Blacks and whites
Posted by John Reed on
Copyright 2008
The Reverend Jeremiah and Obama’s speech about “race” have inspired many to say we need a “dialogue on race,” that is, blacks and their relationship to whites. For the record, blacks are not the only people who have a race, but too many of them seem to think they are. The fact that Obama uses the word “race” when he is really talking about relations between blacks and whites shows how distorted his perspective on the matter is.
‘Benign neglect’
The phrase “dialogue on race” is fuzzy psychobabble. In the late 1960s, Nixon urban affairs staffer Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a memo in which he said that the policy of the administration toward racial issues should be “benign neglect.” Moynihan served in the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford administrations after which he was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a three term Democrat senator from New York. When he died in 2001, he was one of the most respected political figures in America.
He was right then. He is more right now. Militant neglect is what is needed now.
Slavery was ended in the U.S. in 1865. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and various executive and court decisions around then and before pretty much wrapped up the remaining legitimate complaints regarding statutory and other official segregation. The fact that professional black whiners like Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton have to either reach back into ancient history or make stuff up—like the Duke lacrosse team or the AIDS accusation—to complain, is proof if any were needed, that the civil rights fight is over unless you use a magnifying glass or microscope to find stuff to bitch about.
Two wrongs don’t make a right and respect for differences does not warrant respect for stupidity by some blacks in the name of blackness
The pendulum has swung too far to the other side. That is, a number of official government and other policies have been adopted that are stupid and/or recreate the previous wrongs against blacks in the other—against whites—direction have arisen. They are:
• affirmative action in hiring, promotions, college and university admissions and grading
• minority set-asides in government construction contracting
• mandatory busing to correct de facto segregation
• expansion of academic text-book pages and courses devoted to blacks beyond the merits of the blacks being discussed
• officially-sanctioned organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, and college and university clubs open only to blacks
• separate graduation ceremonies for the blacks in a class
• de facto or official segregation of high school and higher-education dining hall tables and college buildings by blacks
• scholarships and grants available only to blacks
• “traditionally-black” colleges and universities
• use of some racial slurs by blacks only (nobody should use them)
• excusing stupid or anti-social behavior that is common among too many blacks as being legitimate “black culture,” e.g., “ebonics”
• faux African cultural manifestations like Kwanzaa, the red-black-green-striped flag, and inauthentic African-sounding names
• OJ being found not guilty in the criminal trial
• legions of criminal defendants like OJ and Michael Jackson claiming, with no basis, that they were being prosecuted because of their skin color
• Tawana Brawley
• prosecution of the Duke lacrosse team members
• naming a national holiday after Martin Luther King, Jr. in spite of the fact that no other American has a holiday named after him and in spite of the fact that King was no more important, if as important, to America than women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony
• etc.
My wife, each of my three sons, and I all believe we have been discriminated against because we were white. Most whites can cite their own such instances.
‘You don’t know what it’s like to be black’
When whites talk about blacks, they often get hit with the sweeping dismissal that, “You don’t know what it’s like to be black.”
Yeah, and you don’t know what it’s like to be white. So we’re even. Vive la Différence! Now as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted with that irrelevant piece of information...
If knowing what it’s like to be black is a prerequisite to discussing black complaints about whites, it becomes a rather one-sided “dialogue” doesn’t it? If Obama subscribes to the “You don’t know what it’s like to be black” rule for discussing the situation of blacks in America, then his call for a “dialogue” is bullshit. His “dialogue” is that blacks dictate their current “Christmas” (Kwanza?) list to whites regarding the additional things they want and whites just say “Yessir. Yessir. Three bags full, sir” because we don’t know what it’s like to be black. And if elected president, we can expect Obama to take care of “our people” as he referred to blacks in his 2007 Selma speech.
‘Anger’ and ‘resentment’
Did you notice the subtle difference between Obama’s discussion of the black and white sides in the race “dialogue?” Blacks, he said, have a right to be “angry.” Whites, he said, have a right to certain “resentments.”
Excuse me. Doesn’t anger trump resentment? He sounds like he’s putting his thumb on the scale before the dialogue starts. He’s saying blacks are more in the right than whites. Maybe before all the stupid and reverse-discrimination things I listed above, but not lately.
Larry Elder says the blacks-being-mistreated-by-whites situation is over and the good guys won. I would add, not only did they win, after they won they turned into bad guys demanding affirmative action, fewer prosecutions of guilty black criminals, and all sorts of other outrageously wrong or stupid stuff.
If I were black, I suspect that I would take the following attitude about remaining vestiges of white discrimination against blacks in America.
I only get one life. This is it. Perhaps my black skin and I would fare better in America if I were born later, but I was not, so there’s no point in spending any time thinking about that.
I have two choices:
• find a way to win or
• find excuses for losing
Since finding excuses for losing almost guarantees losing, I choose finding ways to win instead.
For example, there are many careers where my skin color would not be visible to my customers like publishing, direct mail, Internet, radio, manufacturing, and fine arts like painting and sculpture. Or I can choose a career where my skin color is accepted equally or even an advantage like performing artists, journalism, working with animals, pro baseball or basketball or football player, or professions where I cater to black clients like Realtor® or lawyer or doctor or insurance agent or soul food restaurateur or stock broker or politician representing a predominantly black constituency [Obama’s original plan].
Is it fair that I have less opportunity than whites in other career situations? No, but as I said before, I will not focus on that because it is outside my control. If I have a strong desire to engage in a career where my skin color is an obstacle in the U.S., I will consider emigrating to another country where my unchangeable personal characteristics are not an obstacle to my pursuing that career, just as the ancestors of almost all white Americans did.
I will set goals in accordance with my individual strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. When I encounter obstacles to achieving my goals, as everyone does, I will go over, under, around, or through the obstacle. I will make no distinction between obstacles related to race and those that are not. An obstacle is an obstacle. It must be overcome or avoided, not whined about.
I will avoid affirmative-action education and career opportunities because I do not want my accomplishments clouded by the suggestion that I did not earn them on my merit. I feel no obligation whatsoever to live up to anyone else’s idea of how to be black. I will be my unique self.
I wrote a Web article about the need to choose between finding ways to win and finding excuses for losing at http://www.johntreed.com/succeedingwaytowin.html. I also discussed it in my book Succeeding where I wondered if black athletes have not had more success because of the no-excuses ethos of coaches versus the find-excuses-for-victimhood ethos of teachers unions, Leftists, and many so-called black “leaders” like Jackson and Sharpton. Ironically, Jackson first became famous in a 60 Minutes broadcast at a time when he was preaching the current Bill Cosby message to blacks. Apparently, Jackson later decided there was more power, money, and fame for him in the excuses-for-black-losing business than in tell-blacks-what-they-need-to-hear business.
The attitude I would have if I were black is similar to what many blacks like Bill Cosby, Thomas Sowell, Ward Connerly, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, and others seem to advocate. And if they disagree in some respects, so be it. We are all unique, so should be our approaches to life.
‘To disown Wright would be to disown all blacks’
In his “great” race speech that “future school children will be memorizing along with the Gettysburg Address,” Obama said of the Reverend Wright,
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.
On Hannity & Colmes on 4/15/08, David Horowitz, author of Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes pointed out that this comment by Obama means that Obama thinks that all blacks are as racist, anti-semitic, and nutty as Reverend Wright. Apparently large numbers of blacks are. The congregation in Wright’s church and the other churches on his “victory tour” have certainly been eating up that crap. Obama refuses to call a black racist a racist or a black anti-semite an anti-semite or a black nut job a nut job because doing so will cost him support in the black community. It is the racial equivalent of the sentiment, “My country right or wrong” or “There is no behavior, no matter how bad, that I will publicly say is wrong, if the person who did it is black.”
Apparently, Obama is one of many black leaders who is black first and American second. They are easy to flush out. Just ask them to say something bad about a black who has done or said something that is inarguably wrong, like Wright’s AIDs accusation, or OJ’s murder of his wife and her friend, or whether Willie Horton is a good guy, etc.
If they duck the question, or start talking about Tuskeegee or lynching or trying to scare whites, you have flushed out a black person who is black first and American second. Few non-blacks will support such a person for the position of President of the United States. It is apparent to me, that Obama is one of those black-first guys. If the media will simply start asking him those “Is there any black whom you will denounce” questions, and he bobs and weaves, Bingo! Checkmate. Game over.
The Reverend Jeremiah and Obama’s speech about “race” have inspired many to say we need a “dialogue on race,” that is, blacks and their relationship to whites. For the record, blacks are not the only people who have a race, but too many of them seem to think they are. The fact that Obama uses the word “race” when he is really talking about relations between blacks and whites shows how distorted his perspective on the matter is.
‘Benign neglect’
The phrase “dialogue on race” is fuzzy psychobabble. In the late 1960s, Nixon urban affairs staffer Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a memo in which he said that the policy of the administration toward racial issues should be “benign neglect.” Moynihan served in the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford administrations after which he was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a three term Democrat senator from New York. When he died in 2001, he was one of the most respected political figures in America.
He was right then. He is more right now. Militant neglect is what is needed now.
Slavery was ended in the U.S. in 1865. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and various executive and court decisions around then and before pretty much wrapped up the remaining legitimate complaints regarding statutory and other official segregation. The fact that professional black whiners like Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton have to either reach back into ancient history or make stuff up—like the Duke lacrosse team or the AIDS accusation—to complain, is proof if any were needed, that the civil rights fight is over unless you use a magnifying glass or microscope to find stuff to bitch about.
Two wrongs don’t make a right and respect for differences does not warrant respect for stupidity by some blacks in the name of blackness
The pendulum has swung too far to the other side. That is, a number of official government and other policies have been adopted that are stupid and/or recreate the previous wrongs against blacks in the other—against whites—direction have arisen. They are:
• affirmative action in hiring, promotions, college and university admissions and grading
• minority set-asides in government construction contracting
• mandatory busing to correct de facto segregation
• expansion of academic text-book pages and courses devoted to blacks beyond the merits of the blacks being discussed
• officially-sanctioned organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, and college and university clubs open only to blacks
• separate graduation ceremonies for the blacks in a class
• de facto or official segregation of high school and higher-education dining hall tables and college buildings by blacks
• scholarships and grants available only to blacks
• “traditionally-black” colleges and universities
• use of some racial slurs by blacks only (nobody should use them)
• excusing stupid or anti-social behavior that is common among too many blacks as being legitimate “black culture,” e.g., “ebonics”
• faux African cultural manifestations like Kwanzaa, the red-black-green-striped flag, and inauthentic African-sounding names
• OJ being found not guilty in the criminal trial
• legions of criminal defendants like OJ and Michael Jackson claiming, with no basis, that they were being prosecuted because of their skin color
• Tawana Brawley
• prosecution of the Duke lacrosse team members
• naming a national holiday after Martin Luther King, Jr. in spite of the fact that no other American has a holiday named after him and in spite of the fact that King was no more important, if as important, to America than women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony
• etc.
My wife, each of my three sons, and I all believe we have been discriminated against because we were white. Most whites can cite their own such instances.
‘You don’t know what it’s like to be black’
When whites talk about blacks, they often get hit with the sweeping dismissal that, “You don’t know what it’s like to be black.”
Yeah, and you don’t know what it’s like to be white. So we’re even. Vive la Différence! Now as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted with that irrelevant piece of information...
If knowing what it’s like to be black is a prerequisite to discussing black complaints about whites, it becomes a rather one-sided “dialogue” doesn’t it? If Obama subscribes to the “You don’t know what it’s like to be black” rule for discussing the situation of blacks in America, then his call for a “dialogue” is bullshit. His “dialogue” is that blacks dictate their current “Christmas” (Kwanza?) list to whites regarding the additional things they want and whites just say “Yessir. Yessir. Three bags full, sir” because we don’t know what it’s like to be black. And if elected president, we can expect Obama to take care of “our people” as he referred to blacks in his 2007 Selma speech.
‘Anger’ and ‘resentment’
Did you notice the subtle difference between Obama’s discussion of the black and white sides in the race “dialogue?” Blacks, he said, have a right to be “angry.” Whites, he said, have a right to certain “resentments.”
Excuse me. Doesn’t anger trump resentment? He sounds like he’s putting his thumb on the scale before the dialogue starts. He’s saying blacks are more in the right than whites. Maybe before all the stupid and reverse-discrimination things I listed above, but not lately.
Larry Elder says the blacks-being-mistreated-by-whites situation is over and the good guys won. I would add, not only did they win, after they won they turned into bad guys demanding affirmative action, fewer prosecutions of guilty black criminals, and all sorts of other outrageously wrong or stupid stuff.
If I were black, I suspect that I would take the following attitude about remaining vestiges of white discrimination against blacks in America.
I only get one life. This is it. Perhaps my black skin and I would fare better in America if I were born later, but I was not, so there’s no point in spending any time thinking about that.
I have two choices:
• find a way to win or
• find excuses for losing
Since finding excuses for losing almost guarantees losing, I choose finding ways to win instead.
For example, there are many careers where my skin color would not be visible to my customers like publishing, direct mail, Internet, radio, manufacturing, and fine arts like painting and sculpture. Or I can choose a career where my skin color is accepted equally or even an advantage like performing artists, journalism, working with animals, pro baseball or basketball or football player, or professions where I cater to black clients like Realtor® or lawyer or doctor or insurance agent or soul food restaurateur or stock broker or politician representing a predominantly black constituency [Obama’s original plan].
Is it fair that I have less opportunity than whites in other career situations? No, but as I said before, I will not focus on that because it is outside my control. If I have a strong desire to engage in a career where my skin color is an obstacle in the U.S., I will consider emigrating to another country where my unchangeable personal characteristics are not an obstacle to my pursuing that career, just as the ancestors of almost all white Americans did.
I will set goals in accordance with my individual strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. When I encounter obstacles to achieving my goals, as everyone does, I will go over, under, around, or through the obstacle. I will make no distinction between obstacles related to race and those that are not. An obstacle is an obstacle. It must be overcome or avoided, not whined about.
I will avoid affirmative-action education and career opportunities because I do not want my accomplishments clouded by the suggestion that I did not earn them on my merit. I feel no obligation whatsoever to live up to anyone else’s idea of how to be black. I will be my unique self.
I wrote a Web article about the need to choose between finding ways to win and finding excuses for losing at http://www.johntreed.com/succeedingwaytowin.html. I also discussed it in my book Succeeding where I wondered if black athletes have not had more success because of the no-excuses ethos of coaches versus the find-excuses-for-victimhood ethos of teachers unions, Leftists, and many so-called black “leaders” like Jackson and Sharpton. Ironically, Jackson first became famous in a 60 Minutes broadcast at a time when he was preaching the current Bill Cosby message to blacks. Apparently, Jackson later decided there was more power, money, and fame for him in the excuses-for-black-losing business than in tell-blacks-what-they-need-to-hear business.
The attitude I would have if I were black is similar to what many blacks like Bill Cosby, Thomas Sowell, Ward Connerly, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, and others seem to advocate. And if they disagree in some respects, so be it. We are all unique, so should be our approaches to life.
‘To disown Wright would be to disown all blacks’
In his “great” race speech that “future school children will be memorizing along with the Gettysburg Address,” Obama said of the Reverend Wright,
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.
On Hannity & Colmes on 4/15/08, David Horowitz, author of Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes pointed out that this comment by Obama means that Obama thinks that all blacks are as racist, anti-semitic, and nutty as Reverend Wright. Apparently large numbers of blacks are. The congregation in Wright’s church and the other churches on his “victory tour” have certainly been eating up that crap. Obama refuses to call a black racist a racist or a black anti-semite an anti-semite or a black nut job a nut job because doing so will cost him support in the black community. It is the racial equivalent of the sentiment, “My country right or wrong” or “There is no behavior, no matter how bad, that I will publicly say is wrong, if the person who did it is black.”
Apparently, Obama is one of many black leaders who is black first and American second. They are easy to flush out. Just ask them to say something bad about a black who has done or said something that is inarguably wrong, like Wright’s AIDs accusation, or OJ’s murder of his wife and her friend, or whether Willie Horton is a good guy, etc.
If they duck the question, or start talking about Tuskeegee or lynching or trying to scare whites, you have flushed out a black person who is black first and American second. Few non-blacks will support such a person for the position of President of the United States. It is apparent to me, that Obama is one of those black-first guys. If the media will simply start asking him those “Is there any black whom you will denounce” questions, and he bobs and weaves, Bingo! Checkmate. Game over.
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