Posted on 07/14/2014 3:29:44 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012
Fifty years and $20 trillion ago, a well-intentioned President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty and launched his Great Society programs that were supposed to accomplish the laudable goal of lifting more African Americans out of poverty and into the middle class. Many wags have noted that it was poverty that won the war on poverty. Things did not work out according to plan. As Fred Siegel writes in City Journal: Today, a substantial black middle class exists, but its primary function has been, ironically, to provide custodial care to a black underclass—one ever more deeply mired in the pathologies of subsidized poverty. Siegel wrote these words in a glowing review of Wall Street Journal writer Jason Riley’s new book. Riley has advice for white liberals who want to help African Americans and he sums it up succinctly in the book’s title: Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed. I haven’t read Jason’s book yet, but Siegel’s review guarantees that I shall. Since the war on poverty was launched, social pathologies such as illegitimacy have proliferated among African Americans. Today more than 70 percent of African American babies are born to single mothers. Growing up in a single-parent household, even if the parent dearly loves her child, puts that child at a higher risk of poverty.
(Excerpt) Read more at iwf.org ...
“According to Siegel, Riley posits that the very “help” offered by liberals is what has made rising in society so difficult for African Americans:
The compulsory “benevolence” of the welfare state, borne of the supposed expertise of sociologists and social planners, undermined the opportunities opened up by the end of segregation. The great hopes placed in education as a path to the middle class were waylaid by the virulence of a ghetto culture nurtured by family breakdown. Adjusted for inflation, federal per-pupil school spending grew 375 percent from 1970 to 2005, but the achievement gap between white and black students remained unchanged. Students at historically black colleges and universities, explained opinion columnist Bill Maxwell, “did not know what or whom to respect. For many, the rappers Bow Wow and 50 Cent were as important to black achievement as the late Ralph Bunche, the first black to win a Nobel Peace Prize, and Zora Neale Hurston, the great novelist.”
“Why study hard in school,” asks Riley, “if you will be held to a lower academic standard? Why change antisocial behavior when people are willing to reward it, make excuses for it, or even change the law to accommodate it?”
Bump
Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a paper on what the results of Johnsons Great Society programs would be to the Black family,you can google his name and Great Society program to read it,and Moynihan was a Democrat,he was lambasted for it at the time as what else,being a racist.
It was not “well intentioned”. It was done to create poverty and a permanent voter base. Wel;l done LBJ!
Exactly. LBJ: “i’ll have those ni@@ers voting democratic for the next 200 years.”
LBJ was a destructive, cynical bastard.
I saw the Jason Riley interview on C-Span yesterday. He’s a young Thomas Sowell. The interviewer was a female, black former Clinton operative. She attempted to put forth the usual liberal talking points, and he shot her down at every turn.
Example: (Paraphrase) Question from interviewer: “So what would you propose we do to help blacks in this country?”
Answer: “As the title of my book says, it’s not what we should do, it’s what the government should stop doing.”
I saw a little. Wish I would have seen more. That’s why I posted this. She brought up Trayvon and Jason asked basically if profiling was warranted given the number of blacks who commit crimes. She tap-danced all around that and never did answer.
I want to read his book but I am afraid he is preaching to the choir.
This article gives me an idea for a bumper sticker: War on Poverty, Score: Poverty 1, War 0.
Back in the 1970s, I recall reading an op-ed piece by a black writer, lambasting affirmative action for the institutionalizing of the assumption that black people are lazy and stupid. At the time, being young, naive, and living in an environment of nothing but liberals, I could not understand the writer’s objections. I wondered why the writer couldn’t see that those programs were meant to help blacks (thereby illustrating that I was completely steeped in the white condescension that drives those programs). Now, with the benefit of experience and wisdom, I understand the writer’s point of view.
I’m trying to think of other bumper stickers. “War on Poverty: The Name of Racism.” “Racist Welfare Policies: Designed to Destroy Black Families.”
The Democrats are very good at bumper sticker politics. We need to fight back on their turf.
When I was young, I thought Jesse Jackson had all the answers. Seriously.
So glad I am not young now.
I’ll have those spics voting Democratic for the next 200 years-Obama.
Why not compromise? How about stricter gun laws for just black people? They are the ones f—king up here. They are the ones committing the crimes, killing the citizens... (Could you imagine if this was proposed?)
I caught an interview with Jason Riley on a black-oriented cable channel while surfing. He is an impressive young man. If any of us (middle class whites) spoke the same truths that he did, we’d be racist oppressors.
It was an hour interview, found in progress and I watched about 40 minutes of it. My only disagreement with him was that he believes that Trayvon Martin was profiled because of his dress and appearance rather than his behavior (though the interviewer, a black woman, did not mention behavior in the interview). But in effect he blamed Martin for his own death, so he’s not agenda driven.
Ok, I might get tomatoes thrown at me for this, but,I’m going to say it anyway. If I were a business owner - and, I’m not - then I would be leery of hiring blacks. Why? Not because of the color of their skin or that they are perceived as lazy and stupid - which isn’t true for the vast majority of them. However, my reluctance would be because deep down the majority do have the victim mentality and you have to walk on egg shells should they break company rules which warrant termination. That’s where the rubber meets the road - you have a lawsuit on your hands because of their perceived racism issues. When, in fact, they are the ones with the issue of racism, but will scream it at the to of their lungs and run to their friendly, bleeding heart lawyers and NAACP to rake you over the coals financially. Its as though they can’t accept blame for their behavior. This might sound like I’m discriminating but not really - just cautious to protect what I built - if I had a business. If I think this, might this be one reason for their high unemployment rates? Just wondering.......
I would add he was utterly corrupt and an extremely evil human being.
The man's soul was with Satan -- he knew clearly that the Great Society would destroy the black family, and many white families.
I cannot think of one redeeming quality he possessed.
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