?
Similarly...
Obama's Mean Streets: Crime wave on Obama Way, Barack Obama
Boulevard. A battery assault was reported to have occurred at 6:54 p.m. on the evening of February 22
in the 1600 block of Broadway Avenue, aka Obama Way, in Seaside, Calif. The alleged assault comes on the heels of
two reported thefts along Delmar Boulevard, aka Barack Obama Boulevard, in St. Louis, Mo.
Beating the Racism Card.
For too long, too many blacks have wallowed in their own private sumps of self-pity, collapsing into whimpers
every time somebody mentions blackmail, blackouts, or black markets. It's a pathetic epilogue to the
heroism and grandeur of the civil rights movement. It's past time this adolescent posturing was put
aside. ... The black grievance-hunters are no better than the Dixiecrats of old, using the same methods to
keep Americans on edge, in fear, and overcome with anxiety. Using racism for political gain is a cheap
and coarse tactic no matter who is involved. It needs to be ended.
Guinness:
Samuel L. Jackson highest grossing actor of all time. Samuel L. Jackson's movies have made
more than $7.4 billion — making him the highest-grossing actor of all time, according to the
Guinness Book of World Records.
5
Reasons Black Americans Should Give Up On The Democratic Party. [Scroll down]
The only thing any Democrat has to do is claim that his opponent is a racist and he's got 90 percent
of the black vote locked up. On the other hand, Republicans have absolutely no reason to pursue
black voters because no matter what they do, they believe they're going to be branded as racist, and their
opponents will collect 90% of the black vote. Until black Americans start giving some indications
that their votes are up for grabs, they will continue to be ignored by both parties.
Sorry,
Your "Race Card" is Expired, Over-Limit, and Declined!. Some black elected officials have been
making some remarkable public statements. The fact of the matter is that the race card is played because
historically it worked. Shouting "racist" ended the debate and sent the opposition scurrying for cover,
despite the accusation being entirely unfounded.
Trumping the Race Card.
What does racial prejudice have to do with the debt ceiling debate? For the average person the answer to
this question isn't obvious. But according to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, it is the most salient
factor that's shaping the debate. Last Friday the congresswoman delivered a stunning speech on the House
floor where she spuriously implied that Republican opposition to raising the debt limit stemmed from their
virulent racism.
Woman
says TSA hair search amounts to racial profiling. An African-American woman is accusing the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of racial profiling because her hair was searched at an
airport security checkpoint.
Illinois
commission would probe racial discrimination [against blacks]. The call for the commission
stems from a report that showed blacks are disproportionately incarcerated for low-level, non-violent drug
crimes than whites.
The Editor says...
In my opinion, the creation of this commission is itself an act of discrimination.
The End of an Idea — Why
Affirmative Action Should Stop. Is there a color-coded graph somewhere that says the darker one is, the
more consideration one is due? Apparently not — given that most East Asians and Arabs are not usually
extended affirmative action status. OK, but do third-generation affluent Japanese-Americans qualify for
preferences on the rationale that their parents as children were interned in camps in the American West; or
fifth-generation Chinese because their great-great-grandparents were treated horribly while building the
transcontinental railroad?
 Statists and the
Racial 'Health Gap'. I often speculate that deep in the bowels of the Obama administration
there exists an obscure office charged with inventing egalitarian schemes to increase American dependency
on government. Ignore the high-sounding "fairness" and "equality" rhetoric. The President's
minions just cannot stop pushing, even boldly lying until the last vestiges of limited government and
individual initiative are history.
If this is the worst mistreatment you can
complain about, then your life must be fairly comfortable.
Minorities
hit hardest by iPhone tracking technology. Friday on MSNBC's daytime programming, host Thomas
Roberts explained that in the wake of revelations the iPhone tracks your movements with its operating software,
minorities, specifically blacks and Latinos are most vulnerable, since they use their cell phones more than
whites according to a Nielsen study.
Abusing
the Voting Rights Act. When the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, Section 5 was supposed
to be a temporary, emergency provision. It prohibits certain jurisdictions from implementing any change in
their voting laws unless those changes are pre-cleared by the Justice Department or approved by a three-judge panel
in federal court in Washington. This 45-year-old "emergency" provision has been renewed four separate times,
most recently in 2006. That renewal gave the section 25 years of new life, despite a complete lack of
evidence that the type of systematic discrimination that led to its initial passage still exists.
Delaware
Supreme Court overturns cinema ruling. The Delaware Supreme Court overturned a decision by the
state Human Relations Commission that the manager of a Dover cinema was racist when he used a "condescending
tone" in telling a crowd of largely black patrons viewing a Tyler Perry movie to silence their cell phones
and remain quiet.
At Least One Black American
Dreads Black History Month. Throughout American history, white folks, and mostly Christians (there's
that dirty C-word which the left despises) suffered, sacrificed, and died to help set blacks free and move them
forward. And yet, Sharpton and company use Black History Month to promote the image that every black
achievement was made "in spite of" white America.
Black
Man's Burden: Those Who Make Them Victims. Jesse Jackson once told an interviewer that when
hearing footsteps behind him while walking down a street at night, he is relieved if he turns to see the
sound is coming from white feet. Michelle Obama, when asked whether she worried about the safety of
her then-presidential candidate husband, said, "I don't lose sleep over it, because the realities are that,
you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station." She probably
didn't mean a gas station in Beverly Hills.
Dim Bulb: National Community
Reinvestment Coalition. The median FICO score in America is 723. Insisting borrowers have
a respectable credit history isn't racist. In fact, giving huge loans to people with poor credit is why
taxpayers have spent more than $100 billion bailing out Fannie Mae.
Taxpayer Dollars Being
Used to Fight for Homeless People Living in Illegally Parked Vehicles. The taxpayer-funded Legal
Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) is suing the city over its efforts to bar homeless people from illegally
living in campers, trailers, and cars on the streets of the city's Venice neighborhood. Some homeless people
say they're being targeted because of who they are. "Stop the haters," said one protest sign carried by a
homeless man in Venice during a protest march in December.
Blacks Have
Separated Themselves from America. For some reason, a majority of blacks don't choose to
participate in the American dream of unity and the founding principles. They are on a conflicting
mission, one that does not fit into the American dream. Their mission is the Obama message of social
justice, the Sharpton message, the Congressional Black Caucus message, the reparations message, the
affirmative action message, or whatever it is they are hearing from the Marxist left. Race has become a
worse divider of America than it was, under the victim mentality indoctrinated into the black population.
That is why disagreement with the Marxist black political agenda earns you a racist tag. It doesn't
have to be this way.
The Modern Left (Unmasked).
The left embraces "social justice," a concept in which the State — not the individual, guided by
the Constitution or any god — is the ultimate authority to determine the best interest of its
wards. ... For social justice to apply, though, there must be victims. The left draws from a pool of
"victims" suffering ostensible injustices based upon class, race, the environment, gender, and
diversity/multiculturalism.
The Victim in Chief.
In treating most communication as a means of stating how he feels about what someone else has done, Obama is not
merely demonstrating his own personality. He is embodying the character and reflexes cultivated today in
academia, the traditional media, and in politics. In exactly his present form, he is the ideal of our
cultural elite. Sadly, that elite doesn't know any longer how to speak to Iranians in the tones of
liberty, empirical confidence, and moral courage. Its expertise now lies in reducing all questions to
matters of hate speech and victimhood.
Crazed
Democrats in Virginia attack opponents, throw signs. This video depicts two men unleashing a
string of racial epithets at members of Americans for Prosperity, who took the video. While flailing
arms and shouting, the two also start yanking signs off of private property and throwing them aside, while
saying, "This is public space. I pay taxpayer dollars while y'all to spread racism and bigotry."
The Party of the Rich.
At this moment, two of [the Democratic Party's] leaders from a supposedly disadvantaged minority are about to be
tried for ethical transgressions (read: thievery) even Congress couldn't sweep under the rug. Never mind
that these transgressions mostly exploit the very minority these people purport to represent. It's part
of the game. Convince minorities they should act like victims. Extort guilt payments from the majority
and keep the change. Meanwhile, nothing improves for the minority because it would interrupt the system.
Never-Ending Racial
Hostility. This, as compared to the nation I saw in the 1950s, is not a racist country.
The time has come to stop being intimidated by racial rhetoric and guilt for the past. The generations
upon whose shoulders the guilt rests have since passed into the mists of history. Those alive today,
black and white, are the ones who made the enormous advances in civil rights possible. It is a matter
of immense pride and accomplishment. Do not allow others to take it away from you.
We Have Overcome. Benjamin Hooks
lived to see the promise of the movement he helped lead, even if he wouldn't have admitted it.
Race and
Politics: Part II. No dogma has caused more mischief — and, in some countries,
tragedies — than the notion that there is something strange and wrong when some groups are
"over-represented" or "under-represented" in some occupations or institutions. This dogma is so
widely accepted, and so deeply entrenched, that no one asks for evidence and no speck of evidence is
offered. Moreover, tons of evidence to the contrary are ignored.
More
Lies Exposed in 'Phantom N-Word Tale'. We all know the story by now. Rep. Andre Carson (D-In)
says that he and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga) were assaulted with racial slurs by Tea Party protesters as they walked
down the step of the Cannon office building and headed to the Capitol on March 20th. Rep. Emanuel
Cleaver (D-Mo) also told reporters that he heard the 'N-word' as he was walking a few yards behind Rep. Lewis.
"It was like a chorus", Rep. Cleaver said. Only problem is: Rep. Cleaver wasn't there.
The
Ongoing Melodrama of Victims and Oppressors. In Obama's world, there exists a simple zero-sum
melodrama of victims and oppressors.
Opposed to Obamacare? Then You Must Be a Racist.
As the ever-tolerant [Frank] Rich reasons: "The conjunction of a black President and a female speaker of the
House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay congressional committee
chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the
country no matter what policies were in play." So that's it. It's just a bunch of scared, white
males who would yelp about anything this gang came up with.
The next move of
the Alinsky left. [Scroll down] Why did these congresspeople, including Emmanuel Cleaver
(the alleged "spitee", who actually walked too close to a protester shouting "kill the bill" and got sprayed),
Barney Frank, and Nancy Pelosi deliberately march into the demonstration and confront the Tea Partiers?
After all, wasn't it Nancy herself who said she was "frightened" by these supposedly violent people? Is
it possible that they wanted to provoke a reaction from the crowd to be used by the media to demonize the Tea
Party movement (i.e., "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it")? Is it also
possible that when there was nothing sufficiently provoked by the lawmakers' confrontation, they decided
to fabricate it? I believe their previous record of untruthfulness supports this hypothesis.
Left Playing the Hate Game.
In reality, this kind of commentary is nothing new. We see it every time conservatives have any
political momentum whatsoever. The idea is that by shouting "racist," these liberal columnists can make
their opponents shut up. But this is a very angry and polarized political climate.
Black
Congressmen Under Investigation? Must Be Racism! If Democrats did not peddle victimology
and faux moral superiority, their status would be reduced to that of a fringe party, and they would end up
having to get in line for a statist bailout of their own. In 2009, only if one refuses to examine
reality can race be depicted as a major societal problem.
There can be no peace in the land of the easily offended.
Mixed reaction on MARTA's
'yellow line' rebranding. MARTA's decision to brand its train line into Doraville "yellow" has
stirred quiet debate among some within Atlanta's growing Asian-American community.
Libs Scold Black
Conservatives. The liberal media celebrates black achievement only when it comes from
an I made it in spite of America's racism point of view. Blacks who proclaim, "I achieved
because America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it" are
vilified by the media, branded Uncle Toms and traitors to their race. The Left's message is clear.
To be authentically black and faithful to their race, blacks must not achieve on their own. They must
view themselves as eternal victims and reserve at least a minimal resentment against white America.
The Racism Trap Defined.
Unfortunately, after King's assassination, black liberation theologians (like James H. Cone) and Black Panthers, Black
Muslims and other splinter groups hijacked Dr. King's movement and turned it upside down and inside out, adopting the
vengeance/violence model. Even after the post-King-assassination wholesale riots and killing sprees ended, these groups
adopted socialist revolutionary tactics (those designed by Alinsky and others), which have perpetuated the battle, turned
racism into a black on white sin more than the other way around, and have demanded more and more and more as just
retribution and penance for the sin of white racism in the past.
Mexican flag
has no place in an immigration march. I understand the feelings of the tens of thousands of
people who marched on the National Mall yesterday in pursuit of immigration reform and, in particular, paths
to citizenship for millions of undocumented workers. I understand their desire to live without fear of
arrest, to simply do an honest day's work and to see their children thrive. I understand that our immigration
system is haplessly dysfunctional and that major reforms are needed. What I don't understand is the
claim by some at the march that those here illegally are somehow victims.
The Real Problem With ACORN.
[Scroll down] Eventually I soured on welfare in a number of ways. Even with the women it was doing no good.
They had no sense of self-sufficiency. It was just a sophisticated form of begging. They would develop a sense
of entitlement so that "getting ahead" simply meant making more and more strident demands on more and more people.
Obama,
Abortion and the Promise of Racial Equality. Prior to the election of Barack Obama as President
of the United States, many people believed (or feared) that racism remained so widespread in America that no
African-American could be elected to national office. That hypothesis has been falsified. It is
not that our country is free of racists (or anti-Semites, or anti-Catholics, or other bigots). Racist
views, however, have been stigmatized and people holding such views have been marginalized. The
overwhelming majority of whites today are prepared to vote for a black candidate for any office.
Of Race, Gender and
Justice. Judge Sotomayor's offensive words are a reflection of her much greater body of work as an
ethnic activist and judge. Identity politics is at the core of who this woman is. And let me be clear
here, I am not talking about the understandable pride in one's ancestry or ethnic roots, which is both common and
natural in a country as diverse and pluralistic as ours. Identity politics involves a sense of grievance
against the majority, a feeling that racism permeates American society and its institutions, and the belief that
members of one's own group are victims in a perpetual power struggle with the majority.
Race Talk for "African-Americans". Race
talk often portrays black Americans as downtrodden and deserving of white people's help and sympathy.
That vision is an insult of major proportions. As a group, black Americans have made some of the greatest
gains, over the highest hurdles, in the shortest span of time than any other racial group in mankind's
history. ... It was a black American, Gen. Colin Powell, appointed Joint Chief of Staff in October 1989, who
headed the world's mightiest military and later became U.S. Secretary of State, and was succeeded by Condoleezza
Rice, another black American. Black Americans are among the world's most famous personalities and a few
are among the richest. Most blacks are not poor but middle class.
The Obama We Knew But
Denied: [Scroll down slowly] We saw a perfect glimpse of this condescending prejudice
from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, when he spoke to the NAACP on the differences between white children and black
children. Wright declared that black children simply could not learn in the same rigid type of
environment in which white children thrived. "Their brains are wired differently," he proclaimed.
This is simply a way of saying, "Black children can't succeed" in a white world with the same standards of
achievement for all. This prejudiced attitude is the foundation of affirmative action, whether in
education or employment. Whatever standards cannot be met by the disadvantaged group must be waived
out of deceptive "niceness." This is the insidious prejudice that has all-but destroyed our nation's
public schools.
No sacrifice too
great for Michelle Obama. The First Lady has once again uttered words that reveal her
self-absorbed interior life. Speaking in Copenhagen, she referred to her trip as a "sacrifice." ... There
is a victim mentality at work here. Life is unfair. This is a woman who sees herself put-upon by
life, the victim of forces beyond her control. And she lives in the White House!
Paterson
Whines: 'Racism!' Gov. Paterson has played the race card. The state's first black governor
yesterday [8/21/2009] blamed his political woes — and those of President Obama — on
a white-dominated media that he accused of taking part in an "orchestrated" attack campaign. "We're not in the
post-racial period," Paterson said in a freewheeling interview on the liberal talk-radio station WWRL. "My feeling
is it's being orchestrated, it's a game, and people who pay attention know that."
N.Y. Gov. Paterson
blames unpopularity on his skin. New York's Democratic Gov. David Paterson has figured out why his popularity
there has declined from the heady days when the lieutenant governor succeeded sex scandal-plagued fellow Democrat Eliot
Spitzer. Paterson told a radio interviewer today it's because he's black and there aren't enough black media outlets
to counter the white ones. He also suggested the same racist forces will soon take after President Barack Obama.
Promoting Racial Paranoia.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. has threatened to make a documentary on "racial profiling" in the wake of his highly publicized arrest
for disorderly conduct on July 16. It's going to be a very long film, given the Harvard professor's exceedingly
expansive definition of what counts as biased policing. Unfortunately, Pres. Barack Obama's take on police work is no
more reality-based than Gates's.
Cries of reverse discrimination build to a chorus.
A black president tabs a Latina for the Supreme Court. She had made a ruling against white firefighters. That
ruling gets reversed by her prospective high-court colleagues. It was pretty easy to guess what would come up in her
confirmation hearings. America, it seems, isn't over race after all. Rather, now the race card is being dealt
in every direction.
Stinging Remarks on Race From Attorney General.
The United States is "a nation of cowards" when it comes to race relations, the country's newly minted attorney general said
today [2/18/2009]. In remarks made during a speech to honor Black History Month, Eric Holder said the country remains
"voluntarily socially segregated," making head-turning comments that could spark fierce dialogue and the ire of some
conservatives.
Why
should a journalist's race matter? With so many other things to worry about, and with the whole
world able to see that racial identity is no longer a barrier to even the most powerful position in American
life, you might think the press would finally be ready to abandon its unhealthy preoccupation with the color
of skin — especially the skin within its own ranks. Alas, no.
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.
Michelle Obama: Perpetual
Victim. Her husband has been lauded as the Messiah; benefited from the most fawning coverage
bestowed on a presidential candidate, at least since JFK; is running in the most Democrat-favorable electoral
environment, at least since Watergate; has raised more funds than any presidential candidate ever; has become
a worldwide celebrity; and is spending an unprecedented amount of money running negative ads about his
opponent. ... Yet in her world, they're still "underdogs."
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."
Angela Davis: Prisons perpetuate oppression of minorities.
After the inauguration of the first black president, America is now on the precipice of changes that were never
before possible, 1960s radical turned academic Angela Davis told a crowd of hundreds at the University of New
Hampshire last night. The vestiges of slavery, colonization and exploitation remain
rife throughout America, as is evidenced by the over-representation of minorities in prison, Davis said.
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.
Why Stupid Is as
Stupid Does. Jesse Jackson, Rainbow-Push Coalition, and the rest of the industry of outrage that make
a living off of spreading such a victimhood mentality in their communities have been doing it for years. To be
very honest its one of the reasons newly immigrated blacks from Africa or the Caribbean have a very hard time fitting
in to such communities. As immigrants they see the opportunities in front of them as blessings and they cannot
comprehend why some domestic, multi-generational black Americans won't seize them. Victimhood is a state of
mind first and foremost. Overcoming the barriers that keeps one down is exceedingly liberating. But on
Chicago's south side, fellow African Americans make large sums of money convincing some that they must remain
angry, suspicious, and sadly — victims.
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.
An Enduring Crisis for the
Black Family: In 1965, a young assistant secretary of labor named Daniel Patrick Moynihan stumbled upon data
that showed a rise in the number of black single mothers. As Moynihan wrote in a now-famous report for the Johnson
administration, especially troubling was that the growth in illegitimacy, as it was universally called then, coincided with
a decline in black male unemployment. ... Unfortunately, those warnings were as prescient as they were reviled. Civil
rights leaders, worried about reviving racist myths about black promiscuity, objected to what they viewed as blaming the
victim. Feminists were inclined to look on the "strong black women" raising their children without men as a symbol
of female autonomy.
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.
Obama:
Tilting at Racial Windmills. Simply put, black offenders do not receive stiffer penalties than
white offenders for equivalent crimes — not today, and not at any time in recent decades. The
most exhaustive, best designed study of this matter — a three-year analysis of more than 11,000
convicted criminals in California — found that the severity of offenders' sentences depended
heavily on such factors as prior criminal records, the seriousness of the crimes, and whether guns were
used in the commission of those crimes. Race was found to have no effect whatsoever.
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.
Anti-Muslim attack
called bogus. A Muslim student who said a masked gunman assaulted her after he wrote anti-Islamic slurs
in a women's restroom at Elmhurst College was arrested Friday after an investigation concluded the
attack never happened. A week after the case roiled the small college, Elmhurst Police Chief Steven Neubauer said
Safia Jilani, 19, of Oak Brook had been booked on a felony charge of filing a false police report, which is punishable
by 1 to 3 years in prison.
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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