It has become unfashionable to challenge commentary about race matters because free speech is now a passé value. To question the “conventional” line has been abrogated. But when one is an avowed anti-racist and has read extensively on the subject, one might be willing to take on liberal mantras. When I encountered someone of significance in the community, it was easy to take the challenge.
After a statement on race offered by the other person, I addressed this as follows: Please identify one person that you know who is a racist. You know systemic racism exists, but can you point to someone who is anti-black?
In your “education” of challenges in the Black community, can you name one book you have read by Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, Jason Riley, Deroy Murdock or Larry Elder? They are all Black scholars, most if not all with extensive studies on the subject of their race.
If you can’t, you have zero authority to pontificate on these matters. If you are really interested in learning the truth about the Black Community, then I am happy to have books by these knowledgeable authors delivered to your office at our expense. You can share them with your colleagues who I am confident few if any have read.
The response was “Since your mind is clearly made up, I’m just not going to engage. I’m sorry that you’ve come to the conclusions that you have. The world will continue moving forward with or without you.” Now you noticed that I asked two questions then was told my mind was closed.
My reply was: My mind is completely open. I am happy to have a discussion with you or anyone on race and the Black Community. My mind is always, always open. I read Ta-Nehisi Coates regularly. I will read or listen to anything that you or anyone has to say or you want me to read.
I have had this debate with many people on the Left. When I mention any of those people to them they give me a blank stare. These are people who lived through real racism (Sowell is 90 years old and Williams is 84 years old), but don’t blame you and me for the current problems in the Black Community.
Please educate me. I am happy to read anything you want me to read however long it may be. Have you read Colson Whitehead’s books? I have. So, please, you can accuse me of a lot of things, but never being closed minded. And frankly, I addressed two questions to you. And you respond with a non sequitur that my mind is closed.
When I received a response, this is what was said “I’m wondering what your stake is in this debate? Why are you intent on proving that systemic racism doesn’t exist? How would you be impacted if we gave folks who feel that the system is rigged against them a leg up? As a white man, (father of white kids), it all seems to work out for you.”
My response was this:
Thank you.
First, I don’t have white privilege. I am a Jew. As much as some Black people may state they are suffering and they want to even trace it back to 1619, we have 5,000 years on them. I am not sure how a Rabbi would not recognize that. There are more anti-Semitic acts still today than there are “hate crimes” against any other people. For anyone to tell a Jew they are somehow a privileged class is way out of bounds.
How exactly is the system rigged against Blacks? Bad schools? I didn’t vote for the people who ruined the bad schools in the major cities. I am not supportive of the teacher’s unions, which the Black Caucus in Congress fully supports that directly harms the educational opportunities of the Black children, which are controlled by Democrats in every major city in America. For 30 years I have supported school vouchers and charter schools to give these students and their parents better opportunities. Yet, the elected Black leadership and groups like the NAACP fight against those.
I don’t support the police unions that harbor bad cops like Derek Chauvin. The dichotomy between Republicans and Democrats regarding the police could not be more pronounced. Republicans support the police, but not police unions. Democrats support police unions, but not the police. This is the essence from which this issue radiates. If it were up to us, this guy would have been bounced years ago. Yet he was kept in place by the police union and the city structure run by Leftists and a Black police chief.
Even if you corrected all that and forgot all the programs that have been instituted since The Great Society, there is still the single biggest problem that will not be overcome by any of these programs. That is the disintegration of the nuclear family in the Black community. A hundred years ago the Black nuclear family was intact at a higher rate than whites – 82%. Now 70% of Black children are born out of wedlock. President Obama stated this. Unfortunately, he did nothing about it.
The liberal Brookings Institute defined three simple rules you can avoid poverty by:
1. Graduating from high school.
2. Waiting to get married until after 21 and not having children until after being married.
3. Having a full-time job.
If you do all three things, your chances of falling into poverty is just 2 percent. Meanwhile, you’ll have a 74 percent chance of being in the middle class.
Blacks have no chance if they cannot do something about this issues. Electing more Black officials, appointing more Black police chiefs, creating more programs are fruitless unless you solve the underlying problem. This country led by people with white liberal guilt has done a magnificent job of destroying the hopes of many Blacks. Now to appease them this state wants to send more underqualified Black kids from atrocious, inner city schools to the University of California system where they are destined for failure or have them moved along some more and give them a college degree without the accompanying education.
And the people you support do all this. I wrote a column about five years back delineating all this and stating as much as it pained me, I could do nothing about it. It had to radiate from the community. I don’t have to alleviate any guilt because I have none.
But you asked what my stake is and I will tell you. I want to see every Black child receive a proper education. I want them to have the same opportunities as every other group in America. I want to see them succeed like everyone else based on their abilities. And most of all I want to see them free of the yoke of all the people who say they are here to help and actually are only there to assuage their own feelings of self-generated guilt.
I hope that gives you a little understanding of my point of view which I can boldly state 99% of Republicans would applaud.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Notes: I do have guilt that I allowed the Left to take over the political systems in all our major cities and to have them create these problems. They create the problems, let them fester, then place blame on their politic opponents.
I followed the guiding light of MLK and never treated a Black person any differently than anyone else. Why would I harbor any guilt?