I work as a teacher’s assistant for a major online university, and one of the assignments I grade frequently is a reflective life story of my students, many of whom are blacks finally beginning college. The vast majority of them are women who began having babies at 14 or 15 after having grown up with mothers who slept around with abusive men, did drugs and ended up in and out of prison. One particular student really angered me with her story of gang rape, parental neglect and abuse, with a father who only wanted custody of her so he could get her ‘social security money to buy drugs.’ I don’t see how racism ever plays into these stories—most of these stories always break my heart and also reinforce the idea that the black community is self-destructing, not because of any outside influences, but because of the crime, sex, drugs and violence inherent in their own homes and community. All personal choices. The most sickening aspect of the stories I read over and over again is that these so-called ‘adults’ use children as a means to an end. And the cycle of waste and abuse continues, because all these broken people are brought into this cesspool of a world.
She is right—it is racism but—its the whole entitlement—I deserve something for nothing view— that has ruined the black community—a terrible legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. MLK would be disgusted with what Blacks have done with they freedom and the political system they have evolved. Blacks were freer in the 1950s when they had their own communities. They need to solve their own problems rather than blame the “evil White Man” for all their ills. Look to the Message of Bill Cosby. Blacks must look into their own hearts and stop hate that grows there.