Blacks Prospered Under Reagan

It's an article of faith among liberal journalists that Ronald Reagan's economic policies were bad for African-Americans - though, in fact, government statistics show that nothing could be further from the truth.

"As he left office, a Lou Harris poll found nearly 80 percent of blacks considered his administration oppressive," CNN correspondent Adaora Udoji noted to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Tuesday night.

Jackson readily concurred, acknowledging that Reagan's relationship with blacks was "very hostile." In an earlier CNN interview Jackson observed, "Reagan believed in states' rights and Jefferson Davis, I believe in the Union and Abraham Lincoln."

Even in less hysterical forums, Reagan is being trashed as anti-black. A Thursday headline on Newsday's op-ed pages reads: "Some blacks in D.C. say he was a 'racist' and see him as the cause for a lot of suffering in the '80s."

"Under Reagan, black adult unemployment fell faster than did white unemployment," noted Los Angeles radio host Larry Elder in a 1999 op-ed for the Ethnic News Watch. "Black teenage unemployment fell faster than did white teenage unemployment. And blacks started businesses at a rate faster than that of whites.

"In 1981," Elder continued, "the nation's poverty rate stood at 14 percent. It declined to 11.6 percent in 1988, Reagan's last year in office."

"A set of minority economic profiles released by the Census Bureau show that black households had a median income of $19,758 at the time of the 1990 census, up 84% from 1980," noted the Associated Press in July 1992. "During that period, white median household incomes climbed 68%."

Even the New York Times had to grudgingly admit that the 1990 Census showed poverty tumbling under Reagan.

"Last year, the [Census] bureau said, 12.8 percent of Americans had income below the official poverty level, which was $12,675 for a family of four. The poverty rate for 1989 was the lowest in the 1980s but was higher than for any year in the 1970s. The rate was 13 percent in 1988 and 13.4 percent in 1987."

"High school graduation rates among black students rose substantially during the 1980s, narrowing an education gap with whites, according to a new federal study on U.S. school enrollments.

"About 75 percent of blacks ages 18 to 24 in 1988 reported that they were high school graduates. Ten years earlier, only 68 percent of blacks in this age group reported that they had high school diplomas. The proportion of whites who say they graduated from high school has held at about 82 percent."

Still, as Elder laments in his book "Ten Things You Can't Say in America," the media campaign painting Reagan as bad for blacks has been largely successful.

"Blacks simply do not know that blacks prospered greatly under Reagan," he contended. "Want to start a fight? Walk into a black barbershop and praise Ronald Reagan."

The screed from the poverty pimps is that Reagan was a "racist." Hardly. Anyone who knew Ronald Reagan, or who has read a decent biography of the man, knows that Ronald Reagan didn't have a racist bone in his body. He treated every person exactly the same -- with respect -- regardless of race, creed, or color. And, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't "treating every person exactly the same, with respect," the concept of racial equality espoused by the old-school civil rights leaders of the 1950s and '60s?

The "racist" label afixed to Reagan is often because he supposedly paid no attention to the plight of minorities in our society. Another way to say this is, Reagan never pandered to their condition as a way to get their support. Reagan's policies appealed, not to the poverty pimps, but to productive Americans: to businessmen who produce wealth, not for themselves alone, but for the communities in which they do business; to employers who produce jobs, and give others in their communities a livelihood; to parents who are conscientiously producing the next generation of American citizens, instilling their children with the values that have made America a great nation and a great society; to soldiers who produce peace and security for not only America, but America's ideals.

Take a walk around the center of any large American city. Sadly, there are many Americans who are not productive, who show no inclination to be productive, and who are affirmed by politicians and "social workers" in their unproductiveness. Reagan's attitude toward the unproductive class in this nation (which isn't made up solely of one race) was that whatever government programs there are that support them, they should be geared toward breaking these people's dependence upon government, and lifting them into a situation and mindset where they can be productive. Reagan was the original "compassionate conservative." It's a modern American tragedy that those who enable the unproductive in their uselessness, who pander to their dead-end social status, and who develop "self-esteem" in the unproductive by encouraging them to hate any American who is productive, are the ones viewed by the elites as "compassionate."

There is no "black America," there is no "white America," there is no "hispanic America," there is only "productive" and "unproductive America." The Republican Party, a party largely remade in 1980 into the image of Ronald Reagan, should never get suckered into "racial politics," but should always speak to every American, regardless of race, about opporunities, and productivity.

From my website this afternoon:

Jesse Jackson continues to vilify Reagan, though stats show true story

Even though black Americans prospered significantly under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Rev. Jesse "The Gypsy" Jackson continues to spread the mantra of "Republican bad! Democrat good!"

"As he left office, a Lou Harris poll found nearly 80 percent of blacks considered his administration oppressive," CNN correspondent Adaora Udoji noted to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Tuesday night.
Jackson readily concurred, acknowledging that Reagan's relationship with blacks was "very hostile." In an earlier CNN interview Jackson observed, "Reagan believed in states' rights and Jefferson Davis, I believe in the Union and Abraham Lincoln."

Almost universally, and encouraged by the cheerleaders in the mainstream press, Reagan is excoriated as a pseudo-enemy of blacks and other minorities, when nothing could be further from the truth.

According to statistics gathered from a number of sources, including the 1990 US Census, black unemployment fell faster than white unemployment during the Reagan years.

Los Angeles radio host Larry Elder in a 1999 op-ed for the Ethnic News Watch. "Black teenage unemployment fell faster than did white teenage unemployment. And blacks started businesses at a rate faster than that of whites.
"In 1981," Elder continued, "the nation's poverty rate stood at 14 percent. It declined to 11.6 percent in 1988, Reagan's last year in office."

According to Census data, the median income of black households was $19,758 in 1990, up 84% from ten years prior. According to the AP, in the same ten year period, the median income of white households only increased 68%.

Other mainstream media sources, including the vaunted New York Times had to admit that poverty had lessened during the Reagan Administration -- which flies directly in the face of Jackson's claims this week.

In addition, high school graduation rates for black students increased, narrowing the education gap with white students.

All of this happened during the Reagan years; years when, according to Jesse Jackson and other professional peddlers of black victimhood (like the NAACP's Julian Bond, for example), black progress was turned back decades.

I talked about Julian Bond's predeliction for shoe leather yesterday. It seems that Jesse Jackson ought to join him in the "idiot statement" department.

Unfortunately, the members of the Soul Patrol, who thrive on keeping black Americans thinking they are victims of society; coupled with the useful idiots in the mainstream American press, won't let truths like this be heard other than by a miniscule number of Americans.

And after all, if CNN says that we've been victimized, then it must be true, right?

Yassuh. Right, boss. Anything you say.

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