Posted on 07/17/2016 5:46:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
Is there systemic, intentional racism in America today? Do large numbers of white Americans want to keep black Americans down? If not, why have other minorities overcome the odds to rise to the top of society while so many black Americans are languishing?
Let’s consider how other minority groups have fared in America.
Jews today make up less than 2 percent of our population, and they have certainly suffered discrimination here in America, let alone (in deadly fashion) around the world. As Wikipedia notes, “In the first half of the 20th century, Jews were discriminated against in employment, access to residential and resort areas, membership in clubs and organizations, and in tightened quotas on Jewish enrollment and teaching positions in colleges and universities. Restaurants, hotels and other establishments that barred Jews from entry were called ‘restricted’.”
Early in the 20th century, there was even an attempt to restrict Jewish attendance in Ivy League schools like Harvard. Yet all these obstacles (and many others) were overcome, and today, no one would deny the powerful influence Jewish men and women have in virtually every facet of American society. In fact, anti-Semites claim that Jews control Hollywood, the banks, the media, and the government!
Asian Americans make us up less than 6 percent of our population and have had their own share of obstacles to overcome, including the mistreatment of Japanese Americans during the World War II.
Yet Asian Americans are often at the top of their classes in the nation’s most elite schools, frequently leading the way in the business world and beyond. Why have they succeeded as relative newcomers compared to black Americans, who have been here since the inception of our nation?
Does this provide evidence that black Americans are being singled out for mistreatment and that there is an intentional, premeditated plan to keep black Americans down?
A white racist might say, “Not at all. This just proves that blacks are inferior.”
But not only is that an utterly despicable statement, it is also totally false.
Studies have indicated that recent African immigrants “tend to be older, more likely to have a higher education and a higher income, and less likely to live in poverty.”
A recent caller to my show, who previously lived in Kenya and Tanzania and who jokingly identified himself as an African African American (triple A, as he said), repeated to me what other recent African immigrants have shared on my show: Their lot is often different than the lot of other African Americans, and they find themselves getting better educations and better jobs.
So, what it is that keeps so many black Americans down, specifically, those who have been here for a period of generations?
It is certainly true that there are white Americans who hate blacks and want to oppress them keep down, but I personally believe that accounts for a very small minority of white Americans.
It is also true that black Americans often are not treated the same way white Americans are. But here too, I don’t believe this is done in an intentional, systemic way, which would have been the case during the days of segregation and slavery.
How, then, do we explain the very real disparity in our society between black Americans and white Americans, or between black Americans and other minority groups?
Why, on average, do black American families make so much less than, say, Hindu American families or Jewish American families (roughly $35,000 per black family as compared to more than $100,000 per Hindu or Jewish family)?
I believe it is the welfare system (and its related policies) that has kept black Americans down, however well-intentioned this system may have been at the outset.
Put another way, the system is enslaving many blacks rather than empowering them, destroying the family in the process, but it is not so much the result of systemic racism as it is the result of systemically flawed policies.
In an eloquent Facebook post, black NFL star and outspoken Christian Benjamin Watson asks the question, “As Americans, do black lives matter to us?”
He makes many valid points and raises many valid concerns, some of which indict white Americans and some of which indict black Americans, but at all points, he is redemptive, pointing to the cross and calling each of us higher.
Watson’s criticisms are fair and on target, including this one: “Black lives DON'T matter when some politicians enable generational dependency, stifling individual responsibility while others completely deny the importance of programs that are needed to help the marginalized. A crutch is the vital friend of the injured, its ultimate purpose to one day be laid aside as its former dependent walks on their own. If it oversteps its purpose the user will no longer feel the need to walk. Erroneously, they may not even think they can ever do so. Consequently, a stagnant, hopeless life seems to matter less.”
I agree with Watson that the system itself is flawed, even if the intent behind the system was good. And I agree with his other comments, indicating that many disparities do exist between black and white Americans, that there is injustice in our land, that the family must be rebuilt, and that our current policies are only exacerbating the problems.
But how do we address these issues? Obviously, provoking others to rage, anger, and violence only makes things massively worse.
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a controversial black leader who grew up without a father on a plantation during the Jim Crowe era, proposes a totally different approach. He argues that the only way for black Americans to move forward, regardless of injustice and discrimination and inequality, is to practice love and forgiveness, to rebuild the family, and to take full responsibility for one’s situation, refusing to blame others and refusing to depend on others
The entitlement mentality, which the government helped produce, is hurting black Americans not helping them, and while recognizing that there are genuine ways the government can help the poor and needy, our current system is doing far more harm than good.
It’s time for white Americans, like me, to stand side by side with black Americans, like Ben Watson, and say, “Enough with our flawed system. We stand with you against injustice and discrimination, and we want to empower you, not enslave you. America will not thrive until you are thriving.”
Statement is both right and wrong. There "is" a self-identified majority black culture which is at work. It identifies hard work (or study), good grades, speaking properly, etc. as "tryin' to be white", and punishes those who try to "do" those positive things as traitorous to the race.
Unfortunately, well-intentioned government policies have aided and abetted this anti-culture in many ways, but the most serious has been the destruction of the black nuclear family.
Ouch!
I don’t have the emotional free space to care about lives that I don’t know. I have to be selective. If the tv box says 6 people in Tulsa killed by tornado, I recognize that it is awful and I wish their families peace, but does it matter? Frankly, no.
If 6 people in Tulsa are killed by a foreign terrorist, murderer, or drunk driver, does it matter? Yes it does.
Do black lives matter? To who? Me? Why would they?
Whites have been trying just to be left alone by aggrieved blacks but just mcam’t get away. Now whites get murdered for being white and ehen they point it out, they are called racists.
I don’t care about blacks at this point, individual nlacks I know yes, but as a group, no. I don’t wish them harm, but I could care less avout their plight. It is self caused and now they think anti-white and other types of racism is justified. I have no sympathy left for blacks as a group. They need to shut up, clean up their act, admit their irresponsible behavior and their racism and contribute to the greater society around them.
I’m done. There is not an ounce of white guilt left in me necausebthere’s absolutely no justification given the opportunities they have and the destruction they’ve caused. It’s time for them to pay their debt.
FBI Expanded Homocide Data Table 6 (2014). You can download the data in an Excel spreadsheet and play with it however you choose.
In the interest of fairness, I will point out that the posted graph is incorrect on the white-on-black crime, with the decimal point being shifted. For 2014, the actual number is 7.6% of black homicides are committed by whites. That is still lower than one would expect if criminals and victims were evenly distributed between races.
I would like to see the FBI data broken out a bit more. It breaks out crime/victims by race and by ethnicity, but no further. I would like to see a further breakdown by ethnicity within races; I think that some very clear patterns would emerge. For example, I would expect both criminality and victimhood to be higher among white hispanics than white non-hispanics, given the violent gang culture prominent within the barrios.
Anyway, enjoy.
That is an interesting insight. I remember a black friend many years ago complaining about going "back home" to Minneapolis and finding that all her family and childhood friends all expected her to think a certain way and to like or dislike things because that is how blacks are supposed to behave. She considered herself an individual, not an indistinguishable bee in a black hive.
Democrats, in their unending attempt to implement socialism, encourage group think. And too many blacks have embraced that philosophy.
I have heard the racism charge hurtled so much at this point I automatically assume the charge is a lie.
I am also to the point that if I am called a racist I frankly just don’t give a damn any more. I’m not going to try and convince those making the charge otherwise because it’s a losing battle and not worth my time.
I am also to the point where I don’t think or feel any obligation to people of color. To be blunt I have heard the racism charge to the point I really don’t care and am ready to defend myself without remorse to those racist seeking violence as their solution. I have had enough.
Republicans have always wanted to, and have, helped black Americans, despite stiff opposition and hatred by Democrats.
So it is time for Republicans to consider that race relations between blacks and *everyone else*, not just whites, but Hispanics and Asians, have “irreconcilable differences”.
Simply put, many slave-descended American blacks are miserable in America, and have been for a very long time. So they should be given a “good” opportunity to emigrate to where they hope to live better lives.
The last and most successful of the “black repatriation” movements in the US was in the 1920s and ‘30s, run by a man named Marcus Garvey. His intent was to found a shipping line to take black Americans back to Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey
Today, Republicans could help organize an orderly emigration for black Americans who want to return to Africa and become citizens of an African nation. But we need to create incentives to make emigration an attractive alternative.
The project begins with the understanding that Africa is a gigantic continent. And many of the nations within are enormous in their own right, with vast unoccupied areas.
So the US leases a giant enclave from one of these nations. A 100 year lease. The US fences the enclave, not to keep the Americans in, but to keep uninvited Africans out, at least for a time. In the enclave, the US builds a city, with its own power, water, eventually food production, and low cost stores full of consumer goods and free food and medical supplies.
Half the enclave is for voluntary repatriations. The other half is somewhat like a minimum security prison. This is so that US prisoners, except for life and death sentence prisoners, can have their sentences commuted on condition they leave the US for good. Then it will be up to the “free citizens” in the enclave to decide when, and if, the former felons can join them.
Those Americans who go there will have dual citizenship for say, five years, then they will become citizens of their new homeland.
The bottom line to all of this is to present black Americans with the chance to leave a country they do not like, for a better, more prosperous life in a new country.
It should be so attractive that they will wait in long lines for the chance to move there.
I agree that the ‘flawed’ system that he identifies certainly exists but it’s based on a political ideology that draws its power from victimization and subjugation. Ask who benefits from this oppressive environment and the answer is inescapable; Democrats.
The example of long liberal dominated cities where Blacks are a majority or plurality tend to support your thesis. Detroit, New Orleans, Newark, Flint, Cleveland . . . just to throw out a few examples.
Well put; with our open borders many whites don’t even see blacks anymore - therefore there is little reason to pay them much mind at all. BTW, blacks realize this has happened, and that is why they try to shut down freeways; if they aren’t inconveniencing working whites, then they don’t exist at all. They are watching their scapegoats disappear from their sight, taking their incomes with them...
A black 4th grade teacher told me once one of the highest insults leveled at the smart black kids by other black kids was “you actin’ white” It was specifically meant to have the smart ones stop showing off/up the stupid ones.
While your post supports my early assertion, I was thinking more about when whites AREN’T around blacks. We aren’t even thinking about it, much less “down wthe struggle.” There are too many other more pressing issues to fool around with some kind of racist conspiracy.
Thanks. That fits better with what I thought I knew about the numbers. I guess that red arrow really IS “systemic racism”.
Still an interesting chart... No need to lie on it.
Libs have kept them down, and their own groupthink has kept them down.
That is factual
Ask the democrat party. They are experts on this subject.
Of COURSE we do!!!
Otherwise we'd quit SUBSIDIZING all of the bastard children.
let the flames begin.
No; we don’t.
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