By Patrick J. Buchanan
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America. Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Rev. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere have done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the 60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude???
Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids? Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad-nauseam from the Rev. Al Sharpton about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.
___________________________
First Published April 2009
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Rev. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere have done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the 60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude???
Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids? Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad-nauseam from the Rev. Al Sharpton about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.
___________________________
First Published April 2009
2 comments:
Thanks, Sarah
As usual, you have "plentifully declared the thing as it is" Job 26:3.
Buchanan is correct in what he says.
Slavery for their forefathers is the best thing that ever happened for today's blacks. Instead of talk of reparations, they should be expressing their gratitude, both to their forefathers for what they endured, and to white America for what it has given them. Without this gift, they would still be living extremely primitive lives in Africa at best.
This attitude of gross black anger and resentment is a relatively recent thing for the most part, dating to the mid-1960s. Before that time, in the period now much derided and called by the name Jim Crow, there was largely peace between the races in America. There was also largely separation. Blacks and whites worked together during the day, but they went their separate ways after work. Education was separate, which had the advantage of not pressuring blacks to achieve beyond their capabilities. During Jim Crow, blacks were generally much better off and much happier than they are today. Black families were intact, blacks almost all had jobs, there were many black businesses, drugs were a tiny problem, the black Church was vigorous, out-of-wedlock births were a small fraction of what they are today, and there was educational opportunity for those blacks who really wanted to pursue it. It is certainly true that there was substantial economic inequity; blacks did not produce the value that white people did (and they still don't as a general rule).
The great social programs of the '60s, such as LBJ's Great Society, were touted to improve the economic welfare of blacks by handouts, affirmative action, set-asides, etc. What should have been obvious, but the liberals naturally chose to ignore was:
1) You cannot make a student smarter by giving him a passing grade when in fact he has failed to learn;
2) You do not make families stronger by paying women to have more babies out of wedlock;
3) You do not really give people the satisfaction of knowing that they have earned their place when you give it to them through affirmative action, set-asides, etc.
4) You do not build community cohesion and spirit when you grant special privileges to one group simply because they are black and withhold those privileges from whites of greater merit;
5) You do not really improve the lives of people by convincing them that they have a constant grievance. People who were previously happy, simple people have been turned in angry, simple people, a net loss to society as a whole.
Jim Crow was a good thing for both blacks and whites. Would that we could return to that happy time again. Unfortunately, with the damage that has been done by the grievance mongers, it will be generations before that balance can be restored.
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