Black boys see little to encourage education

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 8/17/03 | NATHAN McCALL

[Spok]

So the choice for young black men is between becoming the president or dealing drugs?
How about just going to school to get a job to earn an honest living?
And of course, as a role model, President Bush serves as a disincentive for blacks to go to school. Could this reasoning be any more convoluted? As with all political extremists, all roads lead to the agenda.
And how typical of PC culture to elevate an ex-con to the status of an intellectual, where being a con is not just considered irrelevant, but is a bona fide qualification.

[King Prout]

the important thing to note is that these immigrants assimilate in 1-2 generations, and their KIDS go on to benefit from the hard work of the parents. That is the way of the traditional process of American self-improvement - it is a GENERATIONAL process. Most whites did not move from the ranks of semi-literate yeomanry to wealthy professional in the couse of one lifetime, either.
Speaking very generally: Somewhere along the line, not sure when, the fruits of black generations was ruthlessly squandered, replaced with an intense lust for immediate gratification and rapacious impatience with the difficulties life presents. Much of the blame for this can be laid at the doorsteps of the premature bid for power which overtook the civil rights movement. More is directly the fault of the "great society" social engineering/redistribution programs. Also, somewhere along the line black advocacy groups and "leadership" became heavily infected by socialist and marxist ideology. This made the alliance between black "leadership" and the dims quite inevitable.
The decline of public education, as reflected in the decline of individual critical thinking and logical analysis among what is approaching three generations of blacks, certainly did not help matters.

[dwd1]

I see Jack Kemp was involved with the organization and the foundation appears to have admirable goals...

What I am asking is when did we as a black community decide that following the Democratic Party was in our best interests...

Plessy vs Ferguson was the voting of an entitlement that gave us schools but they were definitely inferior...

If you are saying that we were sold on a group who said, "We can get you A and B and C while the other party gives you nothing " If that is the case, I am going to assume that this happened somewhere around the Great Depression...

[Jakarta ex-pat]

"Also, somewhere along the line black advocacy groups and "leadership" became heavily infected by socialist and marxist ideology. This made the alliance between black "leadership" and the dims quite inevitable."

Oh yes. There is always someone to blame.

Let's face it. When the first "boat" arrived, so did the dems!

[dwd1]

Understanding that there was a time when excellence in education was demanded, I can understand that... I do have trouble believing that only one political party caused the problems with public education but I could use more info on that... I am not saying there is a smoking gun but I have the feeling that the black community came to the same conclusion on a very broad basis... It is like I need to be able to say to someone "Here, here, here, and here is where we went down the wrong path and this is how we can make it right and go down the correct path!"

I am not looking for an easy answer... Just maybe some place to start...

[dwd1]

Which boat? From where? And what was it's cargo?

[Jakarta ex-pat]

If you need "telegraphing", I'm sorry for you.

As for the cargo. Pure HATE.

[King Prout]

A few clarifications:
1. I am not black, so "we" doesn't apply to me in this context. Sorry if I misled you in any way.
2. I was born in 1970, and most of the damage had already been done long before I grew to observant maturity.
3. So far as I can tell, the civil rights movement started with full justice and the best intentions in the world. Sadly, it seems to have become co-opted by demagogues and special-interest predators.

An elaboration: The civil rights movement was a MASS MOVEMENT. Such things are by definition composed of a very large body of people who have surrendered their own wills to those of a very few (or an individual) in exchange for the promise of a radical change in the conditions of their lives. The core mambers and initial leaders of such groups are usually visionaries, inexperienced in social and political arenas, idealistic in both the denotative and connotative sense, fixated with a quasireligious fervor on the idea which drives them. What these people bring to the table is a direction and an impetus. These core members act as missionaries and proselytizers who spread the creed to less independently-motivated members of the creed's target market. These secondary members are the followers. They have no real agenda or plans, they are merely disenchanted with their current status and are vulnerable to hope for radical change in their conditions. What they bring to the table is sheer weight of numbers, or mass. Mass, when set in motion by the zeal of the leadership, becomes momentum, becomes a source of power.
And that is likely where the trouble starts.
new sources of power within an established social and political structure will ALWAYS be targeted for co-option by whichever power elites decide they could use a little more muscle. Mob politics is a very old and useful political gambit.
It is also dangerous.
Mobs are like dull-witted but potent monsters. Mobs must be fed and kept content, must be allowed the illusion of self-importance, lest they turn on their masters. For the parasites who co-opt the mob, the reltionship frequently mutates from riding the beast to being enslaved by its appetites. They may direct the mob's collective will, but must toil diligently to keep its belly full. That which makes them strong also kills them in the end.

[King Prout]

please do make use of telegraphy, for I, too, was befuddled by your reply.
To what "boats" do you refer?

[Jakarta ex-pat]

please do make use of telegraphy, for I, too, was befuddled by your reply. To what "boats" do you refer?

How about I shut up?

good night.

[King Prout]

see #48.
contributing to black discontent was the fact that for decades the republican party took their allegiance for granted.
"Party of Lincoln" must have gotten old, and rather insulting as a political sop in the face of endemic Jim Crow laws.
In short, the Republicans were not doing anything to help blacks, and were not preventing or fighting Jim Crow.
The civil rights movement came along.
The Kennedys were staunch champions of civil rights - at least public-image-wise. The Kennedys garnered a fair amount of support from the black civil rights leadership. When the Kennedys and King were whacked, the similarity of fates and timing linked them forever in the American mythos. The Kennedys were (and remain) pseudo-deities for the Dims. King was (and remains) a pseudo-deity for the civil rights movement. For whatever reason, the mass behind the movement converted sympathy for and loyalty to these three men to the DNC.
The rest? Habit, fed by largesse and reinforced with fellatio-politics.

[King Prout]

good night.

[hattend]

BTTT

[optimistically_conservative]

In a race between Condi and Hillary Clinton, this man and millions like him would vote for the white Democrat. All because Condi wouldn't genuflect to the God that Failed: the Democratic Party.

It is true, and sad. Representative Watts continues to speak publicly and actively, in America and in our party. Condolezza Rice, our National Security Advisor, whose wisdom and grace have been vitally important to our country during this troubled time. And our Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who I was once proud to have served under as our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and now even more proud as a citizen to have him represent us to our allies, and our enemies, given the importance of our foreign policy. I can think of no one I would rather have doing this critical job at this time. Roderick R. Paige is our Secretary of Education. Alphonso Jackson is the Deputy Secretary to Housing and Urban Development. Claude Alien is the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. Leo S. Mackay, Jr, is the Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Larry D. Thompson is the Deputy Attorney General. Stephen A. Perry is Administrator of General Services Administration. Jennette Bradley is the first African American female to serve as Ohio’s Lieutenant Governor. In Maryland, Lieutenant Governor-elect Michael Steele is the first African American to hold statewide office. Other African American candidates elected to office under the Republican banner include:

Kenneth Blackwell, OH Secretary of State
Cynthia Calhoun, Dallas County Clerk
Linda Douglass, Guadalupe County (TX) Treasurer
George Hanks, Jr., TX District Judge 157
Bill Hardiman, MI State Senate, District 29
Lisa Hembry, Dallas County Treasurer
Dianne Jones, Dallas County Criminal Court 11
Ed Jones, CO State Senate, District 11
Sherman Parker, MO State Rep., District 12
Jane Powdrell-Culbert, NM State House, District 44
Michael Williams, TX Railroad Commission Chair
Jackie Winters, OR State Senate, District 10

Others ran but did not win election, such as Rev. Steve Gordon, the Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives, 5th Congressional District, Missouri. He was defeated by Rep. Karen McCarthy, D-Mo., the incumbent. And last year, Pittsburgh mayoral candidate James Carmine, was defeated by incumbent Democrat Tom Murphy.

[optimistically_conservative]

Why Black People Overwhelmingly Support The Democrat Party

By Perry Drake

I'm frequently asked why is it that black people in election after election overwhelmingly support and vote for Democrat candidates.

It wasn't always the case. From the late 1860s up until the early 1930s, blacks lent their support to the Republican Party by overwhelming margins, about 90 percent. It stood to reason. After all, the Republicans were the Party of Lincoln.

So what happened?

The answer involves the highest ideals of the concept of manhood, the traits and qualities that throughout time have proven to be the most admirable and desirable in males. Traits and qualities like strength, courage, steadiness, competitiveness, bravery, determination, resolve and (most important of all) independence.

A community anchored by males who embody and embrace those traits and qualities is one that is not much in need of a steady and growing stream of handouts from others. They can pretty much take good care of themselves and their families, thank you very much.

In fact, men in such communities view all types of handouts with a certain level of contempt and suspicion because they are innately aware that the surest and quickest route to the loss of one's manhood is by starting down the road of dependency.

Unfortunately, the black community has found itself with a surfeit of males who instead of viewing handouts with contempt and suspicion accept any and all handouts with glee. As a result, black males have become stripped of their manhood, leaving themselves, their families and communities to fall prey to a myriad of social pathologies such as broken families, sky-high illegitimacy rates and poor classroom performance.

Now which political party do you think has honed the distributing of handouts from others in exchange for votes from the recipients of the handouts to a science?

Why the Democrats, of course. It's the party that practically invented government dependency way back around 1932 when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who I rank as one of the most evil men of the 20th century) created the federal welfare programs of his New Deal.

And it's no small coincidence nor was it entirely unplanned that it was during that same period when the federal government first turned on the spigot of federal handouts that blacks began shifting their allegiance in steadily growing numbers from the Republican Party to the Democrat Party, culminating in the 1960s with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Today, black males and their communities have found themselves trapped in a vicious cycle of dependency. The more handouts they accept, the more dependent they become and the more handouts they need and so on.

And that's why black people today support the Democrat Party by the same margins (about 90 percent) that they did for Republicans.

It's really as uncomplicated, sad and tragic as that.

[optimistically_conservative]

I do think there was a combination of factors, long before the civil rights movement which made the needs of the black community very apparent, and easily played to by politicians. When your property and life can be taken without fear of retribution, as existed during the Jim Crow days, personal and economic security become more important than "equal" opportunity and intellectually honest non-discrimination policies.

The Democrats, having lost the South, played to the evils of the Republican carpetbaggers and pushed "progressive" (read socialistic/communistic) policies. Liberal Democrats split from conservative Democrats in the 60s, and with the help of intellectually honest Republicans, passed civil rights laws. This also marked the migration of "conservative" Democrats to Dixiecrats to some joining the Republican party.

This generation of Dem/Dixie/Pubbies are retiring/dying off. What's competing in the Republican leadership now is a split in the Barry Goldwater conservatism between Nixonian (Southern Strategy) Paleo-conservatives and the Regeanite Neo-conservatives - IMHO.

[Migraine]

>>Could someone please tell me the history of how the majority of black people came to support the Democratic Party?... Is there a lesson to be learned in something that the Democrats may have done right or that the Republicans may have done wrong? <<

They gots to have they benefits. It's when gov't by the Democracks became a Christmas tree -- that's when and why black people came to unilaterally support the Democrack party. Ever-increasing benefits. And they's convinced that the onliest party that's FOR they benefits is the Democracks. The Publicans wants to shut off they benefits.

What a third-world mentality. It's very frustrating to me, really.

[dwd1]

And what year did this happen? Or did it just happen slowly over time...

Somewhere the Republican party became the party of established interests and the Democratic Party became the party of the disenfranchised...

I ask again...How did this happen?

[ChewedGum]

I think the article brings up a valid point that needs to be discussed... It is a parenting and community problem where stability and hard work are not always rewarded

I concur. When I started reading the article above, I could sense that there is a real issue and need to get black young men to a place where they realize the value of an education. I'm not willing to write these kids off, but we have to find a way to get them to choose to get with the program. (Compelled attendance has been and will continue to be an abject failure.)

It is really too bad the author brought in his complaining and griping and railing against the system. He smothered his valid point with his myoptic rant.

Gum

[King Prout]

the beginnings of a general breakdown in the foundation of society was observable at least as early as 1959. Not specific to blacks-only.
The social effects of WWII should not be underestimated.
American Society had been shaken up, and could not be restored to its earlier state. I am sure many tried to do so. That might have added a catalyzing anger to the brewing discontent. I don't know - waaaayyyy before my time.