Posted on 07/26/2002 3:01:40 PM PDT by mhking
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:04:40 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
During a recent CNN special marking the 10th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, playwright Anna Deavere Smith asked, "Why is it that there has not arisen a single young black leader in the past 30, or even 40 years?" You hear that question often among blacks. Truth is, though, never again will there be a "Black Leader" in the mold of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X--and this is a heartening sign of progress. Black America has done so well since the big victories of the civil rights era that it no longer needs the kind of leadership that was vital in those years of struggle. These days, most blacks are way beyond the injustices of the past and are taking advantage of the opportunities of the present.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.
BTW, I have read his book Losing the Race.
I like this statement........
I have worked as a consultant to many Chicago and midwest companies. Some Blacks (both qualified and unqualified) want to take advantage of the affirmative action programs. Some Blacks (and Hispanics, women, etc.) want to be hired on their merit. There is big pressure on the hiring managers to ONLY hire through the affirmative action programs, and to not hire qualified Blacks outside the programs. The reason is simple. These companies are only allowed to claim credit for participants in the affirmative action programs. They need those numbers to be as big as possible. These companies get no credit for minorities who are there, but outside the approved programs.
The Human Resources people are much worse about this than the line managers. The line managers just want to fill a position, and fill it when it needs to be filled. The Human Resource people want to justify their own existence by having redundant and repetitive minority career fairs and conferences and seminars before they will ever let the line manager meet the applicant. So either the applicant stays unemployed. Or he finds a company with a smaller HR bureaucracy...even if it means that the other company requires him to prove a higher level of qualification or take a lower level position.
The Human Resources industry is the winner....and a major drag on the ability of the company to use its money to pay the employees who are actually productive.
The media and the politicians go automatically to NOW and the NAACP to get the "official" position of an extremely diverse set of "groups".
Who is actively degrading women and black people, except the media,politicians and those who refuse to actively participate in reality in this century?
It seems those who would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory deserve a special position in history....
Lead thyself...[g]
Bit of a tangent...but...a point I like to always make -- one huge casualty of "affirmative action" (what a euphemestic society we live in) is BELIEF in the merits of black/minority professionals. Consider -- you're in a doctor's office, and presented with a choice between a white doctor who got into medical school on merit alone (let's assume he's not using connections, etc), and a black doctor who got into medical school on an affirmative action policy. The black doctor may very well be much more qualified than the white doctor, but no matter what, in the back of your head, you'll be wondering -- did this guy get here on his smarts and talents, or did he just get a free pass? And you'll most likely end up choosing the white doctor. It drives me nuts. Often those ideas with the best intentions have the absolute worst effects...and nobody wants to address it because it's too controversial.
--KL
Second...I wanted to address this comment:
Ms. Parker can't understand why Republicans are so inept at wooing black voters. The evangelical churches should be central to Republican outreach to blacks, she thinks, given their conservative leanings on many issues. But the GOP all but ignores them. "Democrats campaign on every block and in every church in urban America, yet the Republicans are almost nowhere to be found," she observes. Ms. Parker believes Republican ideas can appeal to another sizable--and growing--black constituency: young professionals. This group, she says, "is attracted to economic empowerment in the form of tax cuts and reduced red tape for small business." But the GOP hasn't shown any more imagination in going after them, she says.
It's true. It's sad. I'm as white as white can be, and quite happy being that way, but I'm damned sick of my party (although I daresay I'm not exactly a party loyalist -- I'm a conservative, dangit! *grin*) being...represented by an entirely white group of folks in Congress (with the most depressing, IMHO, loss of J.C., that is -- although he'll be back, no doubt, and let's hope he shoots for a Senate seat this time around -- at least). Right, too many parenthetical statements. Let me rephrase. I'm sick of the Republican party, in general, writing off the black vote because they just assume they can't win it. Point being, with that attitude, we aren't ever going to win it. The party of Lincoln's conservative message is the message of hope for the black community -- not the self-serving Democratic feed-the-black-rage us-vs-them mentality that's heaped on them by Jesse et al. Clinton never did a damn thing for blacks yet was somehow hailed as the "first black president" -- because the Dems spoonfed the talking points memos to the right people. Again, why do Republicans not forcefully campaign in black areas? They figure it's a waste of money; they'll never win the vote. More Maginot lines. It often amazes me, when speaking with black Democrats, not how misinformed they are, but rather how little anyone has ever done to try to get the conservative message to them. We can't continue to pursue the defeatist strategy of writing off the black/minority vote and expect to ever really change anything (mind you, change takes a long, long time). Maybe you can't get the message out to the deeply urban areas immediately; but you can certainly get it out the young black professionals, and if you get it out to them, eventually it will seep into the urban communities.
Aye, I'm riled up into a rant now -- the over-arching point is it's high time for conservative Republicans to stop being afraid. To stop worrying about being portrayed as "mean" and "nasty" if they make the case against affirmative action. To stop giving recognition, and thus legitimacy, to the shakedown artists like Jackson. The Democrats sure as hell are never going to do anything to help black people -- it's in their interest to keep them relatively empoverished, trapped in welfare programs, and filled with seething hate that the Democrats can easily direct towards those mean and nasty conservatives. Unless we stop this nonsense, unless conservative Republicans go out there and campaign on issues that might actually stir up debate, we'll lose Congress for the forseeable future. I don't care how long it takes and how much temporary political damage we take from it -- the conservatives have got to make our case to blacks that we are the group that has the plan that can get them out of the poverty cycle. We may get booed at first, we may get booed for a decade, but we need to start making the effort, and we need to start making the effort now.
Okay, okay, getting off my soapbox...my blood just boils about this stuff sometimes. Especially the spinelessness present in some of the current Republican members of Congress -- when the message is the right one. When you have the truth on your side, you have no reason to be afraid.
Anyway, great piece by McWhorter, and I tip my hat to him.
--KL
What gets me is when some newspaper does a retrospective of their city or town and you see all of the black business owners there used to be. In the bad old Jim Crow days, black Americans made economic progress without any outside help and no matter what stood in their way. Today it is assumed that a black person must be held by the hand to succeed.
How the helping hand of government eliminated the black entrepeneur and tradesman needs more exposure.
I hope the implication of your statement is that black folks don't need black leaders, but that like all Americans, black folks just need leaders. I know the last thing I need is a leader because he or she is white.
amen. and americans need white and black leaders. like jc watts, colin powell, alan keyes -- people who have all american's best interests at heart. (better add rice lest i be called sexist...)
the fact is that assimilation into society is the secret to success in america. (old style) black leaders that want to segregate the races and keep blacks dependent no the government are fighting assimilation and feeding into the hands of the democrats, er, i mean socialists, who want all americans to be subservient to the washington.
Ms. Parker believes Republican ideas can appeal to another sizable--and growing--black constituency: young professionals.
I've worked with a large number of Buppie (Black Urban Professional) IT people, who I know were well paid. Heck, in some cases, I was their manager, and they were better paid than me! These folks are not natural economic members of a political party that hates the "evil rich".
Southeast DeKalb country, GA (Cynthia McKinney's district) is full of subdivisions of people like this. I bring up the anecdote of playing a tennis match at a golf & tennis country club community south of Stone Mountain, filled with 2-story 2500sf brick federal houses with two car garages with Tahoes, Lexuses (Lexi?), and BMW's in the driveways. I would guess the subdivision was 80-90%+ black. These folks are *not* the "downtrodden" that Maxine and Jesse would have you believe they are. Add in the fact that many blacks are devoutly Christian, and we have a large and growing group who ought to be voting for conservatives.
How do we reach and break through with these folks? mhking? rdb3? Other black conservative list members? Any ideas?
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