NEW YORK — Harry Belafonte, the calypso singer and dancer who emerged as a hot young star during an era of backdoor entry for black entertainers, doesn’t like the two most prominent black officials entering through the front.

Earlier this month, Belafonte accused Secretary of State Colin Powell of being a “house slave” for adhering to the party line of an administration Belafonte clearly opposes.

“There’s an old saying in the days of slavery. There are those slaves on the plantation and there were those slaves who lived in the big house. You got the privilege of living in the house to serve the master. Colin Powell was permitted to come into the house of the master,” Belafonte said on a radio talk show in San Diego.

Belafonte also accused National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice of turning her back on black people.

And while Powell earlier shook off the statements with a laughing dismissal, both leaders responded this weekend to the charges they don’t properly “represent.”

“I think it’s unfortunate that Harry found it necessary to use that kind of reference,” Powell said on Fox News Sunday. “I don’t know what reference he would use to white Cabinet officers who were in the house of the master.”

Powell said Belafonte had the right to attack his politics, but added: “I’m serving my nation. I’m serving this president, my president, our president. I’m very happy to do so.”

Rice, speaking Sunday on a news program, also retorted, “Everybody should be able to debate views, but I don’t need Harry Belafonte to tell me what it means to be black.”

But Belafonte, 75, wasn’t the last black American to harp on Powell and Rice for backing the Bush administration. Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson jumped into the fray on Sunday when he told a black church that Powell is “not on our team.”

The barrage has conservative African-Americans up in arms.

“The Democratic race-baiting machine is in full motion now,” said Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality.

Innis said the politically correct crowd views black Republicans as sellouts, not successes.

“They believe for you to be authentically black, you have to toe their line and if you don’t toe their line, then you should be disciplined, and the way they discipline you is to call you names and by chastising you, not by challenging you on policies and asking for a full debate and discussion on the issue, but throwing stones at you.”

Author and columnist Earl Hutchinson added that the debate demonstrates how independent-thinking blacks are chastised for not toeing a liberal line.

“Jesse Jackson says [Powell] is ‘not on our team.’ Well, what is our team? We have to use football and baseball analogies instead of serious dialogue” to argue legitimate political differences, Hutchinson said.

Some blacks have said that Belafonte has made a point, since Powell and Rice are products of a Bush political machine that chose them to be members of the team.

James Cone, author of Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare , said Malcolm X criticized mainstream civil rights leaders and groups as “the black leadership which was chosen by the dominant white society.”

“Now didn’t the Bush administration choose Powell? So what’s the difference?” Cone said.

“It’s not a nice thing to say, but the truth is often very provocative and hurtful,” he added.

Others say it is demeaning to think that everyone in a distinct racial or ethnic group would think alike.

“Double standard? There’s such a double standard, Stevie Wonder can see the double standard,” said columnist Armstrong Williams.

“Of all people, [Powell] is one of the most independent thinkers in the Bush Cabinet,” said David Almasi, director of Project 21, a leadership network for conservative blacks.

Belafonte has since said that the remarks were not meant to be personal, but a criticism of the Bush administration.

“I’d like to see both [Powell] and Condoleezza Rice show some moral backbone, show some courage, show some commitment to principles that are far higher than those being espoused by their boss,” Belafonte told The Associated Press.

However, long after slavery’s end, it seems some still find it hard to break the chains of race.

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Residential segregation down for U.S. blacks (Washington Times, 021128)

Black Americans experienced a notable decline in residential segregation between 1980 and 2000, but they remain the most racially isolated of minority groups, according to a newly released report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 2000, blacks were 10% more likely to interact with whites than 20 years ago, the study, “Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States: 1980-2000,” found, creating a black-white relationship that is less segregated than ever before.

Over the same period, Hispanics and Asians saw increases in segregation, which the study attributes to their status as relative newcomers.

Non-Hispanic whites were used as the reference group for the report, meaning the results reflected the relationship between the minority groups and whites.

“African-Americans appear to be leaving urban areas and going to the suburbs,” said Daniel H. Weinberg, a Census Bureau analyst who co-authored the study with John Iceland. “What jumped off the page to me was that this decline in segregation applied in every category that we examined.”

The report did not explore reasons for the drop in segregation, but Mr. Weinberg said that “some will say there is less discrimination so African-Americans can move to other areas. Some will say that [people] like to live with people like them.”

Mr. Weinberg said residential segregation stems from several factors, including personal choice about where to live and income-imposed restrictions.

“The bottom line is that if you live in a neighborhood where everybody is like you, you are less likely to run into people of a different race,” he said.

The phenomenon of “black flight,” the movement of increasingly prosperous blacks moving away from urban areas, could also play a role in the lessening segregation, Mr. Weinberg said.

De facto segregation — the separation of people based on race or ethnicity without any law requiring it — today is being swept away, said Cherylyn Harley, a senior fellow at the Center for New Black Leadership.

“What this is reflecting is that minorities make up the majority of the world,” Miss Harley said. “This is a whole new generation that is removed from the civil rights movement, and they are looking forward. Blacks are making more and more progress, and people share similar interests across racial lines. This study is a good indicator for the future.”

Other parties doubted the credibility of the report.

“This conclusion is a pants-seat projection,” said Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, executive director of the Black Leadership Forum. The gentrification of some urban areas has driven up residential prices and forced many blacks to seek housing in other areas, she said, “which is part of racial balkanization,” she said.

She acknowledged that “black flight” has been based on black economic advancement.

“However, that pattern should not be confused with what happens when gentrification occurs. This creates misleading information,” she said.

The 2000 census found that patterns of migration for blacks led many from the West to the South into more racially mixed suburban areas.

The inner cities, however, have remained dominantly black in many areas.

The report noted that those neighborhoods continue to remain segregated.

“You still have very large black population centers that are 70, 80, 90% black,” said Roderick Harrison, an analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

“But for these emerging black suburbs, or racially mixed suburbs, these have come about as blacks are finally able to follow the normal socioeconomic patterns.”

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Blacks Balk at Gay Marriage-Civil Rights Links (Foxnews, 031128)

A new controversey has erupted around the issue of gay marriage, as some black leaders have been outraged by comparisons being drawn between the civil rights movement and the right of homosexuals to marry.

Observers have been drawing similarities between the two movements since the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled last week that the state’s constitution guarantees gay couples the right to marry. The court cited landmark laws that struck down bans on interracial marriage, but conservative black leaders object to the comparisons, arguing that sexual orientation is a choice.

The Rev. Talbert Swan II said the two struggles are not similar because blacks were lynched, denied property rights and declared inhuman.

“Homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle,” he said. “I could not choose the color of my skin. ... For me to ride down the street and get profiled just because of my skin color is something a homosexual will never go through.”

A poll released by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on Nov. 18, the day of the ruling, indicated 60% of blacks opposed gay marriage.

When asked if they favored legal agreements with many of the same rights as marriage, 51% of blacks were opposed.

Michael Adams, an attorney with the gay advocacy legal group Lambda Legal, said polls show blacks support gays in other areas, such as workplace equality. Strong conservative religious values that predominate in the black community may explain the division, he said.

He added there are key differences in the two movements, including slavery and forced segregation, which gays never experienced. But the groups have seen similar discrimination based on deeply held prejudices, he said.

Mychal Massie, a conservative columnist and member of Project 21, a Washington D.C.-based political alliance of conservative blacks, said the comparisons aren’t valid.

“It is an outrage to align something so offensive as this with the struggle of a fallen man, a great man such as Martin Luther King,” said Massie, who writes for WorldNetDaily.com.

“The whole thing bespeaks of something much deeper and more insidious than we just want to get married,” he said. “They want to change the entire social order.”

Alvin Williams, president and CEO of the conservative, Washington D.C.-based Black America’s Political Action Committee, said the gay marriage issue looks like an equal rights issue at first, but becomes a “special rights” issue after closer examination because it’s about behavior, not ethnicity.

Not everyone objects to the comparison, however. In Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate, black candidates Carol Moseley Braun and the Rev. Al Sharpton declared support for gay marriage. Both compared it to past discrimination against blacks.

The Rev. William Sinkford, a black man who is president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, said the struggle for gay civil rights is this generation’s great challenge, just as equality for blacks was the last generation’s.

“I think there’s very little to be gained by trying to create a hierarchy of oppression,” Sinkford said.

Emory College professor David Garrow said the legal histories of the two movements have abundant parallels, including the arguments that marriage between the races and same sexes is unnatural and against God’s law. Homosexuals have also seen similar bias in the workplace when they’ve made their sexual orientation known, he said.

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Context, Please: A new report tries to convince us we haven’t gotten very far (National Review Online, 040518)

In a recent Washington Times column, Clarence Page expressed surprise that the National Urban League’s 2004 edition of The State of Black America: The Complexity of Black Progress reported that over 40% of blacks surveyed for the report believed that there had been little or no improvement in the economic and social mobility of blacks since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Such a conclusion seems difficult to square with the facts. However, reading the report provides some basis for understanding why so many black Americans believe so little has changed in 40 years.

As Clarence Page points out in his piece, for the first time the Urban League has attempted to capture the full picture of black economic, social, and political progress in one indicator: The Equality Index. According to the Equality Index, in 2004 African Americans’ economic and social status is only 73% of white Americans’, a figure that would certainly seem to support the conclusion among many blacks, and others, that little progress has been achieved. The problem is that the report has a number of flaws.

First, attempting to capture every aspect of black life compared to whites’ in a single indicator is — to say the least — ambitious. Social reformers, researchers, scholars, and policymakers have always been interested in finding indicators that can provide a quantitative measure of success in the area of social change similar to the role that the profit margin plays in the private sector. The difficulty with this approach is that in order to achieve the simplicity and elegance inherent in a single indicator, one has to reduce the complexity and nuance of a multidimensional world into a single number. Even in the business world, profit indicators do not provide a full picture of a business’s operation and long-term success. In fact, because profitability is actually the culmination of a number of factors related to business operation, any good manager spends a considerable amount of time analyzing a number of indicators in addition to a business’s profitability.

Second, the report attempts to talk about black progress, but instead tends to focus on a single snapshot in time. This unfortunately is a very common practice. If you want to show that poverty is deepening, or jobs are declining, or that blacks have made little progress, you focus on a single point in time rather than progress over time. Despite the questionable nature of using a single index to capture the full range of factors related to the progress of blacks compared to whites, the Equality Index might have some limited utility if it were measured over the 40 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Instead the index simply examines one year. The 73% Equality Index score certainly seems to underscore blacks’ lack of progress. However, would we draw the same conclusions if we knew that the Index was 35% in 1964? This type of progress would suggest that not only had blacks enjoyed absolute improvements in their status but that over the last 40 years they have progressed faster than whites.

Third, these types of multifactor indicators are very sensitive to how much weight is given to each factor. The actual value of the Equality Index could be easily improved (or made worse) by changing the importance (i.e., the weight) given to each of the factors that compose the index. For example, the Equality Index gives economic factors an importance of 30%. That is, the value of economic factors is multiplied by 30% and added to the other factors that compose the index. On the other hand, education, health, social justice, and civic engagement are given the weights of 25%, 25%, 10%, and 10% respectively. What would happen if we changed the weights assigned to each of these factors? By varying the importance of these factors in the index it is possible to increase the value of the Equality Index to 80% or reduce it to 67%. This suggests that the index may not tell us the actual gap between blacks and whites; instead, what it may actually reflect is the subjective values of the index’s creators.

Fourth, the greatest potential flaw in the report’s Equality Index, and in the report as a whole, is that it treats race as the only relevant dimension for judging social progress. In this report, differences in education, family status, gender, work history, and residential location have little if any bearing on the analysis. For example, blacks on average tend to have higher unemployment rates and lower earnings than whites. This finding could easily tend to lead one to believe that racial discrimination in the labor market remains an on-going problem. And, while it may be true that there continues to be some level of racial discrimination that affects blacks’ labor-market status, comparing racial differences in average unemployment and earnings is misleading.

For example, it is well documented that workers with less than a high school education experience higher rates of unemployment and lower earnings compared to those with at least a high-school education. By 1999, the percentage of blacks 25 years and over without a high-school education was 28% compared to 16% for whites, while the proportion of blacks and whites with a college degree was 20% and 33% respectively. This means that in order to determine the true differences between blacks and whites it is critical to control for the differences in education between the two groups. Using data from the 2000 census, I calculated what the black-white earnings gap would be after controlling for education. It appears that roughly $4,600 in the black-white earnings gap can be explained by the differences in educational attainment. Put another way, if blacks and whites had the same level of educational attainment then $4,600 in the annual earnings gap between the two groups would disappear.

In addition to educational differences, there are other factors that also contribute to the racial-earnings gap. For instance, single female-headed households with children tend to have lower incomes than two-parent households. Because blacks have a disproportionately high number of such households, this also tends to depress racial earnings and labor-market participation vis-à-vis whites. Moreover, these factors not only influence labor-market earnings, but also affect a range of other social and economic indicators, such as employment rates, home ownership, wealth creation, and interaction with the criminal-justice system.

What does all this mean? Does it imply that we can explain away all racial and ethnic differences once we’ve controlled for all the appropriate factors? Not necessarily. What it does suggest, though, is that if one is interested in understanding the actual progress and status of blacks — or for that matter any other group — it is critical to do the following:

First, examine group progress over time. Even if the Urban League’s Equality Index was a perfect measure of racial status, progress can only be determined by assessing the measure over time. As any parent knows, it is hard to appreciate the growth and development of a child by simply looking at the last picture you took at the most recent birthday party. In order to determine if things are changing you need to review a series of pictures over time.

Second, control for differences in education and other factors that tend to have an independent influence on social and economic status. Another way to think of this is, in a democratic society with a market-based economic system, even if everyone were the same race, same ethnicity, and same religion, there would still be certain factors that would determine an individual’s social and economic status. Given this, in order to get a true measure of racial differences these factors must be considered.

Third, use groupings that transcend race and ethnicity. For example, when blacks and whites are grouped according to educational attainment, are there differences in economic and social status between blacks and whites within educational groupings? Given that it is reasonable to expect those with similar levels of educational attainment to have similar social and economic experiences, if black college graduates were to earn less than white college graduates then we may have uncovered a real racial difference. This does not mean that racism is the only explanation, but it does suggest that there is a racial difference that ought to be examined more closely.

Many well-meaning observers will say that it is the historical legacy of racism that is responsible for low levels of educational achievement and problems such as female-headed households. Indeed, some of these observers will even go so far as to assert that it is not just the legacy of historic racism, but on-going racial discrimination that continues to plague African Americans. Even if these observers are correct, they would be hard pressed to demonstrate empirically that there have been no substantive improvements in the economic and social status of blacks in the United States over the last 40 years. Moreover, it would still be better and would lead to more effective policymaking to determine the extent of racial differences after properly controlling for factors such as education and family makeup. For example, given that we know that education is critical to economic success, and if children from low-income families are at a higher risk of not finishing school, or finishing with below average skills, policies aimed at improving school performance such as No Child Left Behind, or school choice, are likely to be the most effective strategies for reducing racial differences.

The challenge for blacks — and for the nation — is to distinguish between the real progress made in black economic and social status over the last 40 years, while also recognizing those arenas where improvements still need to be made. A more balanced report would attempt to do this. Most of all, a balanced report would attempt to treat blacks as a socially and economically diverse group, and move beyond using race as the primary factor in explaining differences in economic and social status between groups. Unfortunately, by using the Equality Index to focus only on the current black-white gap, the National Urban League’s report contributes to the perception that little racial progress has been made and that racial discrimination still remains the primary explanation for the lagging status of blacks.

— J. A. Foster-Bey was formerly a senior researcher and director of the Program on Regional Economic Opportunity at the Urban Institute.

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How Civil Rights Were Won: A moral struggle (National Review Online, 040518)

The Brown v. Board of Education decision, celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, was by no means the end of the civil-rights struggle. In one sense, it was even a false dawn. The legal meliorism that underpinned the decision — i.e., the idea that things will get steadily better over time, one court ruling at a time — didn’t break segregation in America. That was accomplished by a movement that explicitly rejected the go-slow, work-within-the-system logic of Brown.

We think of the civil-rights movement as a triumph of a forward-looking and optimistic liberalism. But that’s only part of the story. In his new book, A Stone of Hope, historian David L. Chappell demonstrates that the dramatic civil-rights successes of the 1960s were the fruit of a movement devoted not to the soothing liberal faith in human reason, but to a prophetic religious tradition.

Chappell’s title is drawn from Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial, when he expressed his faith that blacks in the South could hew a “stone of hope” from “a mountain of despair.” King spoke a language alien to non-lapsarian liberals. The seminal liberal work on race at the time was sociologist Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma. It promised, as one historian has put it, “a virtually painless exit from the nation’s racist history.” As Americans became more enlightened, Myrdal argued, the country’s racism would naturally disappear. Despair? Hah. Progress was inevitable.

But the inevitable was slow to arrive — ten years after Brown, just more than one percent of southern blacks were in integrated public schools — and black activists rejected Myrdal’s sunny creed. “The black movement’s nonviolent soldiers were driven not by modern liberal faith in human reason,” writes Chappell, “but by older, seemingly more durable prejudices and superstitions that were rooted in Christian and Jewish myth.”

King’s hero was the prophet Jeremiah, warning of moral decline and offering, in Chappell’s words, “rebellion and renewal motivated by prophetic truth.”

King complained that liberalism “vainly seeks to overcome [in]justice through purely moral and rational suasions.” That was inadequate to the corruption inherent in human affairs. “Instead of assured progress in wisdom and decency,” King wrote, “man faces the ever present possibility of swift relapse not merely to animalism but into such calculated cruelty as no other animal can practice.”

Not very warm and fuzzy. The prophetic vision meant that there was no sense waiting for gradual progress. It meant that mere rational discussion of civil rights wasn’t enough. Liberals blanched at the conflict that direct action might bring. Too bad. Civil-rights leader Bayard Rustin scoffed at liberals “begging for retreat, lest ‘things get out of hand and lead to violence.’” Activist James Lawson called the sit-in movement “a judgment upon middle-class, conventional, halfway efforts to deal with radical social evil.”

The prophetic tradition understood radical evil and offered the spiritual armor to battle it.

Black activists were willing to bleed even though it was unfair that they had to — because, as King put it, “unearned suffering is redemptive.” Nothing liberalism offered from its quiver of good intentions could match the power of that Christian belief. Fire hoses and bombings? Bring them on. As Lawson said, nonviolence “matches the capacity of evil to inflict suffering with an even more enduring capacity to absorb evil.”

In celebrating the civil-rights movement, liberals are praising people they would ordinarily consider dangerously simplistic fanatics. Birmingham activist Fred Shuttlesworth said in 1958: “This is a religious crusade, a fight between light and darkness, right and wrong, good and evil, fair play and tyranny. We are assured victory because we are using weapons of spiritual warfare.” Even more offensively in contemporary terms, he declared his faith that Americans ultimately “shall be true to our ideals as a Christian nation.”

The anniversary of Brown reminds us of the role played in the desegregation fight by judges wielding social science and law. Don’t forget the activists who wielded their faith, and changed America.

— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.

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Black America’s Real Albatross: The Schooling Gap (American Enterprise, 030400)

One of last year’s true academic heroes is Scott Phelps, a science teacher at John Muir High School in Pasadena, California. He wrote what is now referred to as “The Letter.” In it, he stated frankly that the students with the poorest academic performance at his racially mixed school—as well as most of those who are unruly and undisciplined—are black. (Evidence from studies demonstrates that this is a national problem, not one limited to Muir High.)

Initially, Phelps disseminated his letter in an Internet chat room devoted to criticism of the school administration. Afterward, he distributed copies to colleagues. Predictably, there were complaints. Then he was placed on administrative leave.

“I notice that our African-American students score right around the 30th percentile,” said Phelps after his dismissal. “Our white kids score near the 70th percentile. Now am I a racist because I notice this, and have the audacity to also notice the vastly different behaviors of these two groups?”

School district spokesman Erik Nasarenko warned that “the school district will…make a determination to what other action might be necessary, or whether Mr. Phelps should return to the classroom.” The writing was on the blackboard.

Or so it appeared.

For forthrightly describing the elephant in the living room—which most people in public life simply pretend isn’t there—Phelps seemed likely to become another victim of the usual dreary scenario of political correctness. But then his story took an unusual turn. After two weeks of suspension, he was allowed to return to the classroom.

Unexpectedly, his letter unleashed some strong sympathy in the local black community. Of course, there were the usual charges of racism. But there was also much reflection and soul searching. Many black parents accepted the truth of his charges, and asserted that they needed to take more responsibility for the conduct of their children.

Phelps acknowledged in his letter that there are black students at his school who are well-behaved. Then he weighed in on those who are not. “The students whose behavior makes the hallways deafening, who yell out for the teacher and demand immediate attention in class, who cannot seem to stop chatting and are fascinated by each other and relationships but not with academics…are African American. Eventually, someone in power will have to have the courage to say this publicly.”

Little did he realize that this “someone” would be himself. But he did not back down.

Phelps noted that “African Americans are our lowest-scoring group by far.” And he pointed out that the students with the lowest test scores are those whose parents are uninvolved in their children’s learning. With better oversight and motivation, he suggested, things could be different. “I have seen two science teachers in my department who get lower-scoring students to behave well. They are both African American, and have no trouble ‘going off’ on kids.”

“If white kids were the ones misbehaving, I could say it and I wouldn’t get one phone call,” said Phelps. But “if we’re going to be holding all kids responsible for meeting the same standards then we need to talk about their cultural behavior. . . . In order for white teachers to feel comfortable they have to put a lot of energy into changing the behavior of minority kids.” As a beginning, teachers would be satisfied if students at least didn’t arrive at class 30 minutes late, interrupt an exam to borrow a lipstick, or cuss out the adults during class.

Phelps also criticized administrators for passing the buck. He implied that they push substandard policies that show artificially good “numbers.” But sticking one’s head in the sand only hurts teachers and students. As if to illustrate the problem, Phelps’s argument was criticized by the local district assistant superintendent. “Some of these kids deserve credit just for showing up,” insisted George McKenna.

Because Phelps is widely acknowledged to be an excellent and passionately committed teacher, however, his criticisms carried weight. A Cal Tech graduate, he left a research program there 12 years ago in order to teach in a mostly minority high school. He tutors physics students at no charge, invites students to dinner, and goes to their homes for study sessions.

After Phelps was banned from the classroom, many black parents sounded off. One of them, retired teacher Kitty McKnight, expressed outrage after a district official said the solution to Muir High School’s discipline problems was more tolerance, and more commitment on the part of the teachers.

“I cannot sit and listen to this. Our boys are out of control,” thundered McKnight. “You talk to another black teacher about the behavior of black students and they know exactly what you mean. I feel like I’m at fault for not addressing it sooner.” These comments were met with both scattered applause and shocked silence from her black listeners.

Another parent, Joe Hopkins, argued that Phelps’s charges were a challenge. “Our history is one of overcoming odds. This generation seems to be stuck on a culture that says don’t insult or ‘dis’ me, even though I can ‘dis’ our women and our race in music while no one else can. . . . Today, we seem to be hypocrites saying don’t touch or punish or correct my child, or I will have your job, or sue you.”

A black former educator, Wilma Thomas-Simon spoke up: “A white man took a stand and told the truth. . . . I’m just sorry I didn’t say it.” A black student noted that administrators “didn’t hear the message [Phelps] was trying to make. Instead they played the race card. . . . He is one of the few teachers who went to school every day for something other than the paycheck.”

Black parent John Wright suggested that “if the African-American community is so upset about this letter then they should work to see that there will not be a need for a letter of this type to be written again by someone of another ethnicity. . . . They cannot allow their children to dress and act like hoodlums and not expect a label to be put on them! They cannot allow their children to feel that it is all right to smoke weed and take other drugs on campus and come to class high and be disruptive. My position is that the African-American community has been shamed, and they know the cause for their shame, and we can and must change this situation.”

One woman wrote to the editor of the Los Angeles Times that while watching the movie The Emperor’s Club with a black special ed teacher, she noticed that her friend “was in quiet tears throughout much of the picture. . . . I asked her what was wrong. She replied that she was just so envious of the classroom decorum that the obviously private school enjoyed, and was so frustrated by the lack of same in the public schools.”

One other Muir High School parent, Johari DeWitt-Rogers, lamented aloud: “When I drop my son off at school, I see kids showing up with no backpacks, no books. You know they’re not serious about education. In the same way this teacher’s letter galvanized people to come forward and protest his statement, we’re going to have to get the community to rally together and turn things around, to say this is not acceptable for our young people.”

To which many local citizens—black and white alike—say: Amen.

Jane Mack-Cozzo is a California writer and former teacher.

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Don’t Do Me Any Favors (American Enterprise, 030400)

With the U.S. Supreme Court about to decide whether racial preferences are Constitutional, TAE presents some intellectual background on this critical case.

I am an African-American linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and students often come by my office for mentoring. One such student, a Chinese American, had heard that I’d been on the radio discussing affirmative action. “How do you feel about it?” she asked. “Well,” I said, “I think in universities it’s obsolete.” “Aren’t you in favor of diversity?” washer immediate response, as it is for most students exposed to the issue largely through the college newspaper’s editorial page and angry speeches by student activists.

“Diversity” only made its way into the affirmative action debate a few decades ago, and through the back door at that. It started with one man. In 1973 and again in 1974, Allan Bakke was denied admission to the University of California at Davis’s medical school despite an A- grade-point average and an MCAT score within the top tenth of the nation. Given that black students were regularly admitted with GPAs in the C range and MCATs in the bottom third, Bakke charged the university with discrimination.

In the Supreme Court decision in 1978, Justice Lewis Powell concurred with four other justices that quota systems like Davis’s were un-Constitutional. He submitted however that it was nonetheless appropriate for schools to base admissions decisions on a quest for a “diverse student body.”

This argument seems innocent enough on its face, but universities quickly seized it as a cover for admitting black students with significantly lower qualifications than white or Asian students. Ever since, university administrators have disguised their two-tier admissions policies by hiding behind “diversity.”

Lately, courts have begun calling these policies un-Constitutional distortions of the Bakke decision, with judgments entered recently against the University of Texas, the University of Georgia, and the University of Michigan Law School. I dearly hope that the Supreme Court will invalidate Powell’s “diversity” opinion once and for all. Yes, I am in favor of “diversity”—among equals. The Bakke decision has taught a generation of young Americans that black students are more important for their presence in pictures in promotional brochures than for their scholastic qualifications. Ultimately, this perpetuates the very underperformance that has made the “diversity” fig leaf necessary.

White guilt is a dangerous and addictive drug. For nearly three decades the Bakke decision has supported education administrators in this habit. The ideas these people have promote dare untruthful, destructive, and antithetical to both black excellence and racial harmony. And they are racist.

The very term “diversity” is a crafty evasion. Mormons, paraplegics, and poor whites exert little pull on the heartstrings of admissions committees supposedly committed to making college campuses “look like America.” In the late 1960s,college administrators assumed that the low representation of blacks on campuses was due to discrimination. The good-thinking white chancellor saw the task ahead as one of door opening, providing some remedial assistance where necessary. But efforts to bring qualified blacks to campuses ran up against the uncomfortably small number of such people in an America just past legalized segregation. For those who were admitted, professors proved unable to undo years of lacking basic learning skills.

Meanwhile, a black separatist ideology had led to the idea that scholastic achievement was a “white” endeavor rather than a human one. Black kids started teasing other black kids who liked school for “acting white.” This has become a central trope of black teen culture, and it continues to decrease the numbers of black students qualified for top schools.

The simple fact is that any group’s rise from the bottom is not instantaneous but gradual. The “diversity” construction is a benevolently intended back-door strategy employed by guilty whites to hurry along the utopian vision of a multihued college, even if it requires rounding some corners. What the diversity crusade has done in practice is to spark brute quota systems and a reconception of the very purpose of higher education.

Many people are under the impression that the “diversity” imperative plays out simply as a light “thumb on the scale,” choosing the brown-skinned candidate in cases where his qualifications are equal to a white one’s. Hence they consider opposition to such harmless racial preferences “racist.” It’s an easy misunderstanding to fall into, as college administrators minimize their distortions of admissions procedures in their public statements.

But it was almost impossible to maintain this illusion in places like Rutgers University in the mid ‘80s, where I earned my bachelor’s degree. Within my first year, it was painfully clear to me that the black students were by and large a rung below the white students in general preparation and performance. Certainly there were plenty of white slackers and excellent black students. But they were exceptions rather than the rule, and the overall white-black discrepancy stood out in sharp relief. Even as a teenager with little interest in politics or admissions procedures, I spontaneously perceived after just a few semesters that black students were admitted under some sort of numbers system.

The Rutgers top brass had long maintained that race was used as just “one of many factors,” as the Bakke decision had counseled. But a few years after I graduated, a student working in the admissions office blew the whistle, revealing that black students were regularly gathered into a special pool and admitted with grade-point averages and standardized test scores significantly lower than those of other students. Nor was Rutgers unique. Similar revelations were made on campus after campus.

Before racial preferences were banned at the University of California at Berkeley in the mid ‘90s, its quota system had been obvious. A white man who worked as a remedial tutor confided in me that he had worked with so many minority students hopelessly unprepared for work the college level that he had found himself questioning the wisdom of racial preference policies despite his leftist politics. I have heard similar testimonials from professors across the country.

In America in Black and White, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom note that black Berkeley students who enrolled in 1988 had an average SAT score below 1,000; the white average was over 1,300. The highest quarter of black SAT scores in this class clustered at the bottom quarter of the entire student body. Comparable gaps in SAT scores exist between black and white entrants at Princeton (150 points), Stanford (171), Dartmouth (218), and Rice (271).

Graduation rates reflect these gulfs in preparation. The Thernstroms document that of the black students admitted to Berkeley in 1988, 41% did not graduate, compared to only 16% of whites. At 28 top universities, William Bowen and Derek Bok, authors of The Shape of the River, show, black students in the class of 1989 were about three times more likely to drop out than white students.

Some suppose that bending admissions rules for “diversity” fosters interracial fellowship on campuses. I myself tried to hold to this idea for years. But college campuses, in all of their “diversity,” are now among the most racially balkanized settings in America.

Separate black fraternities and sororities thrive. Universities often host separate black graduation ceremonies. Classes in African American Studies often foster hatred of The White Man. At Stanford, where I earned my doctorate, I was a teaching assistant in a predominantly black class on Black English. The class discussion devolved so often into visceral dismissals of whites that one white student complained to the professor that he felt any opinions he ventured beyond genuflections to black victimhood were unwelcome. He was right.

There is a general atmosphere on campuses in which black students are tacitly taught that black “authenticity” means hunkering down behind a barricade glaring hatefully at the white “hegemony.” Black students typically cluster in their own section of the dining hall, throw their own parties, live in separate dorms, and are generally ushered into a separatist ideology most did not subscribe to before they came to college.

In John Bunzel’s Race Relations on Campus, black Stanford students in the early 1990s report being expected to “talk black, dress black, think black, and certainly date black.” During my graduate years there, black students disinclined to toe this line frequently ended up in heated debates with other black students who questioned their “blackness.”

A black acquaintance once told me that any occasional racist experiences she had during her college years were dwarfed by the overriding hostility from black students scornful of her white friendships and activities. Tragically, many blacks now leave college less interested in interracial outreach than when they were freshmen.

Many of those so furiously committed to “diversity” are not interested in a colorblind America. Their goal is to keep the fires of reflexive black alienation burning. In her book Why Are All the Blacks Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? black psychologist Beverly Daniel Tatum cheers that this is due to black students’ “anger and resentment” at the “systemic exclusion of black people from full participation in U.S. society.” That claim is a bit tricky to accommodate with a black Secretary of State and national security adviser in Washington. But it’s an effective way of building the separatist movement that Tatum and others prefer to interracial harmony.

Promoters of “diversity” prattle endlessly that “exposure” to other groups is a crucial component of a college education in a multiethnicAmerica. Given that the origin of “diversity,” the Bakke case, concerned medical school, it’s not clear how being black would improve the discussions about surgical incisions and metabolic pathways.

On campuses where black students are let in under the bar, there reigns a deathless lie: that most black students come from disadvantaged circumstances. According to this view, even an average performance by a minority student is a miracle.

Yet at selective colleges, black students from inner-city schools are vanishingly rare. (In the late 1960s some universities experimented briefly with actually admitting such students. But even the administrators had to concede that these students lacked the necessary preparation for top universities, with social tumult and resentment being the main result.) In the last class admitted to Berkeley under the racial preference regime, more than 65% came from households earning at least $40,000 a year, while the parents of about 40% earned at least $60,000 a year. Of the black students admitted in 1989 to 28 selective universities surveyed by Bowen and Bok, only 14% came from homes earning $22,000 a year or less.

But white guilt finds ways to turn even firmly middle-class blacks into victims. In a tortured 1998 essay professor Ronald Dworkin argued that even middle-class black students should be admitted under the bar—because they embody a lesson for whites that the stereotypes of “poor blacks” are inappropriate. Would Dworkin care to have his own children admitted under a quota system in order to serve as museum exhibits for gentiles? And precisely what traits do middle-class black students display that are so unique and unexpected that white students must be exposed to them?

Even if significant numbers of black students at top schools did come from ghetto neighborhoods, just how would “learning about” their cultural traits be vital to white students’ educational experience? In African-American Studies courses on those very same campuses, blacks are taught to decry stereotyping of poor blacks. Wouldn’t a four year tutorial in the vibrancy of ghetto life reinforce those very stereotypes?

Every college administrator knows that “diversity” is code for “at least 5% black faces with a goodly sprinkling of Latinos.” They also know that this is only achievable through quota systems euphemized by artful terminology, chronic doubletalk, and outright lies. Nor do any of them miss the fact, as black students dutifully erupt in furious protest every second spring over manufactured instances of “racism,” that in practice campus “diversity” means that black students are carefully taught that they are eternal victims in their own country.

But the most tragic result of racial preferences is their effect on their supposed beneficiaries. Extended disenfranchisement often leaves a group ill-equipped to compete at the highest level, even when the doors to success are wide open. These realities are not pretty. But what they mean is that a crucial component in a group’s rise to the top is learning tricks to a new trade, as disadvantaged groups in America have done for centuries. There comes a point, during any previously reviled group’s climb to the top, where that group can reach the same level as the ruling group only if the safety net is withdrawn. Sometimes a group must refashion its entire self concept in order to move ahead.

Lowered standards are directly antithetical to these endeavors. A person can only hit the highest note when he has the incentive to do so: This is a fundamental tenet of economics and psychology alike. Black Americans are not exempt from this fact of the human condition.

My opposition to racial preferences is based on a purely logical conviction: They dumb black people down. The injustices that blacks have suffered in America in the past are obvious. But the fact remains: Students growing up in a system whose message is “You only have to do pretty well to get into a top school” will rarely drive themselves to the top. Enshrining “diversity” over true excellence condemns black students to mediocrity. This is the inevitable result of denying them, and their parents, high school teachers, and guidance counselors, the one thing that elicits the best in anyone—the path of individual perseverance. That’s not “politics”; it’s common sense.

The claim that racial preferences are necessary to compensate for past horrors creates “tit for tat” applications of racial preferences that certainly won’t solve this country’s racial dilemma. It may make whites feel better, but it won’t give black students the tools they need to truly excel. You can only learn to ride a bicycle by mastering the subtle muscular demands on your own. As long as the training wheels are on, you’re not truly riding a bike. Birds learn to fly by being nudged out of the nest. People gain fluent command of a foreign language by living for an extended period in a setting where it is impossible to use their native language for any length of time. Black students will achieve their highest potential in school only by being required to do so.

Short of tough demands, top-rate black students will continue to constitute only a tiny coterie—with children of recent Caribbean and African immigrants heavily overrepresented. Asian students never had any illusion that there was a way to the top other than through hard work, which is why they have succeeded in such large numbers. A culture in which black students are denied the stimulus of high demands is, quite simply, a racist one. What are we to make of university administrators’ apparent conviction that black people are the only ones in American history who cannot triumph over historical obstacles?

The truth is, after California voters eliminated racial preferences at state colleges in 1996, black admissions fell at only two campuses—UCLA and Berkeley. They rose at several of the other University of California campuses. This is evidence that blacks will eventually work their way up the status ladder. Already, black admission rates at Berkeley have risen every year since the initial drop when admissions first were made colorblind.

In any case, it’s not as if students who don’t make it into Berkeley or UCLA are doomed to lives of destitution. Over the past few years many black students who would have been accepted at Berkeley under its previous quota system are now attending UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, and other solid schools where they are much more likely to thrive and succeed. On these campuses black students learn through everyday, concrete successes that they are as qualified as their classmates, rather than having to assert it on the basis of empty, tribalist rhetoric. Armed with this true confidence, black students will be less likely to retreat to their own sides of the cafeteria to compensate for private feelings of inferiority.

As for the claim that sorting out black students meritocratically is somehow unjust, remember that the majority of the students at these second-rank schools are white and Asian. The demise of racial preferences in the UC system has simply brought black students to the places that their current levels of skill, initiative, and preparation allow—as has long been the lot of white college applicants.

There is also the oft-heard claim that blacks must be admitted to top schools despite inadequate qualifications, because the prestige of these schools, and the resulting social connections, are crucial to success after graduation. But as James Fallows has noted, the top universities are sparse among the résumés of members of Congress, Nobel laureates, industrial leaders, even U.S. Presidents.

Among black Americans specifically, the Thernstroms report that of today’s African-American congressmen, army officers, recent Ph.D. earners, and top business leaders, none but a sliver attended elite colleges. Thus “diversity” serves no better to foster black excellence beyond college than within it.

On today’s college campuses, all students are indoctrinated with the piety that racism is at the root of any and all racial discrepancies, with the inevitable result that furiously self-righteous people are constantly clamoring for increased black presence by any means available. No one could be appointed a university president today without supporting racial preferences in one guise or another. And while the diversity argument hasn’t done much for black students, it has been very useful to white administrators.

University of Michigan president Lee Bollinger became a media darling by criticizing the court decision against the use of race preferences at his university’s law school. It’s telling that Bollinger was selected as president of Columbia University shortly after his defense of preferences, while his law school dean Jeffrey Lehman, equally vehement in defending Michigan’s quotas in recent months, has just been picked to head Cornell University.

“Aren’t you in favor of diversity?” is code for “Don’t you like black people?” And nothing chills white Americans more than the notion that they might be considered racist. So admitting black people under the bar becomes imperative. Meanwhile many blacks cheer, under the misimpression that racism is the only possible cause of unequal performance.

But the unequal performance of black students doesn’t evaporate once they hit college. Racial preferences do not, as so often thought, “correct” a “raw deal” that black students have been saddled with. Instead, racial preferences merely sanction and perpetuate the separation of blacks from high academic performance.

It is high time we relegated preference by skin color to the dustbin of history.

—John McWhorter has previously written for TAE on competition and race, and on slavery reparations. This piece is adapted from his new book Authentically Black (Gotham Books).

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Black leaders and black populace (National Review Online, 040604)

by Jay Nordlinger

Since I play with notions in this column, let me play with this: Talk to any conservative, and he will say, “You know, there’s a great difference between black Americans at large and the black leadership — those self-appointed, soi-disant leaders, like Sharpton and Jackson. Black Americans tend to be rather conservative: church-going, traditional. They oppose abortion, favor school choice, would like prayer in the classroom. Yes, there’s a great gulf between the black rank-and-file and those leftist showboats who claim to speak for them.”

I have always followed this line, but I am ever more uncomfortable with it — and believe I must stop mouthing it.

First of all, who permits Sharpton, Jackson, Mfume, and that lot to be leaders, year after year, decade after decade? There’s no hue and cry against them; there is no exaltation of, say, Clarence Thomas, or Ward Connerly. But more important, we have a secret ballot in this country. You get to close the curtain behind you, pull the lever for whomever you want, and no one’s the wiser.

In debate, people have said to me, “Oh, yeah, Nordlinger, if you’re right about the ‘so-called’ black leadership and black Americans in general, how do you explain the vote, year after year? No one has a gun to their heads.”

And, you know, it’s true.

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Class Struggle: School equality, a black responsibility? (Boston Globe, 040531)

A few days after the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, an extraordinary panel met in New York City to discuss the urgent problem still posed by the racial gap in educational achievement.

The panel was part of an event many would be quick to identify as a “conservative” venue—a conference of the National Organization of Scholars, an 11-year-old group formed in opposition to “political correctness” in academia. The same conference offered a workshop on new legal strategies to combat race-based preferences in college admissions. Many, perhaps most, of those in attendance would have probably described themselves as right of center politically. Yet racial inequality in education was clearly seen as a matter of grave concern.

Abigail Thernstrom, a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education and a commissioner on the US Commission on Civil Rights, presented the alarming data. (She and her husband Stephan Thernstrom, a professor of history at Harvard University and also a speaker on the panel, are co-authors of the 2003 book, No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning.) On the National Assessment for Educational Progress test, the typical black or Hispanic student at age 17 scores below at least 80% of white students. “On average, these non-Asian minority students are four years behind those who are white and Asian,” said Thernstrom. “They are finishing high school with a junior high education.”

What’s more, Thernstrom added, differences in socioeconomic status account for only about a third of this gap. The rest is due to a variety of cultural factors—some of which can be overcome by a concerted effort to provide better schooling. Thernstrom cited exceptional inner-city charter schools that seek not only to educate children in a safe, orderly environment but also, unabashedly, to impart “middle-class” cultural values such as discipline and responsibility.

Some say that to blame racial disparities in education on social and cultural ills within the black community amounts to “victim-blaming.” No one denies these ills are rooted in a shameful legacy of oppression. But what are the implications of this today? Another speaker, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, addressed this issue in a striking parable. Suppose, she said, that a person is badly injured in a car accident through no fault of his own, and has to undergo rehabilitative therapy in order to walk again. The culprit can be forced to pay damages—but without arduous effort on the part of the victim, the therapy will not work.

White panelists talking to a mostly white audience about the need for the black community to fix its problems risk coming across as offensively patronizing. But the message of responsibility was most powerfully articulated by a black speaker, Vanderbilt University law professor Carol Swain.

Swain identified a number of cultural factors that may hold black students back, including “dysfunctional abusive homes,” “lack of parental involvement in the schools,” and “negative peer pressure about learning and about high achievement as evidence of one’s ‘acting white.’” Better schools may provide some solutions, Swain said, but there must also be cultural change, and “middle-class minorities must take a leadership role in this area.” On an even more controversial note, Swain identified affirmative action as currently practiced by universities—lower admissions standards for blacks and Hispanics—as part of the problem. These policies, she said, have “created a negative incentive structure for African-Americans who have either internalized societal messages about inferiority or have chosen an easier path of not exerting themselves too vigorously” since they don’t have to meet higher standards.

Swain’s message was made all the more powerful by her personal story as one of 12 children in a poor rural home in Virginia. None of her siblings finished high school. “I was by no means the smartest,” said Swain. “By the grace of God, I was the one who managed to escape.”

In a later e-mail exchange, I asked Swain if she was concerned about being used by conservatives who have their own agenda. “Do liberal blacks worry about being tokens for the status quo?” she replied. “I doubt it. I call things the way I see them.”

Indeed, “conservative” may be a misnomer for the panel’s agenda. Abigail Thernstrom noted that she and her husband found themselves radicalized by working on their book. Without a “radical overhaul of American education,” she said, too many black and Hispanic young people will find the doors of opportunity closed, and “ancient inequalities” will persist. “Is that acceptable? No decent American will say yes.”

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Lynch Mob (Tongue Tied, 040615)

A south Boston school official who used the term “lynch mob” to describe a group of angry black parents has been labelled a racist and is facing demands for his resignation, reports the Enterprise.

Randolph, Mass. School Committee Chairman Ronald DiGuilio used the term in an April meeting in reference to a group of parents who said the achievement gap between black and white students was the district’s fault and not theirs.

Minority groups in town have insisted that DiGuilio apologize or resign, but he has refused to back down.

David Harris Jr., co-chairman of the Randolph Fair Practices Committee, said the term has a negative connotation to people of color and should not be used in public.

FULL STORY

Controversy swirls around Randolph official’s remark

RANDOLPH — “Lynch mob.”

When School Committee Chairman Ronald DiGuilio used that term to describe a group of black activist parents, he ignited a controversy in town that has yet to subside.

Minority groups have called for his resignation, saying they want him to apologize for a remark they say is offensive to African-Americans.

“ ‘Lynch mob’ is a very negative connotation to people of color,” said David Harris Jr., co-chairman of the Randolph Fair Practices Committee, a civil rights group organized in 1961 to fight housing discrimination.

“They think of the lynchings that took place in the 1950s and 1960s South where blacks were burned, kicked, beaten and lynched by mobs of white people,” Harris said.

DiGuilio has refused to apologize or resign. He says the dictionary meaning of “lynch mob” applies to the harsh criticism of school officials he heard at a meeting of minority parents.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” DiGuilio, 58, said last week. “There was no racial or ethnic connotations in that remark. If that’s the way they interpret it, that’s fine.”

In fact, DiGuilio repeated the term during the interview last week, again calling the minority parent group a “lynch mob” and saying they were “hanging” school officials, who were not at the parents meeting to defend themselves.

The dispute over DiGuilio’s April 15 lynch-mob comment and his refusal to apologize has lingered for nearly two months. Some people accused him of being a racist while he and his wife were shopping at a local supermarket last week, he said.

DiGuilio has many defenders in town.

“I’m really sick about this, because they’re really bashing this poor man,” said Miguel Dip of Randolph, 50, a teacher in Boston who is Hispanic and volunteers with DiGuilio at the Randolph Community Food Pantry, where DiGuilio serves as director. “It’s uncalled for. It’s unfair.”

James Hale of Randolph, 66, a former postal worker, said he has known DiGuilio for 20 years.

“That was unfortunate, that slip of the tongue there that night,” said Hale. “He’s certainly not prejudiced. He’s done a lot for this town.”

Leonard Alkins, president of the Boston NAACP, said DiGuilio’s statement “tends to tip one race against another.”

“Anybody who uses a pejorative term to describe a group which is race-based in nature is inciting that group to respond in the only manner in which they can — anger,” Alkins said.

The term stirred a national controversy in 1991 when Clarence Thomas, nominated to be the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, accused the Senate Judiciary Committee of lynching him by airing Anita Hill’s charges of sexual harassment.

A reputation for tolerance

While cities are not included in census figures, Randolph is believed to be the most diverse town in the state.

In its public school system, 40.2% of students are white, 38.8% are black, 13.6% are Asian, 7% are Latino and 0.4% American Indian, according to a local minority group report.

Randolph has long had a reputation for accepting people from diverse backgrounds, and minority homeowners can be found in all parts of town. But some say DiGuilio’s “lynch mob” remark has stirred underlying racial tensions in the town.

The incident began in March when, at the request of minority parents, School Superintendent Arthur Melia established Randolph Achieves, a committee to address an achievement gap between white and minority students, according to Harris.

At a subsequent School Committee meeting addressing the issue, Melia read five out of 14 indicators, all socioeconomic, that an education article said contributed to such an achievement gap.

“There were nine other indicators that were school-related,” said Harris, including class size and inexperienced teachers. “He read only those socioeconomic issues. (The message) was, ‘It’s not our system. It’s just these kids and their socioeconomic difficulties’ (causing the achievement gap).”

The Randolph Fair Practices Committee subsequently formed the Minority Parent Partnership.

“It was something that was established in partnership with the school system and endorsed by superintendent Melia,” said Harris, the group’s co-chairman. “The purpose is to empower minority parents to play a better role in the education of their kids.” The group’s proposals include adding tutors, mentors and translators for minority students, Harris said.

About 25 minority parents attended the group’s first meeting on April 7 at Randolph High School, as did DiGuilio, who took notes while observing the meeting from the back of the room.

During the meeting, DiGuilio said, the parents harshly criticized Randolph schools and School Department employees, including the superintendent, teachers and administrators. The parents made accusations of prejudice, complained there are not enough black teachers and administrators, and one called school administrative employees “professional liars,” he said.

“It was nothing but a lynch mob,” DiGuilio said last week in describing that meeting. “They were hanging people there that weren’t there to defend themselves.”

In the days after that meeting, the School Committee received several e-mails from the parents, DiGuilio said, including one saying there was institutional racism in the Randolph school system.

At the April 15 School Committee meeting, board members responded to the e-mail criticism and he called the minority parents a “lynch mob,” DiGuilio said.

“I told them I was disgusted by what I heard,” DiGuilio said. “I turned around and said, ‘You know what? You can criticize someone but you don’t tear someone apart.’ “

Police called to keep peace

Tempers flared at a May 12 School Committee meeting when a group of angry residents waited for 3 1/2 hours to address the board about DiGuilio’s remarks.

DiGuilio said he had asked in advance for a police officer at the meeting, where residents were each given a three-minute limit to speak.

“People waited, then (DiGuilio) said they had three minutes to speak and you couldn’t speak on the same topic,” said Harris. “It was absolutely a violation of freedom of speech.”

When the Rev. Kirk Jones, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Randolph and chairman of the civil rights group called Randolph Unity Network, exceeded his three-minute time limit, he said, DiGuilio banged his gavel and told him he was out of order. Jones kept on reading.

“It was an attempt to cut short dialogue about what had happened, to dodge criticism,” Jones said. “It proves that the current leadership, or Mr. DiGuilio, has become an incompetent leader.”

DiGuilio said he set the time limit because there were several speakers that evening. “I have an obligation to do school business, not to just listen to criticism,” DiGuilio said.

DiGuilio called police to the May 27 School Committee meeting after a portion of that meeting got out of control over the same issues.

Harris said his panel is considering legal action against the School Committee.

“If the chairperson of a school committee is out of line, as committed by a racially sensitive act, then the whole School Committee is tainted,” Harris said. “They’re guilty by association.”

A longtime town volunteer

Born and raised in Boston, DiGuilio graduated from Don Bosco Technical School in Boston. Currently unemployed, DiGuilio worked as vice president of a family-owned trucking company until medical problems arose, he said.

DiGuilio, who has suffered three heart attacks, said he will undergo surgery this week. The current controversy, he said, has taken its toll. “My family, they’re worried about my health,” he said.

He and his wife have four children, with one still attending Randolph public schools, he said.

Of the town he has called home for 31 years, DiGuilio said, “I love everybody.”

As director for 15 years of the food pantry, run out of Temple Beth Am, DiGuilio said he has helped provide food, fuel assistance, utilities, clothing and medicine to the needy.

The unpaid position involves overseeing a staff of about 35 volunteers at the pantry, which is open Mondays.

Of his civic duties, DiGuilio said, “That’s my biggest one I’m proud of. I enjoy it and I find gratification in it.”

In addition to serving on the Randolph School Committee for nine years, including 2-1/2 years as chairman, DiGuilio said he has served on the Randolph Industrial Commission for 15 years, the Randolph Disabilities Commission and the Conservation Commission.

He was a member of the Blue Hills Regional School Committee for 10 years before being elected to the Randolph board in 1995 — defeating Harris, the Fair Practices Committee leader, and three other candidates.

“He doesn’t think of himself,” said food pantry volunteer Audrey O’Riley, 73, of Randolph. “That’s why this whole thing is such a pity. He’s always working for other people. And he shows absolutely no signs of racism at all.”

Deacon Jim Eames of St. Mary Church in Randolph, where DiGuilio is a parishioner, said he has worked closely with him in community outreach for a decade.

“I think Ron does more to assist the needy than anyone directly in the town,” Eames said. “I don’t think he has spent a Christmas Eve at home with his family since I’ve known him. He’s out delivering food and toys.”

As for the lynch-mob remark, Eames said, “I know Ron well enough. Ron is not a racist. He certainly does not intend to be a racist.”

Debbie Batson, 47, of Randolph said she has known DiGuilio for more than 20 years and has worked with him in the food pantry and the local parent-teacher organization.

“It’s gotten way out of hand for a simple remark that was not meant to be derogatory. It has nothing to do with their race or religion,” said Batson, who added that people use the term to “just mean you’re attacking a person.”

Harris said minority leaders continue to call for an apology.

“It would be very helpful to vote to apologize,” Harris said of the School Committee. “It would help heal the community.”

Attempts to reach the School Committee last week were unsuccessful, except for member Michael Crowley, who e-mailed his support for DiGuilio.

Jones, the former pastor and leader of the Randolph Unity Network, said pride may have been DiGuilio’s “biggest mistake.”

“One should be wise and humble enough to say, ‘If I’ve offended anyone, I apologize,’ “ Jones said. “It was something that really could have been handled quickly and easily.”

Jones said he continues to meet regularly with Randolph Achieves, which is composed of school administrators, teachers and school board members.

“The rose amidst all the thorns would be this group,” Jones said. “This group symbolizes hope that we’ll be able to work together for the betterment of our children.”

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Black Children Denied IQ Tests in California (Foxnews, 040702)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The United States may have come a long way in the fight against institutionalized racism but in California, black children are still being denied access to an important educational tool.

Pamela Lewis wanted to have her 6-year-old son Nicholas take a standardized IQ test to determine if he qualifies for special education speech therapy. Officials at his school routinely provide the test to kids but as Lewis soon found out, not to children who are black, due to a statewide policy that goes back to 1979.

At that time, many black kids performed poorly on the IQ test and wound up in special education classes. A lawsuit claimed the test was biased and a judge agreed — banning public schools from giving the test to black children while allowing it for everyone else.

Lawyers for the New Haven School District claim they assess black children through academic performance and other criteria.

The state is looking into Lewis’ appeal but she said as a final insult a district official suggested if she changed her son’s paperwork to re-classify him as white, as she is, he’d be able to take the test.

She refused and redoubled her commitment to fight for her child’s right to be measured by the same standards as other kids.

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One Righteous Dis: The president was right to turn down the NAACP (National Review Online, 040713)

Liberal bellies are aching these days over President George W. Bush’s absence from this week’s Philadelphia convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Citing scheduling conflicts, the White House recently sent the president’s regrets. As journalists have explained in grave and slightly damning tones, Bush is the first president since Warren Harding not to address the NAACP. The insinuation is that Bush’s no-show before America’s oldest and largest civil-rights group reflects his neglect of, if not disdain for, black Americans.

No one should be surprised, however, to see Bush toss the NAACP’s invitation into the trash. That’s exactly where the Baltimore-based organization has relegated him since 2000. NAACP chairman Julian Bond and president Kweisi Mfume have played tag team in bashing Bush and the GOP.

“So, we’ve got...a president that’s prepared to take us back to the days of Jim Crow segregation and dominance,” Mfume told Washington journalist Hazel Trice Edney just last week. Mfume either is lying through his teeth or is clinically delusional if he believes Bush hopes to reintroduce segregated water fountains and “colored only” waiting rooms. Mfume should try the truth, or see a psychiatrist.

Bond’s rhetoric is equally reckless.

Bush and the GOP “preach racial equality but practice racial division,” Bond said June 23 in Indianapolis. “Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and Confederate swastika flying side by side.”

Bond told the NAACP’s July 2003 Miami Beach conference: “Republicans appeal to the dark underside of American culture, to that minority of Americans who reject democracy and equality.”

President Bush “has selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics,” Bond informed the NAACP’s New Orleans confab on July 8, 2001, as the September 11 hijackers learned to fly. “He has appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing. And he has chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection.”

No wonder Bush found a better use of his valuable time than to associate with these racial bomb throwers.

Far from dissing black Americans, Bush has met with them throughout his presidency. He attended the National Urban League’s 2001 and 2003 conventions. He hosted a White House celebration of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s 40th anniversary. Urban League president Marc Morial was there, as was civil-rights veteran Dorothy Hite. He has spoken to black churchgoers about his faith-based initiative.

Mfume also whined that “the president has refused to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus.”

There he goes again.

Bush, in fact, invited the all-Democratic CBC to the Cabinet Room on January 31, 2001. “They had a warm meeting,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Anne Womack told me then. “It was scheduled for 30 minutes and actually lasted nearly an hour.”

President Bush even has addressed...the NAACP. The day after Bond’s “Taliban” outburst, Bush offered its 2001 convention a video greeting. “I believe that even when disagreements arise,” Bush said, “we should treat each other with civility and with respect.”

Bush appeared personally before the NAACP as a 2000 presidential contender. In thanks, it telecast an infamous ad that fall which virtually implicated Bush in the 1998 truck-dragging murder of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas. Never mind that two of this black man’s three white killers were sentenced to death on Governor Bush’s watch.

Yes, Bush should campaign before black Americans, but he should not bother to plead with black leftists who hate his guts. Instead, he should meet with moderate to conservative blacks who are open to and even supportive of his policies. The Congress of Racial Equality, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, and Project 21 — as well as black business and religious groups — would treat Bush respectfully.

Julian Bond, Kweisi Mfume, and their NAACP cronies should stop screaming like infants and learn this simple lesson: Don’t expect grown adults to treat hand grenades like engraved invitations.

— New York (black) commentator Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a national-advisory-board member of Project 21, a Washington-based organization of black free-marketeers.

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White House scolds NAACP leadership (Washington Times, 040716)

The White House yesterday called the Urban League a more constructive civil rights organization than the NAACP, which is why President Bush will visit the former after snubbing the latter.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday reiterated that the vehemence of the NAACP’s attacks on the president, which include likening him and his party to racist murderers, “snake-oil salesmen” and the Taliban, make any meeting pointless.

“It really is disappointing to see the current leadership continue to repeat the hostile rhetoric that they have used, which really shows that they are not interested in a constructive dialogue,” Mr. McClellan said.

He added that the Urban League, by contrast, is interested in “having a constructive dialogue.” So Thursday in Detroit, Mr. Bush will address the organization’s convention for the second consecutive year and the third time overall.

The Urban League did not return calls for comment yesterday.

By speaking to the Urban League, which focuses more on economic opportunity than politics, Mr. Bush hopes to appeal to blacks by emphasizing pragmatism over ideology. His faith-based initiative, for example, allows inner-city churches to provide certain government services to the disadvantaged.

Mr. McClellan yesterday rattled off a long list of initiatives implemented by Mr. Bush to help black Americans, including school vouchers and a Justice Department ban on racial profiling. He added that the president’s tax cuts also have aided black families and small businesses.

Every other sitting president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has addressed at least one NAACP annual convention.

Mr. Bush’s only contribution to the Philadelphia convention was his response to a questionnaire issued by the group, in which he was asked about a host of issues such as affirmative action, the death penalty and hate crimes. On most of those issues, his long-stated public stances differ from the NAACP’s.

But relations between Mr. Bush and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have been hostile for years — Mr. Bush said last week that his relationship with NAACP leaders is “basically nonexistent” — and the White House hit back yesterday.

Education Secretary Rod Paige, who is black, joined Mr. McClellan, himself accusing NAACP leaders of “hateful and untruthful rhetoric about Republicans and President Bush.”

“I have a message for the NAACP’s Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume, who have accused black conservatives of being the ‘puppets’ of white people, unable to think for ourselves,” he wrote, with the approval of the White House, in a Wall Street Journal column headlined “Naked Partisans.” “You do not own, and you are not the arbiters of, African-American authenticity.”

It was a reference to Monday’s remark by Mr. Mfume, president of the NAACP, that black supporters of Mr. Bush are “ventriloquists’ dummies.”

That same day, Mr. Bond implored members of the group to defeat Mr. Bush in the November election. The chairman of the NAACP also told the convention that the Republican Party appeals to the “dark underside of American culture.” Mr. Bond also compared Mr. Bush to a “snake oil” salesman and accused Republicans of “playing the race card in election after election.”

In 2000, the NAACP sponsored a political ad that quoted the daughter of truck-dragging victim James Byrd as saying Mr. Bush’s stance on a hate-crimes bill was “like my father was killed all over again.”

Mr. Bond has said Republicans “draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics, and now they want to write bigotry back into the U.S. Constitution.” He also has referred to Republicans as “neo-fascists,” “a crazed swarm of right-wing locusts” and “the white-people’s party.”

Yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry addressed the NAACP’s Philadelphia convention and won cheers by mocking Mr. Bush for his absence.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) also was unimpressed.

“George W. Bush’s appearance at the National Urban League is too little, too late,” said the DNC’s William Marshall. “The fact that Bush will become the first U.S. president since Herbert Hoover who has snubbed the NAACP says much more than a last-minute scheduling detour for political damage control.”

Mr. McClellan said Mr. Kerry would reverse much of what the Bush administration has done to help blacks, describing the Massachusetts Democrat as “someone who voted against marriage penalty relief, who voted against expanding the child tax credit, who has called for raising taxes on small-business owners — many of whom are minority small-business owners.”

Mr. McClellan said the Democrat also “opposes leveling the playing field for faith-based organizations that have a proven record of helping people in need — many people in low-income neighborhoods who need that help.”

Mr. Paige went much further, deriding NAACP leaders as Bush haters.

“How ironic that they would direct this vitriol at a president who has appointed more African-Americans to high-profile posts, has committed more funds to fight AIDS in Africa, has championed minority homeownership, and has supported more trade and aid for African and Caribbean nations than any other administration,” he wrote.

His column also contained a rare rebuke of Mr. Bush’s predecessor.

“Through his education policies alone, President Bush has done more for the African-American community than any previous president, including the so-called ‘first black president,’ Bill Clinton,” he wrote. “That’s a secret some black leaders may not want millions of African-American voters to know.”

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New Hollywood ‘black’ list (WorldNetDaily, 040924)

Jesse Lee Peterson highlights anti-U.S. African-Americans

A new Hollywood “black” list has been established – this time highlighting those black entertainers who have been critical of U.S. policy in the war on terror.

The (black) Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, author of “Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America” and founder of the nonprofit group BOND, announced the start of the “Black” List Campaign. [BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, is a national, nonprofit religious organization dedicated to “Rebuilding the Family By Rebuilding the Man”. BOND was Founded by Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson who is also its President.]

“I’m sickened by black entertainers who drive $350,000 Bentleys and still cry ‘racism,’” Peterson said in a statement. “Americans of all colors pay to see their movies, and they have the nerve to bash the U.S.? American servicemen and woman watch their shows; yet, they travel to foreign lands and bad mouth our forces? Enough is enough! The goal of the ‘Black’ List Campaign is to expose these people so they can no longer deceive the American public.”

The list includes Spike Lee, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Harry Belafonte, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Will Smith, among others.

Peterson mentioned actor Smith, who in a recent interview with a German newspaper responded to a question about whether 9-11 had changed anything for him, saying: “When you grow up black in America you have a completely different view of the world than white Americans. We blacks live with a constant feeling of unease. And whether you are wounded in an attack by a racist cop or in a terrorist attack, I’m sorry, it makes no difference.”

In addition, Peterson cites filmmaker Lee, whose latest movie, “She Hate Me,” aims to smear American business and President Bush.

“I’m very nervous about this election,” Lee is quoted as saying, “because we’re all going to hell if George Bush wins.”

Said Peterson: “Our campaign seeks to educate Americans about the beliefs, statements and actions of these entertainers. The more the American people know, the less likely they are to support or believe these people.”

Rev. Peterson said, “Money won’t heal the wounds of past discrimination, but forgiveness will. Blacks Americans need to hear conservative ideas and principles boldly articulated by conservative black candidates.”

Rev. Peterson believes that Republicans can make inroads into the black community only if they hold fast to traditionally conservative ideas. He says, “We need to encourage men to be more responsible; commit to marriage; become independent of leaders; encourage real racial reconciliation; repudiate ‘black’ culture; embrace work and entrepreneurship; and most of all forgive—the key to transforming the black community. These are the things that will help blacks, not reparations.”

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Sen. Reid’s remarks (Washington Times, 041209)

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democrats’ leader in Senate, made some unfortunate remarks on Sunday about Justice Clarence Thomas. Mr. Reid said he could support Justice Antonin Scalia if the president elevated him to chief justice, but he called Justice Thomas “an embarrassment.” When Sen. Trent Lott made stinging remarks about segregated America in 2002, conservatives and liberals alike criticized the Republican from Mississippi. Sen. John Kerry, for his part, said: “It’s now clear this is not the first time Trent Lott has made similar comments. I simply do not believe the country can today afford to have someone who has made these statements again and again be the leader of the United States Senate.” The debate eventually led to Mr. Lott’s resignation as Senate majority leader. On Sunday, Mr. Reid repeated his disparaging remarks about Justice Thomas, yet, tellingly, his Democratic fellows are awfully quiet.

On Nov. 19 on National Public Radio, Mr. Reid said it would be “wrong” if President Bush “gave us Clarence Thomas as chief justice.” The senator went on to say, “If they give us Antonin Scalia, that’s a little different question. I may not agree with some of his opinions, but I agree with the brilliance of his mind.”

Appearing on “Meet the Press” this past Sunday, Mr. Reid again showed his bias. Tim Russert, after mentioning Mr. Reid’s comments on NPR, asked if he could support elevating Justice Scalia, Mr. Reid said there were some “ethics problems” that the justice would have to overcome and then he said, “I cannot dispute the fact, as I have said, that this is one smart guy.”

Mr. Russert then asked the telling question: “Why couldn’t you accept Clarence Thomas?” The senator responded: “I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I don’t ... I just don’t think that he’s done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.”

To the contrary, Justice Thomas, a constitutionalist, has been no embarrassment, and Mr. Reid is wrong to say that his opinions have been inarticulate.

While Mr. Russert might have followed up on Mr. Reid’s disparaging remarks about a sitting justice — the only black justice — on the nation’s highest court, we level heavier criticism at Mr. Kerry and other liberals for their failure to criticize their own leader simply because he is a Democrat. As Mr. Kerry himself pointed out in 2002: “Trent Lott’s statements place a cloud over his leadership because there can never be an appearance of racism or bigotry in any high position of leadership, particularly in the United States Senate. It saddens me greatly to suggest this, but in the interests of the Senate, his party, and the nation I believe Trent Lott should step aside as majority leader.”

Like Mr. Lott’s, Mr. Reid’s indefensible comments aren’t squaring with partisan politics. The Democrats are applying a double standard, and all’s quiet on the liberal front.

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A threat to liberal dominance (Washington Times, 041209)

[Kwing Hung: Clarence Thomas is not regarded as black. Though some ideas here are true, like the idea of victim, the prediction is a fantasy.]

Winning the general election and adding Republican seats in the House and Senate, President Bush earned his mandate, clearing the way for his agenda which includes appointing conservatives to the bench. In fact, Mr. Bush may choose to nominate Justice Clarence Thomas to replace an ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist. By doing so, the president would make American history and change racial expectations and political landscapes.

Justice Thomas’ elevation and his successful confirmation also would change aspects of African American social, cultural and political climate for the unforeseeable future. Before we rush to disagree, America is ready for this historic opportunity. By majority on Nov. 2, 2004, the American electorate revealed to American elite — still, that the people, county by county, believe that traditional values express its national ethos. Justice Thomas closely represents mainstream American values.

The Pew Research Center conducted a poll (Sept. — Oct. 2003), that prophetically reported, “Voters who attend religious services regularly favor re-electing Bush by strong margins, while those who rarely attend religious services clearly favor a Democratic candidate.” The poll data suggested that 63% of church attendees planned to support the sitting president, George Bush. On the other hand, 37% of those polled planned to vote for any Democratic nominee. Of those who seldom attend church, 62% planned to vote for the Democratic nominee; only 38% intended to vote for Mr. Bush.

Commenting on African American conservative religious values, Steven Waldman, writing for Slate, admits that blacks are conservative on cultural issues. He states, “On many issues over which liberals mock the ‘the religious right,’ African Americans are closer to the evangelicals than the rest of the Democratic Party.” He adds, “Even more important, African Americans tend to concur with the Republican position on the hot issue of gay marriage. Sixty-four percent oppose it as compared to 44% among white mainline Protestants and 30% among secular Democrats. Mr. Waldman goes on to say that blacks “support the Republican position on the death penalty, despite evidence that its implementation tends to discriminate against blacks.”

In the decisive Ohio election, 60% of African Americans voted against same-sex marriages. Statistically, Justice Thomas is well within the margin of African American cultural conservatism and other Americans’ cultural expectations on most of his opinions and dissents.

Where are the political pitfalls? Justice Thomas may be a threat to liberal hegemony. Many of whom are weary that unexpectedly, Justice Thomas is “the new Negro” role model, who like a Hebrew prophet shares his message of hope as nothing more than returning to religious and family values, hard work, self-help and personal responsibility. For instance, Cornel West, a prolific liberal scholar, writing in “Race Matters,” admits that “[George Herbert Walker] Bush’s choice of Thomas caught most black leaders off guard.” Although Mr. West harshly questioned Justice Thomas’ qualifications to be an associate justice, he conceded that black leadership was not prepared to have competition for the hearts and minds of black America, especially an alternative, ardently conservative voice.

Mr. West published “Race Matters” in 1993, and still black liberal leadership is not prepared for Justice Thomas. This is partly because Justice Thomas provides ideological competition for what many believe will aid black America’s self-improvement. Also, Mr. West exposes an apparent leadership flaw. The flaw is its unbridled political partisanship. African Americans are conditioned to receive leadership from a partisan worldview that is not necessarily accurate. Thus, Justice Thomas represents a paradigm shift in cultural politics. His confirmation represents change in racial expectations.

Where are the upshots in a new political landscape? Justice Thomas’ successful confirmation will further advance political maturation and sophistication and an intellectual debate in the black community. It will cause a rapid increase in socio-political transformation. For instance, what John McWhorther, author of “Losing the Race,” calls alleviating “victimology.” He believes that too often, African Americans are taught to engage society through a victim’s lens: “This to often is not with a view toward forging solutions, but to foster and nurture an unfocused brand of resentment and sense of alienation from the mainstream. This is Victimology.” President George W. Bush can extend his legacy by appointing justices that emulate his view of the rule of law and philosophically, Justice Thomas does.

There is another philosophical reason, however. By appointing Justice Thomas, Mr. Bush may extend Western civilization. Unless minorities invest in the future of the country, it may decline. African Americans are in the best position to save traditional values in this country. As Shelby Steele states, many are waiting for the fulfillment of dreams deferred. In a generation, African Americans may begin to believe in the total American dream by further understanding its principles of supporting a market economy, delaying self-gratification and using the power of education and ideas.

Of course many already responsibly do, but so many more will, should persons like Justice Thomas be afforded an opportunity to serve in the highest positions in the land.

The Rev. Joseph Evans is senior pastor at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Washingon.

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The New And Improved Racism (Ann Coulter, 041208)

Still furious about the election, liberals are lashing out at blacks. First it was Condoleezza Rice. But calling a Ph.D. who advised a sitting president during war “Aunt Jemima” apparently hasn’t satiated the Democrats’ rage. Even the racist cartoons didn’t help.

So this week, they’ve turned with a vengeance to Clarence Thomas. Only the Democrats would try to distract from their racist attacks on one black Republican by leveling racist attacks against a different black Republican. If Democrats don’t nip this in the bud, soon former Klanner and Democratic Sen. Bob Byrd will be their spokesman.

In the past few weeks, there have been nasty insinuations all around about Condoleezza Rice’s competence for the job.

Democratic consultant Bob Beckel – who demonstrated his own competence running Walter Mondale’s campaign – said of Rice, “I don’t think she’s up to the job.”

Joseph Cirincione, with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (so you know they don’t have an agenda or anything), said Rice “doesn’t bring much experience or knowledge of the world to this position.” This was reassuring, inasmuch as that was also liberals’ assessment of the current president before he took office and he, to put it mildly, has been doing rather well.

The Kansas City Star editorialized that Rice “has not demonstrated great competence in the last four years,” which is to say, Dr. Rice failed to be sufficiently clairvoyant to predict the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Columnist Bob Herbert sneered of Rice’s nomination in the New York Times: “Competence has never been highly regarded by the fantasists of the George W. Bush administration.” For example, these are the bumbling nitwits who conquered Afghanistan, the “graveyard of empires,” and toppled Baghdad in less time than your average Jennifer Lopez marriage lasts. (Wait, I can’t remember: Was it the Bush administration that hired Jayson Blair?)

So far, Dr. Rice has demonstrated her abundant competence only in academia, geopolitics, history, government, college administration, classical music and athletics. I eagerly await the Bob Herbert column in which he lists the subjects and pursuits he’s mastered. If only Rice talked about her accessorizing like Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, she might impress the sort of fellow who writes for the New York Times.

Liberals at least give white Republicans credit for being evil. Rumsfeld is a dangerous warmonger, Paul Wolfowitz is part of an international Jewish conspiracy, Dick Cheney is “Dr. No.” But Dr. Rice? She’s a dummy.

In fact, after spending the last four years telling us that President Bush was an empty suit, a vessel for neoconservative fantasies of perpetual war, liberals have now found someone who is Bush’s puppet: the black chick.

It’s all so eerily familiar.

The late Mary McGrory, a white liberal, called Scalia “a brilliant and compelling extremist” – as opposed to McGrory herself, a garden-variety extremist of average intelligence. But Thomas she dismissed as “Scalia’s puppet,” quoting another white liberal, Alvin J. Bronstein of the American Civil Liberties Union, to make the point. This is the kind of rhetoric liberals are reduced to when they just can’t bring themselves to use the n-word.

Most recently – at least as we go to press – last Sunday Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, had this to say about Justice Clarence Thomas: “I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written.” You’d think Thomas’ opinions were written in ebonics.

In the same interview, Reid called Justice Antonin Scalia “one smart guy.” He said that although he disagreed with Scalia, his reasoning is “very hard to dispute.” Scalia is “one smart guy”; Thomas is the janitor. If Democrats are all going to read from the same talking points, they might want to get someone other than David Duke to write them.

On the Sean Hannity radio show, Democratic pundit Pat Halpin defended Sen. Reid’s laughable attack on Thomas by citing Bob Woodward’s book “The Brethren,” which – according to Halpin – vividly portrays Thomas as a nincompoop.

I return to my standing point that liberals don’t read. Harry Reid clearly hasn’t read any of the decisions Justice Thomas has written, and Pat Halpin clearly hasn’t read “The Brethren.”

“The Brethren” came out a decade before Thomas was even nominated to the Supreme Court. The only black Supreme Court justice discussed in “The Brethren” is Thurgood Marshall. That’s one we haven’t heard in a while: I just can’t tell you guys apart.

How many black justices have there been on the Supreme Court again? Oh yes: two. It’s one thing to confuse Potter Stewart with Lewis Powell. After all, there have been a lot of white guys on the court. But there have been only two black justices – and Democrats can’t keep them straight. Two! That’s like getting your mother and father confused. I can name every black guy on a current National Hockey League roster: Is it asking Democrats too much to remember the names of the only two black Supreme Court justices?

In “America (The Book),” by Jon Stewart and the writers of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” the section on the judiciary describes how to make a sock puppet of Clarence Thomas and then says, “Ta-da! You’re Antonin Scalia!” On grounds of originality alone, Mr. Stewart, I want my money back.

But reviewing the book in the New York Times, Caryn James called the sock puppet joke one of the book’s “gems of pointed political humor.” Funny how the liberal punditocracy all parrot this same “sock puppet” line about Thomas year after year, almost as if they were sock pu— oh, never mind.

Curiously, of all the liberals launching racist attacks on black conservatives I’ve quoted above, only two are themselves black: the two who write for the New York Times. So I guess there are still a couple of blacks taking orders from the Democrats. Isn’t there an expression for that? I think it begins with “Uncle” and ends with “Tom.”

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The race card – 2005 (townhall.com, 050113)

Larry Elder, black conservative

The Democratic Party continues to play the race card for political gain.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson steamed into Ohio, the so-called battleground state that went for Bush, claiming that Ohioans’ votes failed to count. “The playing field is uneven,” said Jackson. “...We as Americans should not be begging a secretary of state for a fair vote count. We cannot be the home of the thief and the land of the slave.”

Remember the claims by John Kerry and others of one million black voters disenfranchised in Florida during the 2000 presidential election? Peter Kirsanow, a black attorney and member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, says the commission’s six-month investigation failed to find any evidence of black voter “intimidation.” “Not one person was intimidated,” says Kirsanow, “[or] had their vote stolen. There was no disenfranchisement . . . no truth to any of those allegations.”

According to columnist John Leo, contributing editor at U.S. News and World Report:

If an effort was underway to suppress the black vote, it clearly failed: 900,000 blacks voted in Florida, up 65% over the 1996 presidential election. That unexpectedly high total clearly strained the system, put pressure on officials and voters to move along quickly, and kept phone lines clogged when voter verification calls were needed.

P. Diddy, the rapper, music mogul and fashion impresario, spearheaded a “Vote or Die!” voter awareness campaign. Diddy called himself a “disenfranchised voter.” “...I’m...a disenfranchised voter,” said Diddy, “...because politicians, they just didn’t pay attention to us. I call ourselves ‘the forgotten ones’ — youth and minority voters. Their campaign trails don’t come into our communities unless they go to the churches, and they don’t stop and speak to us.” Sort of a 21st-century definition of the word “disenfranchisement.” Whatever.

Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s campaign manager — and a black woman — called the Republican Party the party of the “white boys.” According to Brazile, “A white boy attitude is, ‘I must exclude, denigrate and leave behind.’ They don’t see it or think about it. It’s a culture.” (Brazile now serves as an analyst for CNN.)

Samuel L. Jackson is a respected black actor who appeared in more American films than anyone during the 1990s. In April 2000, he appeared on the cover of Architectural Digest, along with Clark Gable, Natalie Wood, William H. Macy, Hedy Lamarr, Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, Doris Day and Claire Danes. Surely the Jackson family celebrated the actor’s appearance on the cover, and the glowing inside piece on their lovely home. Wrong. Because Jackson shared the cover with other celebrities, his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, wrote to the magazine and accused it of racism:

“It is with sincere regret that I write to tell you how disappointing it is to see my husband, Samuel L. Jackson, featured in the lower left-hand corner on the cover of your April 2000 issue,” wrote Mrs. Jackson. “It seems a very odd and racist placement. In the magazine racks of most establishments you don’t see him at all; perhaps that was the point. I hardly think anyone is really more interested in all of the dead people you chose to prominently display . . . .”

More recently, the actor implied racism on the part of the National Basketball Association for severe punishment of athletes involved in the Detroit Pistons/Indiana Pacers’ brawl in Michigan:

...[I]t kinda looked like a, you know, black-athlete-beatin’-up-white-fan fight more so than, you know, athletes versus fans.... It looked like it was [a racial element], and I’m sure Commissioner Stern had to defuse that situation, like getting rid of the bad guy. But you can’t deprive a guy of makin’ a livin’ all year, just because he did something like that.

Actor Will Smith blamed racism for the AIDS epidemic. “I firmly believe that it is quite highly possible,” said Smith, “that the AIDS virus is the result of genetic warfare testing.”

Richard Williams, father of tennis sensations Venus and Serena Williams, also has three stepdaughters — one is an actress and singer, one is a lawyer, and one, now deceased, attended medical school. His view of America’s “race relations”? “In America,” says Williams, “black people doesn’t really have an opportunity at nothin’. . . . It’s kinda bad bein’ black in America.”

Polls find young blacks less likely to call racism America’s No. 1 issue. A Time/CNN poll found 89% of black teens consider racism in their own lives to be “a small problem” or “not a problem at all.” Twice as many black teens as white believe that “failure to take advantage of available opportunities” is a bigger problem for blacks than discrimination. Polls and focus groups show younger blacks less likely to identify themselves as Democrats, and more likely to support partial privatization of Social Security, school vouchers and the abolition of race-based preferences. This spells trouble for the Democratic Party and its monolithic black vote.

Horrors! The Democrats may have to find another card to play.

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Dean, Dems frozen in time warp (townhall.com, 050222)

Star Parker

It didn’t take long for Howard Dean, the new Democratic National Committee chairman, to show his credentials as a graduate of the Trent Lott school of racial sensitivity training.

His remarks, at a meeting with the uniformly Democratic Congressional Black Caucus, that Republicans would need the “hotel staff” if they wanted to fill a room with blacks, tell us a lot about the man. They also tell us a lot about the Democratic Party that has chosen him to lead it out of its abyss.

Dean and his party are frozen in a time warp. Their sense of the social realities of our country and the challenges confronting us haven’t changed since 1965.

Surely Chairman Dean knows that our secretary of state is an African-American woman from Alabama. Or that there are now three black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

I wonder if he appreciates that the percentage of black households earning over $75,000 a year has more than quadrupled over the last 40 years. Or that there are now over 1 million blacks in this country with advanced degrees.

Perhaps Dean didn’t take notice that 1.5 million blacks voted for George W. Bush in 2004 _ double the black vote that he got in 2000. I think that’s enough to fill a room. And, Mr. Dean, most of those 1.5 million black folks who voted for Bush are not hotel staff.

Blacks have moved on and moving on requires open eyes and open minds. If Dean’s eyes were open he’d be aware that his 40-year-old stereotypes have little to do with black reality today. He’d also be aware that prescriptions that blacks need and seek today are far different from the conventional wisdom of 40 years ago that more government is the answer for every social problem.

If Dean were paying attention, he’d be watching the reaction that Bill Cosby is getting in his inner-city tour around the nation with a message far different from what blacks are hearing from their Democratic representatives.

Inner-city black parents are getting Cosby’s message that taking control of their future starts by looking in the mirror and not by looking to Washington.

Cosby wants blacks to believe in themselves. Dean wants blacks to believe in government.

Dean thinks that if you want to find a black in a hotel you go to the bell stand. There are blacks today who own hotels.

Last month this same black caucus met with President Bush to share its agenda with him. Every issue on the agenda — whether jobs, crime, education, health care — was defined by a government spending program.

The president’s sop to them was a new inner-city government spending program he announced in the State of the Union address.

However, the president’s core message of ownership, responsibility, faith and freedom is far more in sync with what blacks need and want.

Dean and his Democrats should start watching the Cosby show and return their “Amos ‘n’ Andy” tapes to Blockbuster.

A few years ago I spoke in a hotel in the South. The event was sponsored by a conservative foundation and the audience was white. Here’s an excerpt from a letter I got after the event that might help Dean understand what many blacks who are still working in hotels are thinking:

Serving in the Banquet Department of the hotel at a function sponsored by the John Locke Foundation allowed me to stay in the hall and listen to your presentation about your adversities, including the issues of ‘living on the edge.’ I knew at that instant the correct turn at the crossroad before me. My experience of meeting you kept a lamp of hope lit in my heart. I am now off drugs and back in college after 32 years, with a 4.0 GPA and pressing toward the mark every day. A healing in my life was initiated that day.

Imagine if this woman who heard me speak that day heard Dean’s joke about blacks instead.

The Democrats’ selection of Dean as their chairman tells me that they are getting more rather than less deaf.

Democrats need to wake up.

Star Parker is president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education and author of the newly released book ‘Uncle Sam’s Plantation.’

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A cry for attention is not leadership (WorldNetDaily, 050223)

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson (black pastor)

“[T]he function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”

– Ralph Nader (Even a broken clock is sometimes right.)

You don’t normally pick up Jet Magazine and expect to find something incisive. But the Jan. 31 issue surprised me – though inadvertently – with an anonymously authored article titled, “Civil Rights Groups: Why They’re Essential Today.”

What “Anonymous” tried to do was to profile five current civil-rights groups who were also prominent in the ‘60s, with the hope of showing just how relevant they still are.

What “Anonymous” actually profiles is a cry for attention. The responses of these organizations’ leaders are amazing in their uniformity – all five essentially get down on their hands and knees and beg for attention.

Take National Urban League President Mark H. Morial, who has this to say:

I think civil-rights organizations are very important, but have the new challenge of reaching out to the younger professionals as well as the hiphop generation. We have to reach out to them so they can gain a better understanding of the history that created the opportunities that many of them enjoy today.

Translated: “Groups like ours are important because we explain to people why we were once important so they might think that we are still important so that we, in turn, can still feel like we’re important.”

Wait. It gets better.

Julian Bond, Board Chairman of the NAACP, “is in agreement with Morial when he states that a number of blacks, both young and old, tend to make the mistake of thinking the struggle for civil rights is over.” Says Bond:

We know that there is a large body of opinion in America that says that racial discrimination isn’t the problem anymore ... [but] we know that it’s still a pervasive problem affecting every black American no matter how wealthy or how poor, and we’re determined to root it out.

This statement seems to say that many blacks are too dumb to notice a problem so horrendous that it affects every one of them – pervasively. Read between the lines. Bond is indignant that instead of coming to his organization whimpering, blacks have opted to reject excuses. Imagine.

Meanwhile, Southern Christian Leadership Council President Charles Steele is nearly hysterical. “We are relevant,” he insists; “we are pregnant [with causes] and we are prevalent.” In fact, the SCLC is neither relevant nor prevalent (when was the last time you heard from the SCLC?) and this is because their causes apply to a world 50 years past.

For his part, Al Sharpton notes that his National Action Network exists “because it’s only a matter of time before it comes to your job, or your door, or your car being pulled over.” Apparently he’s being serious (the article does not explicitly confirm), in which case enough said.

The article also discusses Jesse Jackson, who somehow has become so irrelevant that nothing in his profile is worth attention.

If these men were not so wicked, their railings of “We’re important!” and “We’re relevant!” would be sad.

Fortunately, they and their groups are now irrelevant. This is in part their own doing. None of these men were ever real leaders to begin with. Their goal is not to set people free, but to keep them weak and dependent. It’s no accident their usefulness wore out and they’ve been confined to the periphery of the lives of most hard-working black Americans.

More and more blacks are now aware of their poisonous message of racism, hopelessness, and hatred.

Blacks don’t need leaders, and haven’t for decades. No man or woman needs a leader – hard work and responsibility are sufficient. Meanwhile, black youth – like all youth – need little more than strong moral examples in their families and communities.

To this end, my organization, BOND, is co-sponsoring a conference with the Heritage Foundation titled, “Responding to the Call: The New Black Vanguard Conference,” tomorrow in Washington, D.C. This historic conference will address the problems of moral and physical destruction in America’s inner cities and respond to the attacks on black heroes like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Justice Clarence Thomas. It will lay out solutions that all blacks can pursue for themselves – without help from any leader. The conference will abide by the true purpose of leadership: to create more leaders, not followers.

The era of wicked and useless black leadership is thankfully waning, and a new day of true freedom is on the horizon. That’s beautiful news for black American ... with several obvious exceptions of course!

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Racism, Abortion and Black Genocide (Christian Post, 050302)

Rev. Mark H. Creech

They were stolen-away from their homes and brought to the New World against their wills. They were not born slaves, but on their native soil had been free farmers, craftsman, traders, hunters, musicians, dancers, artists, sculptors, and poets. Some had been rulers of both large and small kingdoms.

Their cultures were rich and noble, diverse in custom, tongues and clothing. They came in chains, but their spirits were too strong to remain in bondage. They not only wanted to be free, they insisted on equality.

Among their ranks rose great champions for liberty and parity like Benjamin Banneker, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, Ida Wells Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others. Their contributions not only significantly improved the plight of their own people, but also the God-given rights of all races.

America has come a long way since those days when blacks were stereotyped as Charles Marden said they were in 1952 in Minorities in American Society: “Popular white thought characterizes him in this way: ‘The Negro is lazy, won’t work unless he has to, and doesn’t know what to do with money when he gets it. He is dirty, smelly, and careless in his appearance, yet given to flashy dressing. He is much more sexy than the white man, and exercises no restraint in its expression. He has low mental ability incapable of anything but menial labor. He is naturally religious, but his religion is mostly emotion and superstition. On the other hand, in his simple way, the Negro is a likable fellow, clever in a childlike way, and has natural abilities as a singer, dancer, actor which surpass those of most white folks.’” How demeaning, atrocious and racist!!!

Racism is a terrible insult to God. The Bible declares, “This royal law is found in the Scriptures: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ If you obey this law, you are doing right. But if you treat one person as being more important than another, you are sinning. You are guilty of breaking God’s law” (James 2:8,9).

Someone once said, “We are all ethnics; some of us just work at it harder than others.” Because prejudiced thinking is at the heart of human depravity, racism will likely be a challenge for every generation.

One form of racism, however, that has largely gone unnoticed today by the African-American community is abortion. I agree with Rev. Johnny Hunt of the Life Education and Resource Network, who says abortion is racism in its ugliest form. “Because of some very suave planning by abortion supporters and providers,” writes Hunt, “abortionists have eliminated more African-American children than the KKK ever lynched.” Of course, Hunt, a black American, isn’t excusing the dastardly deeds of the KKK, but is simply pointing out there is a much bigger injustice currently being perpetrated against blacks than was being committed against them when the Klan was at its zenith. Hunt contends abortion has robbed millions of black Americans of the most essential of all rights — the right to life ... the right to opportunity ... the right to give something.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than three times as likely as white women to have an abortion. The Family Research Council says that African Americans represent 12% of the population but suffer 32% of the abortions in America. The Culture of Life Foundation & Institute adds that more than 1,400 black children are aborted every day. Since Roe v. Wade, that makes about 15 million African Americans removed from the population who can never make any contribution to their race or their country.

The Culture of Life Foundation & Institute further notes: “Given the increased rate of abortion among African Americans, it is fair to ask whether this community is specifically targeted by the abortion industry. The writings of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, gave ample evidence of her belief in eugenics and her plan to reduce the African-American population through ‘family planning’. But that was over 60 years ago. Today, however, we do see a concentration of abortion business in African-American neighborhoods. For example, according to Michigan Right to Life, of the 36 abortion clinics remaining in Michigan, 11 are in Detroit, a black majority city. Of those 11, nine are in African-American neighborhoods or have predominantly African-American customers.”

Yet the NAACP and most high-profile black leaders are squarely on the side of the abortionists. Certainly some will deny this claim, saying to defend “choice” is not to be “pro-abortion.” You can personally be opposed to abortion, they argue, but believe that it’s improper to impose that standard on others. But isn’t that like the fallacious contention you can be personally opposed to slavery and still defend the right of some to practice it? Isn’t that like saying, “I believe lynching a black person is wrong, but people still ought to have that choice”? Gregg Cunningham in Why Abortion is Genocide correctly summarizes the matter when he writes, “The effort to outlaw abortion, like the campaign to outlaw racial injustice, isn’t merely about personal morality. It is not merely about what a person does. It is about what a person does to another person.”

In February our nation celebrates Black History Month. It’s an important time to remember the role African-Americans have played in the history and culture of our nation. Their influence for good has been profound! Nevertheless, I fear blacks are largely missing the challenge of this new day. Too many are unbelievably satisfied with the status quo of black genocide.

Perhaps the challenge of Martin Luther King ,Jr.’s, “I Have a Dream” speech would become the clarion call of all our black brothers: “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

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How not to be poor (townhall.com, 050511)

Walter E. Williams (black)

Ministers Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Washington, D.C.’s Mayor Anthony Williams and others recently met to discuss plans to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October 1995 Million Man March. Whilst reading about the plans, I thought of an excellent topic for the event: how not to be poor.

Avoiding long-term poverty is not rocket science. First, graduate from high school. Second, get married before you have children, and stay married. Third, work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage. And, finally, avoid engaging in criminal behavior. If you graduate from high school today with a B or C average, in most places in our country there’s a low-cost or financially assisted post-high-school education program available to increase your skills.

Most jobs start with wages higher than the minimum wage, which is currently $5.15. A man and his wife, even earning the minimum wage, would earn $21,000 annually. According to the Bureau of Census, in 2003, the poverty threshold for one person was $9,393, for a two-person household it was $12,015, and for a family of four it was $18,810. Taking a minimum-wage job is no great shakes, but it produces an income higher than the Bureau of Census’ poverty threshold. Plus, having a job in the first place increases one’s prospects for a better job.

The Children’s Defense Fund and civil rights organizations frequently whine about the number of black children living in poverty. In 1999, the Bureau of the Census reported that 33.1% of black children lived in poverty compared with 13.5% of white children. It turns out that race per se has little to do with the difference. Instead, it’s welfare and single parenthood. When black children are compared to white children living in identical circumstances, mainly in a two-parent household, both children will have the same probability of being poor.

How much does racial discrimination explain? So far as black poverty is concerned, I’d say little or nothing, which is not to say that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. But let’s pose a few questions. Is it racial discrimination that stops black students from studying and completing high school? Is it racial discrimination that’s responsible for the 68% illegitimacy rate among blacks?

The 1999 Bureau of Census report might raise another racial discrimination question. Among black households that included a married couple, over 50% were middle class earning above $50,000, and 26% earned more than $75,000. How in the world did these black families manage not to be poor? Did America’s racists cut them some slack?

The civil rights struggle is over, and it has been won. At one time, black Americans did not have the same constitutional protections as whites. Now, we do, because the civil rights struggle is over and won is not the same as saying that there are not major problems for a large segment of the black community. What it does say is that they’re not civil rights problems, and to act as if they are leads to a serious misallocation of resources.

Rotten education is a severe handicap to upward mobility, but is it a civil rights problem? Let’s look at it. Washington, D.C. public schools, as well as many other big city schools, are little more than educational cesspools. Per student spending in Washington, D.C., is just about the highest in the nation. D.C.’s mayors have been black, and so have a large percentage of the city council, school principals, teachers and superintendents. Suggesting that racial discrimination plays any part in Washington, D.C.’s educational calamity is near madness and diverts attention away from possible solutions.

Bill Cosby had the courage to speak out against individual irresponsibility. Surely those who profess to have the best interests of blacks at heart should be able to summon the courage to do so as well.

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The ‘Today’ show trashes Cosby (townhall.com, 050512)

Larry Elder (black)

When Reverend Sharpton ran for president, he accused the media of racism for ignoring his candidacy. Since the word racist gets recklessly thrown around, does it also apply to the “Today” show?

Remember when the legendary actor/entertainer/philanthropist Bill Cosby said, “[I]n our cities and public schools we have 50% drop out. . . . No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.”

He urged blacks to embrace education, speak standard English and obey the law. How dare he? His comments created such a stir that last year, the “Today” show’s Matt Lauer did a pro-and-con segment.

Now here’s where things get interesting. Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at University of Pennsylvania, just wrote a book called “Is Bill Cosby Right?” Dyson goes after Cosby for allegedly unfairly attacking blacks. You know, the standard liberal pap about blaming the “victim,” blah, blah, blah. Never mind the tragedy of babies having babies, of a 50% inner-city dropout rate or the disproportionately high percentage of black youth involved in crime.

So who conducted the “Today” show’s interview of Michael Eric Dyson? Matt Lauer? No. Katie Couric? No. Al Roker. Nice guy, but what does this say about how seriously the “Today” show considers the problems facing the black community?

The Roker-Dyson interview was wild. You couldn’t help screaming at the television set for Roker to jump in, to challenge some of the silliness, something — anything. Instead, the “interview” went this way:

Al Roker: “Do you think there’s any validity in some of the things he said?”

Michael Eric Dyson: “Oh sure . . . there’s validity always. Tim[othy] McVeigh had a point. The state is over-reaching. But the way you do it, dropping bombs and castigating of human beings, that’s terrible. . . . Let’s hold the larger society accountable for creating the conditions that lead to some of the downfalls of the poor people.” Roker said nothing.

Roker then read three quotes from Cosby: “Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a damn thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail.” Next, “All this child knows is ‘gimme, gimme, gimme.’ These people want to buy the friendship of a child . . . and the child couldn’t care less. . . . These people are not parenting. They’re buying things for the kid. $500 sneakers, for what? They won’t . . . spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics.” And finally, “You can’t land a plane with ‘why you ain’t . . . ‘ You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth . . . “

Dyson: “ . . . Black people have always been creative in naming their children. Africans name their kids after the days of the week, after conditions of their birth. Black people in 1930s gave their kids names after consumer products, Cremola, Listerine, Hershey Bar. So black naming has always been creative. I’m not worried about Shaniqua and Taliqua, I’m worried about Clarence and Condoleeza, who can hurt us in high places of power in America.” Roker said nothing.

Dyson then accused Cosby of hypocrisy. After all, Cosby was a “pitchman” for “Jell-O Puddin’ Pops. . . . He created artificial desire in people to spend beyond their means . . . “??!! Roker said nothing.

Dyson: So I’m speaking forth . . . on behalf of those people who are poor, because, after all, I was a teen father, lived on welfare until I was 21, then went to get a Ph.D. at Princeton, now I’m gonna have Afro-nesia [sic] and forget the people from which I’ve emerged? No, bro, I ain’t the one.” To which Roker “fired back” with this show stopper: “You know, you gotta come out of your shell.”

Would Dyson have called Couric or Lauer “bro”?

Why didn’t Katie or Matt do the interview? Perhaps Couric no longer feels comfortable with “contentious” subjects after she came out on the wrong end of an interview with smart and funny conservative commentator Ann Coulter. Perhaps Lauer knows that we “right-wingers” watch for signs of bias and would have demanded a forceful interview. But, if Lauer challenges too hard, he fears running the risk of being called racially insensitive. If he goes too soft, he will be accused, quite properly, of pandering and condescension.

The solution? Let Al do it. After all, he, too, is black, as are Cosby and Dyson. So what can critics say? What should Roker have done? Two options. Either rise to the level of the seriousness of the topic and conduct a real interview that challenged Dyson and enlightened viewers. Or, Roker should have said to his producer, “Cosby raised important issues, and Cosby argues that blaming racism no longer gets it. This is a serious claim and needs to be taken seriously. We insult Cosby, the issue and our audience if I do the interview rather than Katie or Matt.”

In other words, “No, bro, I ain’t the one.”

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Liberals, race, and history (townhall.com, 050524)

Thomas Sowell

If the share of the black vote that goes to the Democrats ever falls to 70%, it may be virtually impossible for the Democrats to win the White House or Congress, because they have long ago lost the white male vote and their support among other groups is eroding. Against that background, it is possible to understand their desperate efforts to keep blacks paranoid, not only about Republicans but about American society in general.

Liberal Democrats, especially, must keep blacks fearful of racism everywhere, including in an administration whose Cabinet includes people of Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic, and Jewish ancestry, and two consecutive black Secretaries of State. Blacks must be kept believing that their only hope lies with liberals.

Not only must the present be distorted, so must the past — and any alternative view of the future must be nipped in the bud. That is why prominent minority figures who stray from the liberal plantation must be discredited, debased and, above all, kept from becoming federal judges.

A thoughtful and highly intelligent member of the California supreme court like Justice Janice Rogers Brown must be smeared as a right-wing extremist, even though she received 76% of the vote in California, hardly a right-wing extremist state. But desperate politicians cannot let facts stand in their way.

Least of all can they afford to let Janice Rogers Brown become a national figure on the federal bench. The things she says and does could lead other blacks to begin to think independently — and that in turn threatens the whole liberal house of cards. If a smear is what it takes to stop her, that is what liberal politicians and the liberal media will use.

It’s “not personal” as they say when they smear someone. It doesn’t matter how outstanding or upstanding Justice Brown is. She is a threat to the power that means everything to liberal politicians. The Democrats’ dependence on blacks for votes means that they must keep blacks dependent on them.

Black self-reliance would be almost as bad as blacks becoming Republicans, as far as liberal Democrats are concerned. All black progress in the past must be depicted as the result of liberal government programs and all hope of future progress must be depicted as dependent on the same liberalism.

In reality, reductions in poverty among blacks and the rise of blacks into higher level occupations were both more pronounced in the years leading up to the civil rights legislation and welfare state policies of the 1960s than in the years that followed.

Moreover, contrary to political myth, a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But facts have never stopped politicians or ideologues before and show no signs of stopping them now.

What blacks have achieved for themselves, without the help of liberals, is of no interest to liberals. Nothing illustrates this better than political reactions to academically successful black schools.

Despite widespread concerns expressed about the abysmal educational performances of most black schools, there is remarkably little interest in those relatively few black schools which have met or exceeded national standards.

Anyone who is serious about the advancement of blacks would want to know what is going on in those ghetto schools whose students have reading and math scores above the national average, when so many other ghetto schools are miles behind in both subjects. But virtually all the studies of such schools have been done by conservatives, while liberals have been strangely silent.

Achievement is not what liberalism is about. Victimhood and dependency are.

Black educational achievements are a special inconvenience for liberals because those achievements have usually been a result of methods and practices that go directly counter to prevailing theories in liberal educational circles and are anathema to the teachers’ unions that are key supporters of the Democratic Party.

Many things that would advance blacks would not advance the liberal agenda. That is why the time is long overdue for the two to come to a parting of the ways.

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The NAACP needs to get a clue (Townhall.com, 050718)

Star Parker (black women columnist)

The NAACP has just concluded its 96th annual convention, and it makes me sad.

I am sad because black America has real problems and the NAACP and its leaders either don’t care about them or are so out of touch with reality that they are incapable of honestly seeing them. As result, the challenges facing blacks are far greater than they might otherwise be.

NAACP chairman Julian Bond put his finger on it, saying, “Our mission has not changed ...We are a social-justice advocacy organization dedicated to ending racial discrimination. That’s what we do.”

The truth that black leaders like Bond can’t seem to come to terms with is that the deep problems in America’s black community today are not the result of racial discrimination, and blacks do not need an organization with a $40 million budget dedicated to “social justice.”

Racism does not cause an AIDS epidemic, family breakdown, 50% high-school dropout rates, widespread out-of-wedlock births or the destruction of millions of unborn black babies.

However, for sure, when black leaders continue to turn away from and refuse to be honest about our real problems, these problems will not be solved and black life in America will go from bad to worse.

According to Bond, “Racial discrimination is a prime reason why the gaps between black and white chances remain so wide. And we believe that to the degree we are able to reduce discrimination and close these race-caused gaps, we will see the lives of our people improve and their prosperity increase.”

Is America free of racism? Of course not. Is racism the reason why blacks lag economically in America? Of course not.

The single most important factor in establishing economic earning power is education, and the single most important factor that drives the educational accomplishment of a child is family. Blacks lag economically because we lag educationally, and we lag educationally because the black family in America’s cities barely exists.

The weights holding down the future of black children today are problems in our own community. The fact that mainstream black leaders are incapable of being honest about this is a symptom of our problems.

Of course, black reality does not exist in a vacuum. The moral chaos that is tearing apart our community reflects a moral chaos that exists in the nation as a whole.

Thirteen million unborn black babies have been destroyed since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. Black women are three times more likely to abort than white women.

Of course, legal abortion does not mean that a woman has to do it. However, we should understand Roe v. Wade as a multifaceted cultural message.

First, legal abortion on demand sends a clear, and sad, message about our nation’s cultural attitude to life and its value. Second, the fact that this message was federalized by the Supreme Court, pre-empting states, establishes this “right” as a transcendent national value. Third, the “right to privacy” argument under which Roe v. Wade was rationalized enshrined relativism as a central cultural and legal national reality.

This devaluing of life and the popular promotion of an attitude that objective truths do not exist disproportionately hurt communities, like the black community, that already have great social and cultural challenges.

We see that children walking away with scholastic prizes today in science, math and recently in the Scripps National Spelling Bee are disproportionately immigrant children, largely Asian-Americans. These communities are characterized by strong families and clear values. As result, they do well because they are prepared to take advantage of the great strength of America _ freedom. And they are shielded by values and family from what are becoming the weaknesses of our country _ meaninglessness, gross materialism and relativism.

This is not the case with blacks. Our communities, deeply touched since the 1960s by the culture of the welfare state, have come to be defined by this destructive relativism. This is what has torn apart our families. In this sense, blacks are victimized by the larger culture in which they live.

However, this is not racism. This is a national problem and the black community has no choice but to seize responsibility and deal with it by looking inside and working through our own churches and communities to restore the values and meaning that are vital for rebuilding our families and raising spiritually and morally healthy children.

A healthy and prosperous black future is not centered on the Voting Rights Act or on diversity programs.

Star Parker is president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education and author of the newly released book ‘Uncle Sam’s Plantation.’

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Sharpton: Dems take Blacks for granted (Townhall.com, 050804)

Larry Elder

The Democratic Party takes blacks for granted, according to former Democratic Party presidential candidate Rev. Al Sharpton.

Never mind that each one of the 2004 Democratic presidential candidates pledged to support race-based preferences. Or that the Democratic Party agrees with the NAACP’s opposition to vouchers, arguing that they threaten a child’s ability to get a good education. Or that the Democratic Party, like the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP and the Urban League, all support some form of Hillary-Care.

Take blacks for granted? Democratic candidates, almost on cue, troop down to black churches around election time, precisely so that no one argues that the candidate takes blacks for granted. On taxes, spending, race-based preferences, skepticism about the War in Iraq and opposition to private Social Security savings accounts, the Democratic Party takes the position held by most blacks, and most blacks take the position held by the Democratic Party. What’s left? Reparations for slavery?

Given Sharpton’s newfound disgust for the Democratic Party, does this mean he suggests that blacks reconsider their monolithic Democratic votes, and open their minds and hearts to the Republican Party?

The Republicans, after all, long advocated vouchers, at least on a limited basis, for failing inner-city schools. A 1999 Harvard University study on the Cleveland, Ohio, voucher program found voucher parents more satisfied with their kids’ education than public school parents. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin — home of the nation’s oldest and largest urban voucher program — students involved must come from low-income families, with many minority students coming from broken homes. In Milwaukee, 64% of students using a voucher to enter ninth grade in 1999 graduated in 2003, compared to 36% of Milwaukee public school students. The six Milwaukee public high schools that have academic admission requirements — as do many private schools — only had a 41% graduation rate. In an NPR interview in January 2003, Sharpton said, “I believe in public education, do not believe in going into privatization, whether that be through vouchers or other schemes.” Will he reconsider?

Studies show that lowering college admission standards increases the chances that an “affirmative action” admittee drops out. In 2001, the Detroit News compared graduation rates at seven Michigan colleges and universities, and found that, within six years, blacks graduate at a rate of 40% compared to 61% for whites and 74% for Asians. Despite programs “aimed at helping black students meet financial, social and academic challenges,” the News found that “[u]niversities knowingly admit students who have a high chance of failing. . . . The 10 years worth of data analyzed by The News shows that the more selective a university is in choosing its students, the more likely its students are to graduate.” Can we expect Sharpton to reconsider his position on preferences?

About taxes, President John F. Kennedy said, “[I]t is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low — and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now.” About President Bush’s tax cuts, even The Washington Post, in an editorial, called the cuts “fortuitously well timed.” Sharpton once criticized Bush’s tax cuts for “the wealthy,” and said, “George Bush giving tax breaks is like Jim Jones giving Kool-Aid. It tastes good, but it’ll kill you.” With inflation low, interest rates modest, a declining deficit and 5% unemployment, will Sharpton reconsider?

Blacks living in the inner city disproportionately suffer from crime. Studies show that in the 34 “shall issue” states where citizens may obtain permits for concealed weapons, crime declined in 31 of them — with the remaining three so recently becoming “shall issue” states that no definitive studies are available yet. Residents of Washington, D.C., a city that’s 60% black, live under some of the nation’s most restrictive anti-gun laws. Any civilian D.C. resident who owns a handgun — unless registered before 1976 — commits a crime. The laws require that owners keep their guns unloaded and disassembled or trigger-locked in the home. Yet Washington, D.C., per capita, suffers from an extremely high murder rate. Bad guys don’t walk into gun stores, politely fill out registration forms, and then use those very same guns in crime. Gun control hurts the most vulnerable of Americans — those living in urban areas. In a 2003 presidential debate, Rev. Al said, “I think that we must do whatever we can to regulate how guns are used.” Will he reconsider?

Recall Sharpton began his career by falsely accusing a former assistant district attorney of rape. Sharpton’s M.O. is simple: blame the White Man; blame the System; continue a status quo defense of government schools; bash the police; demand handouts, programs, set-asides, loans and grants for “the disadvantaged.”

The Democratic Party says to blacks, “You’re a victim. We’re here to help.” Does Sharpton have the guts to turn to his party’s leadership and say, “Stop treating us like victims”? When and if that happens, some will wonder whether Al’s been drinking Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid.

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Katrina, the race card, and the welfare state (townhall.com, 050908)

Larry Elder (black)

In the case of Hurricane Katrina, government failed to do its most essential job — protecting people and property. Yes, state, local and federal officials failed to appreciate the severity and gravity of this storm and its aftermath, and failed to properly evacuate the citizens from New Orleans. But how does this add up to racism?

CNN’s Jack Cafferty said, “Despite the many angles of this tragedy, and Lord knows there’ve been a lot of ‘em in New Orleans, there is a great big elephant in the living room that the media seems content to ignore — that would be, until now. . . . [We] in the media are ignoring the fact that almost all of the victims in New Orleans are black and poor.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer replied, “ . . . You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals, as Jack Cafferty just pointed out, so tragically, so many of these people, almost all of them that we see, are so poor, and they are so black, and this is gonna raise lots of questions for people who are watching this story unfold.”

Fox’s Shepard Smith described citizens of New Orleans stranded on an Interstate as possessing the face of an African-American man, woman, child or baby.

News anchors, once again, demonstrate their willingness, indeed eagerness, to find racism. A few years ago, a Time-CNN poll found that 89% of black teens experienced little or no racism in their own lives. White teens, however, believed racism against minorities a bigger problem than black teens did.

The so-called “black leaders,” of course, led the race card parade. The Congressional Black Caucus’s Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., described those suffering as “sons and daughters of slaves.” NAACP attorney Damon Hewitt said, “If the majority of the folks left behind were white individuals, and most of the folks who were able to escape on their own were African Americans, then I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. This is a racial story.” Rapper Kanye West, at an NBC relief concert, screamed, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

CNN’s Cafferty and so-called black leaders refuse to ask basic questions. Since 1978, for example, black mayors controlled the city of New Orleans, with many of the city’s top officials also black. What about their responsibility? What about the damage done by the modern welfare state, helping to create poverty by financially rewarding irresponsible behavior? What about the damage to the black psyche by so-called civil rights leaders who demand not just equal rights, but equal results, helping to create a victicrat-entitlement mentality? Maybe someday one of the news anchors will ask one of the so-called civil rights leaders the following question: Doesn’t the demand for race-based preferences, set-asides, private sector anti-discrimination laws, social welfare programs, and social “safety net” programs all conspire to say one thing — “You are not responsible”?

City Journal’s Nicole Gelinas, a onetime New Orleans resident, said, “[T]he city’s decline over the past three decades has left it impoverished and lacking the resources to build its economy from within. New Orleans can’t take care of itself even when it is not 80% underwater; what is it going to do now, as waters continue to cripple it, and thousands of looters systematically destroy what Katrina left unscathed?” She also notes, “The city’s government has long suffered from incompetence and corruption,” and that the crime rate in New Orleans — during normal times — exceeds the national average by a factor of 10!

News anchors and so-called black leaders ignore a far bigger factor than race or class — culture.

Consider the mid-1800s, and the plight of New York City’s Irish underclass. According to William J. Stern, writing in The Wall Street Journal, “One hundred fifty years ago, Manhattan’s tens of thousands of Irish seemed mired in poverty and ignorance, destroying themselves through drink, idleness, violence crime and illegitimacy. . . . An estimated 50,000 Irish prostitutes worked the city in 1850. . . . Illegitimacy soared, tens of thousands of abandoned Irish kids roamed the city’s streets. Violent Irish gangs fought each other . . . but primarily they robbed houses and small businesses. More than half the people arrested in New York in the 1840s and 1850s were Irish. . . . “

Disgusted by government “charity,” Bishop John Joseph Hughes led movements to form non-government-aided Catholic schools and numerous self-help programs. He promoted abstinence and the belief that sex outside of marriage was a sin. His diocese’s nuns served as an employment agency for Irish domestics and encouraged women to run boarding houses. What happened? Within two generations, “the Irish proportion of arrests for violent crime had dropped to less than 10% from 60%. Irish children were entering . . . the professions, politics, show business and commerce. In 1890, some 30% of the city’s teachers were Irish women, and the Irish literacy rate exceeded 90%.”

Some demand a commission to investigate the failures and breakdowns in Hurricane Katrina. Fine. Let’s hope they put together a commission to investigate another hurricane — that wrought by the welfare state and the irresponsible use of the race card.

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Since we’re talking about race and class (townhall.com, 050909)

Jonah Goldberg

For reasons good and bad - mostly bad - the media establishment has decided that Hurricane Katrina should be a “teaching moment” about race and class issues. One might be more inclined to think this is a teaching moment about our preparedness to respond to a major terrorist attack - presumably Osama Bin Laden isn’t boning up on his Barbara Ehrenreich because of the fallout in New Orleans. But, hey, that’s what the cognoscenti have decided.

And that’s OK, I guess. One of the remarkable things about the Bush presidency is that all of his predictable enemies hate his guts even though the usual class and race cards haven’t been dealt very much. Oh sure, the left doesn’t like his tax cuts or his economic policies generally, but compared to the relentless class warfare assaults his dad or Ronald Reagan endured, Bush has gotten off nearly scot-free.

Meanwhile, race has been next to a non-issue during his presidency. Bush appointed better qualified and higher ranking blacks to his cabinet than anyone before him. He punted on affirmative action, for fear of sounding “insensitive.” His “soft bigotry of low expectations” rhetoric on education sent the message that he cares. And despite the NAACP’s best efforts to demonize him, Bush has avoided the usual traps set for Republican presidents.

So it should be no surprise that some folks feel the need to vent, particularly given the natural instincts for rage and blaming when we see those images from New Orleans.

But here’s the problem: As of right now, all the demands for a “new conversation” or “national discussion” on race and class are fairly one-sided. This is the same old pattern. Liberals, white and black, lecture conservatives, white and black, about how conservatives are racist (or race traitors) if we don’t agree with them. Anybody who lays any significant measure of blame with any but the usual culprits - institutional racism, white racism, white institutional racism, etc. - is denounced for “blaming the victim.”

What we’re hearing right now isn’t even the sound of one hand clapping, it’s the sound of one finger wagging. For example, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof informed his readers that the tragedy of New Orleans is almost entirely about poverty. He wrote that “in some ways the poor children evacuated from New Orleans are the lucky ones because they may now get checkups and vaccinations.” He then proceeded to run through some of America’s embarrassing statistics on immunization and the like, laying the blame firmly at Bush’s feet.

Kristof’s finger-wagging is indiscriminate, leaving out the fact that, for example, vaccination rates in the United States hit a record high on Bush’s watch in 2004.

“If it’s shameful that we have bloated corpses on New Orleans streets,” he intones, “it’s even more disgraceful that the infant mortality rate in America’s capital is twice as high as in China’s capital.”

Let’s have no more of this nonsense. First, China requires parents to abort their “extra” children (the quota being reached at one). Perhaps that has something to do with the extra care Beijing’s parents put into child-raising. Second, China is a very different place. The poor of Beijing are indisputably poorer than the poor of Washington, and yet they take their children to get immunized.

And this raises the larger point: Cultural factors are enormously important. For example, the U.S. vaccination rate for toddlers in 2003 was only seven points higher for those above the poverty line than it was for those below it. Whatever that says about America, it says more about culture than it does about class.

More to the point, since the days of the Great Society, the U.S. Government has thrown literally trillions of dollars at the poor. It undoubtedly helped some and it indisputably hurt others.

The people it hurt most are poor blacks, helping to erode social and family bonds. We are told, for example, that out-of-wedlock births are a uniform cultural phenomenon these days. This is simply a lie. Seventy percent of blacks are born out of wedlock, most of them poor. Murphy Brown notwithstanding, upper-income women overwhelmingly wait to get married before they have their kids. Nothing is a better predictor of a child’s success in life than if he comes from a stable, two-parent family. It doesn’t matter if they’re rich or poor. The problem, as the University of Pennsylvania’s Amy L. Wax recently noted in the Wall Street Journal, is that there’s a shortage of poor black men willing to take on the serious responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. Of course, many are. But nowhere near enough of them.

Of course, welfare policies that encouraged family breakdown are not the only villain. We’ve witnessed a profound cultural transformation over the last 40 years, in which social and personal customs have been rewritten. In some case the increase in personal liberty has been welcome. In other cases it came at an enormous cost for those without the resources to cope when the bill for risky behavior comes due.

If we must have this “conversation” again. Let’s start there.

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How, in the Katrina debate, can we be talking about racism? (townhall.com, 050912)

Star Parker

“The charges of racism-inspired foot-dragging isn’t just nonsense. It’s pernicious nonsense.”

This is how the New York Daily News called it regarding charges, from the usual circle of black leaders, that the rescue efforts in New Orleans were slow because the victims were black. The Daily News is right. Except it’s even worse than the paper appreciates.

What we are witnessing is a well-honed black political public-relations operation geared to obfuscation, stoking hatred and fear, and nurturing helplessness and dependence among black citizens. Such efforts keep black politicians powerful, diversity businesses prosperous and blacks poor.

The fact that the handling of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina was a massive botch job at all levels of government is beyond the doubt of any sober observer. Such operations demand precise cooperation and coordination among local, state and federal authorities. It appears evident that the performance at and between each of these levels of government was abysmal.

However, government incompetence isn’t news. And, unfortunately, it’s also not news when black politicians call it racism when the unfortunate victims of this incompetence, because they are poor and unprepared, are largely black.

It is inconceivable that there could have been some all-knowing racist guiding hand orchestrating the chaos and disorganization that characterized what occurred. Furthermore, how, when black politicians themselves played a prominent role in what happened, can we be talking about racism?

The first line of authority in emergency management, all agree, is local. It appears that Ray Nagin, New Orleans black mayor, was grossly negligent. Existing and detailed written evacuation plans for New Orleans were ignored while the mayor made sporadic decision after decision as if there were no such plans. A fleet of school and transit buses that could have evacuated 12,000 citizens per run was not used and left on low ground and flooded.

Where was black congressman William Jefferson, who has represented New Orleans for eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives?

Floodwaters poured into New Orleans when the 17th Street Canal levee burst. It had been known and publicized for years that New Orleans was at risk because this levee was not capable of withstanding a Category 5 storm. Making the necessary investment to upgrade this levee required federal funds, and therefore in Jefferson’s area of responsibility.

In an interview on “Hannity and Colmes,” Jefferson indicated he had been involved in failed efforts over the years to get these funds. However, given the risks to which his constituents were exposed, one would think that the congressman would have been making a lot of noise about this.

But Jefferson is a busy man. He’s been the target of an FBI sting operation investigating possible public corruption and the possible illegal pocketing of hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs in an international business deal. In a raid on his house, the FBI found a large stash of cash in his freezer. Jefferson’s lawyer told the press, “The congressman has lots of contacts. He’s involved in advancing a lot of businesses on behalf of his constituents and states and in a number of countries throughout the world.”

It’s too bad Jefferson couldn’t have used his acumen for getting deals done to get the 17th Street Canal levee upgraded.

“Hannity and Colmes” co-host Sean Hannity persisted and asked Jefferson, given his knowledge of the condition of the levee, when “we knew the storm was coming, why didn’t we get the people out?”

The congressman’s reply: “Well, I’m not sure I know the answers to all those questions.”

Jesse Jackson is now touring through Louisiana. Where was he as Katrina thundered toward New Orleans, with a population almost 70% black and poor? He was in Venezuela embracing President Hugo Chavez, who the week before was in Cuba visiting his good friend Fidel Castro and who also includes among his friends Zimbabwe’s despot, Robert Mugabe.

It’s time for those who really care about the condition of blacks to ask hard questions and be honest about the answers.

Our government mechanism for dealing with emergencies must be repaired. The emergency management task for blacks is to get ourselves out of poverty.

If we allow political opportunists to again allege racism to deflect our attention from solving the real problems of fixing our families and educating our children, surely more tragedy awaits us.

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‘Racism!’ They Charged: When don’t they? (National Review, 050926)

‘We have an amazing tolerance for black pain,” Jesse Jackson told CNN, implying that the Hurricane Katrina relief effort was delayed because those who were hardest hit were poor and black. Jackson elsewhere drove the point home by comparing the New Orleans convention center, where the refugees were first gathered, to “the hull of a slave ship.” Shortly thereafter rapper Kanye West went off-script on an NBC special intended to raise money for the rescue effort. He informed us that “It’s been five days because most of the people are black. George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

Others have conveyed the point by implication. Rep. Elijah Cummings, when asked on CNN whether racism played a role, said, “I’m not sure. All I know is that a number of the faces that I saw were African-American.” Meanwhile, Rep. Diane Watson took issue with calling survivors “refugees”: “‘Refugee’ calls up to mind people that come from different lands and have to be taken care of. These are American citizens.” For anyone who thinks that the rescuers saw blacks as less than fellow citizens, the meaning behind Watson’s lexicography lesson came through loud and clear.

No one will deny that what we have seen on our television screens points to the tragic realities of racial disparity, in an unusually stark way. The almost all-black crowds sweltering, starving, and dying in the convention center have shown us that in New Orleans, as in so many other places, to be poor is often to be black. There is a debate to be had on whether this reality is the legacy of racism — either past or present — but as we face the prospect of finding many thousands of dead as the waters recede, historical debates of this kind can and should wait.

To claim that racism is the reason that the rescue effort was so slow is not a matter of debate at all: It’s nothing more than a handy way to get media attention, or to help sell a new CD. It’s self-affirming, too, if playing the victim is the only way you know to make yourself feel like you matter.

It is also absurd.

To say “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” means that one honestly believes that if it were the poor whites of Louisiana who happened to live closest to the levees, hardly anyone would have gotten wet. Fifty thousand troops would have been standing at the borders of the city as soon as Katrina popped up on meteorologists’ radar screens. The National Guard would have magically lifted the long-entrenched bureaucratic restrictions that allow states to call up troops only when it is proven that they are needed. The U.S. Navy would have anticipated that refugees would number in the tens of thousands, and would have started the days-long process of loading up rescue ships with supplies a week before the storm actually hit. Suddenly, against all historical precedent, just for that week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency would have morphed into a well-organized and dependable outfit.

What previous example is this scenario based on? Surely people who level so trenchant a claim have some precedent in mind. For example, what about the hurricane that Katrina has just displaced as the third strongest on record to hit America? Ground zero for Hurricane Andrew, which left 250,000 people homeless, was Homestead, Fla., where whites were a strong majority. So was help pouring in as soon as the rain stopped?

Not exactly. Few people remember Kate Hale, who had her 15 minutes of fame as the Dade County emergency-management director who asked on national television, “Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one?” People went without electricity or food and dealt with looters for, as it happens, five days — just as in New Orleans. FEMA was raked over the coals for the same bureaucratic incompetence that is making headlines now.

Is it so farfetched to admit that the problem here was the general ineptness of America’s defenses against unforeseen disasters? One is inclined to consider the attacks of 9/11. Two presidential administrations neglected increasingly clear signs that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack us on our shores. It’s unlikely that anyone supposes that had anything to do with racial bigotry (Clinton was our “first black president,” after all). In general, bureaucracies are notoriously bad at foresight and long-term planning, and FEMA has never exactly offered a counterexample.

Of course, there will be those who will insist, no matter what the evidence, that racism slowed the rescue effort. They should, however, do more than strike poses: They should channel their alienation into something more constructive. As hundreds of thousands of poor blacks return to their home city, where so much will have to be rebuilt from square one, this could be an opportunity to create a coherent all-black enclave that warms the hearts of “black nationalists.” With the massive funding from Washington that the reconstruction will require, New Orleans can build new schools with fresh supplies and modern equipment. Welfare-to-work programs can be beefed up with better provisions for childcare. For years to come, the city will offer ample opportunities for poor blacks to get training in construction, white-collar jobs, and — tragically, but usefully — medical and foster care. There will also be an unprecedented chance to create small businesses to serve the community as it rebuilds.

The result could be a thriving black working class in New Orleans. Older blacks fondly recall the struggling but coherent black communities that integration dissolved — sometimes a little “segregation” can be a good thing.

New Orleans is where Homer Plessy boarded a first-class train coach in 1892, which sparked the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision that legalized segregation nationwide. The Ninth Ward that Katrina pounded was the same Ninth Ward where four black first-grade girls braved racist taunts on national television in 1960, as they took their places in all-white schools. Couldn’t the Congressional Black Caucus take this as an opportunity for activism both symbolic and proactive, and work with Louisiana and New Orleans to channel billions of dollars into making a real-life Chocolate City?

People inclined to see “racism” peeking out from behind every rock and tree tend to think poor blacks will be saved only by a Second Civil Rights Revolution. They might take the aftermath of Katrina as the closest thing the real world will ever give them to realizing that dream: a chance to create a strong, working-class black community from the ground up.

Alternatively, one could sit back and savor this moment as an opportunity for the idle catharsis that goes along with the calisthenics of identity politics. That would substitute for the real work of improving people’s lives the cheap thrills of feeling good — the Big Easy, indeed.

Mr. McWhorter is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His latest book, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America, will appear in January 2006 from Gotham Books.

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FEMA versus Wal-Mart (townhall.com, 050915)

Thomas Sowell

Whatever later investigation may turn up about the mistakes of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in New Orleans, it is unlikely to show the shrill charges of “racism” to be anything other than reckless political rhetoric.

FEMA has bungled other emergencies where most of the victims were white and in previous administrations. Like many government bureaucracies, FEMA is an equal-opportunity bungler.

Many people who think that government is the answer to our problems do not bother to check out the evidence. But it can be eye-opening to compare how private businesses responded to hurricane Katrina and how local, state and national governments responded.

Well before Katrina reached New Orleans, when it was still just a tropical depression off the coast of Florida, Wal-Mart was rushing electric generators, bottled water, and other emergency supplies to its distribution centers along the Gulf coast.

Nor was Wal-Mart unique. Federal Express rushed 100 tons of supplies into the stricken area after Katrina hit. State Farm Insurance sent in a couple of thousand special agents to expedite disaster claims. Other businesses scrambled to get their goods or services into the area.

Meanwhile, laws prevent the federal government from coming in without the permission or a request from state or local authorities. Unfortunately, the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana are of a different party than President Bush, which may have something to do with their initial reluctance to have him come in and get political credit.

In the end, there was no political credit for anybody. There was just finger-pointing and the blame game.

Politics is only one of a number of reasons why governments are not the best handlers of many emergencies. Nor is the United States unique in this respect.

A few years ago, more than a hundred Russian sailors paid with their lives for their government’s reluctance to accept an offer from the U.S. government to have our navy rescue the crew of a Russian submarine that was trapped under water. How would it look to the world if the American navy could save Russians who could not be saved by their own navy?

Public outrage within Russia after that episode caused the Russian government more recently to allow British naval experts to carry out a rescue of Russian navy men trapped under water in another submarine.

Sheer bureaucracy can slow down emergency help. It is not uncommon, when there are famines, for food shipments from other countries to sit spoiling on the docks, while people are dying of starvation in the interior, because the food is not being moved fast enough to reach them in time.

Back in 2001, refugees from the war in Afghanistan were dying of starvation while aid workers were completing paperwork before distributing food to them. During the tsunami in Southeast Asia this year, supplies of food, medicine and other necessities from abroad piled up at airports.

In both emergency times and normal times, governments have different incentives than private businesses. More fundamentally, human beings will usually do more for their own benefit than for the benefit of others. The desire to make money usually gets people in gear faster than the desire to help others.

This is not true of everybody. Virtually nothing is true of everybody. We rightly honor those who do their utmost to help others, in part because not everyone acts that way.

It would undoubtedly be a better world if we all loved our neighbors as we love ourselves and acted accordingly.

But in the real world that we actually live in, the question is what set of incentives has the better track record for getting the job done — and especially getting the job done promptly when time can be the difference between life and death.

The country does not have one dime more resources available when those resources are channeled through government. The resources are just handled less effectively by government and dispensed in an indiscriminate way that encourages people to continue locating in the known path of predictable disasters.

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Shameless race-baiters take advantage of New Orleans’ tragedy (townhall.com, 050919)

Armstrong Williams

Television images of the huddled masses in the New Orleans Superdome revealed something rather extraordinary: nearly all the faces were black. Could it be that rescue workers really gave preferential treatment to white evacuees? Could it be that even something as crucial as disaster relief was grounded in the maintenance of racial privilege?

It was a disarming thought, and one that several pundits were quick to seize upon. Jesse Jackson told CNN that “The I-10 causeway. . .looked like . . .the hull of a slave ship.” DNC Chairman Howard Dean, pronounced that “we must . . . come to grips with the ugly truth that skin color. . .played a deadly role in who survived and who did not.” The New York Times ran a news article that began, “The white people got out. Most of them, anyway. If television newspaper images can be deemed a statistical sample, it was mostly black people who were left behind.” Rapper Kanye West was even more blunt, veering from the script during NBC’s hurricane relief telethon and blurting out, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Many Americans agree. A poll by the Pew Research Center reveals that two-thirds of American blacks believe that the federal government was slow to respond to this crisis because the majority of the victims were black.

On this point, I want to be clear. This notion that race was a factor in the relief effort is not only dishonest, it is reprehensible. The reason why most of those stranded in the Superdome were black is because two-thirds of the city’s residents are black. In fact, much of the city’s local representatives are black. New Orleans has a black city Council. They have black elected representatives. They have black judges. All of whom failed to send any buses to evacuate New Orleans’ residents before the hurricane hit. Are the black Democrat elected representatives in New Orleans also racist because they utterly failed to coordinate a timely rescue effort? Of course not.

It is true that the majority of people trapped in New Orleans during the storm were black. But so were the majority of people who escaped. The key factor distinguishing the two groups was that the majority of those left behind were poor. They lacked transportation. Both the local and federal government failed to develop evacuation procedures for people without cars. The people who couldn’t afford transportation were left behind.

The sad fact is that 30% of New Orleans residents live below the poverty line. One of the effects of Hurricane Katrina was to bring their plight into focus. The response to their plight, however, is even more telling. The need to crouch this tragedy in racial rhetoric reveals an assumption, now so ingrained in our culture, that the problems of black people—whether its high crime rates, or being victimized by a natural disaster—are primarily the result of white racism.

Implying that rescue workers only saved white families or that President Bush gave the order to let black people drown not only obscures complex issues like race relations, but it also buries the root cause of this tragedy—poverty in our urban centers. This is a very real problem. It has a perverse effect on people of color. And it gets completely obscured when people like Jesse Jackson or Kanye West complicate this tragedy by using race to further divide this Country.

When these people employ racially divisive rhetoric to describe the New Orleans disaster, they shift the dialogue away from the real problems that plague our urban centers. Notice, none of our so called black leaders are discussing economic solutions that are needed to empower urban communities. No one is even placing the problem in its proper political context. Instead, they are simply using this tragedy as an excuse to play the race card. Plainly, their goal is to stir racial tensions. This is how they make a living. They give ethnic groups, who already feel marginalized, something to pump their fists at. But they don’t talk about solutions. One only hopes that after they’re all done blaming President Bush for this natural disaster, our so-called black leaders can pause just long enough to thoughtfully deal with the problem of urban poverty that is at the heart of this tragedy.

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Recycled ‘racism’ (townhall.com, 050921)

Thomas Sowell

One of the things that happens when you get old is that what seems like news to others can look like a re-run of something you have already seen before. It is like watching an old movie for the fifth or sixth time.

A headline in the September 14th issue of the New York Times says: “Blacks Hit Hardest By Costlier Mortgages.” Thirteen years ago, virtually the identical story appeared in the Wall Street Journal under the title, “Federal Reserve Details Pervasive Racial Gap in Mortgage Lending.”

Both stories are based on statistical studies by the Federal Reserve showing that blacks and whites have different experiences when applying for mortgage loans — and both stories imply that racial discrimination is the reason.

The earlier study showed that blacks were turned down for mortgage loans a higher percentage of the time than whites were and the later story shows that blacks resorted to high-priced “subprime” loans more often than whites when they financed the purchase of a home.

Both amount to the same thing — less credit being extended to blacks on the same terms as credit extended to whites.

Both studies also say that this is true even when black and white loan applicants have the same income. The first time around, 13 years ago, this seemed like a pretty good case for those who blamed the differences on racial discrimination.

However, both research and old age tend to produce skepticism about things that look plausible on the surface. Just scratching the surface a little often makes a plausible case collapse like a house of cards.

For example, neither study took credit histories into account. People with lower credit ratings tend to get turned down for loans more often than people with higher credit ratings, or else they have to go where loans have higher interest rates. This is not rocket science. It is Economics 1.

Blacks in the earlier study turned out to have poor credit histories more often than whites. But the more recent news story did not even look into that.

Anyone who has ever taken out a mortgage loan knows that the lenders not only want to know what your current income is, they also want to know what your net worth is. Census data show that blacks with the same income as whites average less net worth.

That is not rocket science either. Not many blacks have affluent parents or rich uncles from whom they could inherit wealth.

The earlier study showed that whites were turned down for mortgage loans more frequently than Asian Americans and the more recent study shows that Asian Americans are less likely than whites to take out high-cost “subprime” loans to buy a house.

Does that mean that whites were being discriminated against? Or are statistics taken seriously only when they back up some preconception that is politically correct?

These are what could be called “Aha!” statistics. If you start out with a preconception and find numbers that fit that preconception, you say, “Aha!” But when the numbers don’t fit any preconception — when no one believes that banks are discriminating against whites and in favor of Asian Americans — then no “Aha!”

Both this year’s study and the one 13 years ago provoked an outburst of accusations of racism from people who are in the business of making such accusations. Moreover, where there is a “problem” proclaimed in the media there will almost invariably be a “solution” proposed in politics.

Often the solution is worse than the problem.

The older study showed that most blacks and most whites who applied for mortgage loans got them — 72% of blacks and 89% of whites. So it is not as if most blacks can’t get loans.

Apparently the gap has narrowed since then, for the New York Times reports that lenders have developed “high-cost subprime mortgages for people who would have been simply rejected outright in the past on the basis of poor credit or insufficient income.”

Of course, the government can always step in and put a stop to these high-cost loans, which will probably mean that people with lower credit ratings can’t buy a home at all.

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Farrakhan on New Orleans: the white man did it (townhall.com, 050922)

Larry Elder

Now we know what caused New Orleans to flood. And it was not Hurricane Katrina.

Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said, “I heard from a reliable source who saw a 25-foot-deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry.”

Only wing-nuts would buy into such a conspiracy theory, right?

Washington Post reporter Eugene Robinson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “I was stunned in New Orleans at how many black New Orleanians would tell me with real conviction that somehow the levee breaks had been engineered in order to save the French Quarter and the Garden District at the expense of the Lower Ninth Ward, which is almost all black. . . . These are not wild-eyed people. These are reasonable, sober people who really believe that.”

For many people, past discrimination means present and future discrimination. End of discussion. Never mind the growing black economy, an all-time high percentage of black homeownership, and a “black GDP” that would make black America the 16th wealthiest country in the world. A suggestion. Instead of spending energy buying into Farrakhan’s latest lunatic theory, why not re-examine present policies that — either through intent or effect — hurt blacks?

* The War on Drugs. By making drugs illegal, lawmakers intended to target minorities — specifically blacks, Mexicans and Chinese. Former President Theodore Roosevelt’s drug adviser warned, “Cocaine is often a direct incentive to the crime of rape by the Negroes.” In “The American Disease,” David Musto notes that prohibitions early in the 20th century, at least in part, targeted foreigners or minorities, including the allegedly opium-using Chinese. In 1937, the Marihuana Tax Act targeted Mexican immigrants. In 1936, a Colorado newspaper editor wrote to federal officials, “I wish I could show you what a small marijuana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents.”

* Race-Based Preferences. Lowering admission standards to achieve “diversity” hurts black graduation rates. The Detroit News looked at the graduation rates at seven Michigan colleges and universities. Blacks graduated within six years at a rate of 40%, compared to 61% for whites and 74% for Asians. Many mismatched students simply drop out when they would have been successful at a less competitive university. One study says that the failure of minority students to graduate at the same rate as white students causes a loss in the “black economy” of $5.3 billion a year in income.

* Gun Control. Gun control laws, in the beginning, sought to disarm blacks. Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, in the infamous Dred Scott case which defined blacks as property, said that if blacks were “entitled to the privileges and communities of citizens, . . . [i]t would give persons of the negro race . . . the right . . . to keep and carry arms wherever they went . . . inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the state. . . .” In “Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story,” author Antonia Felix describes the secretary of state’s early years in the Jim Crow South. Rice watched her father and neighbors guard black neighborhoods with shotguns against armed, white vigilantes. Felix writes, “The memory of her father out on patrol lies behind Rice’s opposition to gun control today. Had those guns been registered, she argues, Bull Connor would have had a legal right to take them away, thereby removing one of the black community’s only means of defense.”

* The Davis-Bacon Act. Introduced in 1927, this Act sought to shut out black workers from competing for construction jobs when whites complained that Southern blacks were hired to build a Long Island Veteran’s Bureau hospital. In a labor market dominated by exclusionary unions demanding above-market wages, blacks at one time competed by working for less money than the unionists. Davis-Bacon stopped this by requiring federal contractors to pay prevailing union wages, causing massive black unemployment.

* Social Security. Although Congress did not intend for Social Security to disproportionately hurt blacks, it does. Blacks have a shorter life expectancy, and therefore get less out of the system. According to the CATO Institute, “A 1996 study by . . . the RAND Corporation found . . . a net lifetime transfer of wealth from blacks to whites averaging nearly $10,000 per person. . . . A 1998 study by the Heritage Foundation . . . found that an average single black man will pay $13,377 more in payroll taxes over his lifetime than he will receive in benefits, a return of just 88 cents on every dollar paid in taxes.”

* Minimum Wage. In “Free to Choose,” Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman writes that before the imposition of minimum wage laws, black teens were more likely to be employed than white teens. After the imposition of minimum wage laws, an employment gap emerged between white and black teens, with black teens becoming increasingly less employed. Friedman finds “ . . . the minimum wage law to be one of the most, if not the most anti-black law on the statute books.”

So who knows, when the someone-blew-up-the-levee-to-get-us theory dies down, they might turn their attention to some real problems.

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Shameful Attacks: Bill Bennett stresses our morality…and pays the price. (National Review Online, 050930)

In the course of a free-wheeling conversation so common on talk-format programs, Bill Bennett made a minor point that was statistically and logically unassailable, but that touched a third rail — namely, the nexus between race and crime — within the highly charged context of abortion policy.

He emphatically qualified his remarks from the standpoint of morality. Then he ended with the entirely valid conclusion that sweeping generalizations are unhelpful in making major policy decisions.

That he was right in this seems to matter little. Bennett is being fried by the PC police and the ethnic-grievance industry, which have disingenuously ripped his minor point out of its context in a shameful effort to paint him as a racist. He’s about as bigoted as Santa Claus.

Here’s what happened. In the course of his Morning in America radio show on Wednesday, Bennett engaged a caller who sought to view the complexities of Social Security solvency through the narrow lens of abortion, an explosive but only tangentially relevant issue. Specifically, the caller contended that if there had not been so many abortions since 1973, there would be millions more living people paying into the Social Security System, and perhaps the system would be solvent.

Bennett, typically well-informed, responded with skepticism over this method of argument by making reference to a book he had read, which had made an analogous claim: namely, that it was the high abortion rate which was responsible for the overall decline in crime. The former Education secretary took pains to say that he disagreed with this theory, and then developed an argument for why we should resist “extensive extrapolations” from minor premises (like the number of abortions) in forming major conclusions about complex policy questions.

It was in this context that Bennett remarked: “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Was he suggesting such a thing? Was he saying that such a thing should even be considered in the real world? Of course not. His whole point was that such considerations are patently absurd, and thus he was quick to add: “That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do.”

Bennett’s position, clearly and irrefutably, is that you cannot have tunnel vision, especially on something as emotionally charged as abortion, in addressing multifaceted problems. It is almost always the case that problems, even serious ones, could be minimized or eliminated if you were willing to entertain severe solutions. Such solutions, though, are morally and ethically unacceptable, whatever the validity of their logic. The lesson to be drawn is not that we can hypothetically conceive of the severe solutions but that we resolutely reject them because of our moral core.

This is a bedrock feature of American law and life. We could, for example, dramatically reduce crimes such as robbery and rape by making those capital offenses. We don’t do it because such a draconian solution would be offensive to who we are as a people. But it is no doubt true that if we were willing to check our morality at the door, if the only thing we allowed ourselves to focus on were the reduction of robbery and rape, the death penalty would do the trick.

We are currently at war with Islamo-fascists, and our greatest fear is another domestic attack that could kill tens of thousands of Americans. The attacks we have suffered to this point have been inflicted, almost exclusively, by Muslim aliens from particular Arabic and African countries. Would it greatly reduce the chance of another domestic attack if we deported every non-American Muslim from those countries? Of course it would — how could it not? But it is not something that we should or would consider doing. It would be a cure so much worse than the disease that it would sully us as a people, while hurting thousands of innocent people in the process.

The salient thing here is the moral judgment. But, to be demonstrated compellingly, the moral judgment requires a dilemma that pits values against values. Remarkably, Bennett is being criticized for being able to frame such a dilemma — which was wholly hypothetical — but given no credit for the moral judgment — which was authentically his.

Statistics have long been kept on crime, breaking it down in various ways, including by race and ethnicity. Some identifiable groups, considered as a group, commit crime at a rate that is higher than the national rate.

Blacks are such a group. That is simply a fact. Indeed, our public discourse on it, even among prominent African Americans, has not been to dispute the numbers but to argue over the causes of the high rate: Is it poverty? Breakdown of the family? Undue police attention? Other factors — or some combination of all the factors? We argue about all these things, but the argument always proceeds from the incontestable fact that the rate is high.

The rate being high, it is an unavoidable mathematical reality that if the number of blacks, or of any group whose rate outstripped the national rate, were reduced or eliminated from the national computation, the national rate would go down.

But Bennett’s obvious point was that crime reduction is not the be-all and end-all of good policy. You would not approve of something you see as despicable — such as reducing an ethnic population by abortion — simply because it would have the incidental effect of reducing crime.

Abortion, moreover, is a grave moral issue in its own right. It merits consideration on its own merits, wholly apart from its incidental effects on innumerable matters — crime rate and social security solvency being just two.

“[T]hese far-out, these far-reaching … extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky,” Bennett concluded. It was a point worth making, and it could not have been made effectively without a “far-out” example that highlighted the folly. Plus he was right, which ought to count for something even in what passes for today’s media critiques.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

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The Bill Bennett flap (Townhall.com, 051010)

Words are as fragile and sensitive as the human beings who utter them. They need careful nurturing and appropriate context and presentation for their meaning and intent to be realized.

This point was made effectively in a best-selling book on punctuation a few years ago that showed how a sentence pointing out the simple truth that “The panda eats shoots and leaves” takes on a new life and meaning with the addition of a few commas, becoming “The panda eats, shoots, and leaves.”

So we have it with the recent almost-too-ridiculous-to-discuss incident with Bill Bennett’s alleged racist remarks on his radio show. The remarks, taken out of context by those attacking Bennett, are being used to make the exact opposite point of his and brand him a racist.

A listener called in suggesting that abortion might be an explanation for our Social Security crisis (with more adults around paying Social Security taxes, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in). Bennett replied that such a hypothesis is as absurd and repugnant as the suggestion made in a best-selling book called “Freakonomics” that aborting more black babies would lead to a lower crime rate.

Bennett’s point, perhaps to belabor what for some reason to many is not obvious, was that such an allegation is a bizarre, perverse way to view the world.

What is going on in our country today? Is there not enough evil around that we have to look for it and manufacture it where it doesn’t exist?

Sure, one could argue that Bennett should have considered that he broadcasts to a large audience and that he might have been insensitive to not appreciate that such a supercharged example might elicit emotional responses. However, even if this captures what happened, an insensitive moment is not racism.

A number of questions and ironies come to mind as I review this strange incident.

Ask yourself, in moments when you have doubts about someone and her motives, if you tend to err on the side of suspicion of bad or attribution of good. I sadly think that, overwhelmingly, our tendency is to be suspicious and accuse. Why does the natural tendency seem to drift toward the bad and not the good?

Ask yourself, when you listen to someone speak, if you are truly listening to him. Are you really paying attention? Did you walk away hearing what he said, or were you really listening to yourself and did you walk away with what you think he said or want to believe he said? How many of us really listen carefully to those speaking to us?

Regarding the army of those attacking Bennett, most of whom are black, my question is this: Why are you outraged about Bennett’s supposed remark about black abortions and not outraged, every day, about the 400,000-plus black babies that actually are aborted every year? Or about the 13 million black babies that have been aborted since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973?

If what you truly care about are black babies and black lives, why do you overwhelmingly vote for candidates who support abortion and perpetuate a culture that devalues and cheapens lives - black and white?

Ironically, Elayne Bennett, wife of the alleged racist, founded and has run for a good number of years the Best Friends Foundation. It runs programs for teenagers, largely black, in communities all over the country, helping these kids build satisfying, responsible lives. In the words of the mission statement, Best Friends “promotes self-respect through the practice of self-control and provides participants the skills, guidance, and support to choose abstinence from sex until marriage and reject illegal drug and alcohol abuse.”

Perhaps the explanation for the tendency to suspect rather than to give the benefit of the doubt, the tendency lean to the negative, rather than to seek the positive, is because it is easy. Suspicion, accusation and blame take little effort. Careful listening, clear thinking and a pure heart require real work. Maybe that’s why, unfortunately, we see so little of these things.

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Where there’s a need to overcome (Washington Times, 051019)

By Cal Thomas

Prior to the “Millions More” event in Washington last weekend — led by former calypso singer and current Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan — some participants gathered at Howard University. It looked like a kook fringe meeting as speaker after speaker engaged in the wildest conspiracy theories about why poor blacks continue mired in misery.

According to some, Hurricane Katrina was a Bush administration plot to eliminate its “black problem.” Maybe President Bush didn’t create the hurricane, but he was responsible for blowing up the levees so New Orleans blacks would drown, thus easing welfare payments and reducing the number of black Democrat voters.

While the neo-Nazis planned to march in Toledo — sparking a “riot” among black gangs who, in the words of some locals were simply looking for an excuse to loot and destroy — their polar opposites were in Washington looting black dignity and destroying what remains of the “leaders” credibility.

This latest exercise in “brotherhood” again shifted the focus from the real problems in black America, which have less to do with what whites think of blacks than how they regard themselves. It again overlooked those spokespeople who actually have something worth considering.

Where among the Jesse Jackson-Al Sharpton-Louis Farrakhan speakers at the Millions More march on the Mall were members of the growing black middle and upper classes? Where were the married black men with children they fathered within wedlock and to whom they are responsible, loving fathers?

Does anyone doubt why poor blacks continue suffering? Is it really the fault of racism and the stain of slavery? If so, what’s the explanation for those who have stopped singing about overcoming and have simply overcome? They have done so by staying in school and studying, getting and remaining married, working hard and making the right decisions.

Why do “Millions More” people think another march on Washington will even begin solving their problems? Neither their problems nor their solutions are in Washington.

Washington doesn’t teach people to commit crime; Washington doesn’t encourage the indolent (except through too many subsidizes of indolence); Washington cannot begin to do for people what they can and should do for themselves.

It is a cliche, but worth repeating, that there are more black men in prison than in college. This despite affirmative action programs at many universities. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, at midyear 2004 there were 4,919 black male prison and jail inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States. That compares to 1,717 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 717 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.

Yes, there is racial bias in the criminal justice system. And while not all fatherless blacks are in prison, a large percentage of prison inmates come from homes in which the fathers were absent when the inmates were growing up.

Indeed, the Heritage Foundation notes the absence of a father is the single most important cause of poverty and crime. This is the source of as well as the starting place for solving many of the problems confronting poor blacks.

The Jackson-Sharpton-Farrakhan “trinity” may give lip-service to the importance of an intact black family, but their preaching revolves around personal grievances, Bush-bashing, government programs and sometimes anti-Semitism.

What would help would be more positive, father-centric cultural models, starting with the “dissing” of Black Entertainment Television and its predominately rap-hip hop culture. It is as stereotypical and injurious as stereotypes promoted by the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” TV series of the 1950s.

One black leader who wasn’t invited to speak at the Mall, but should have been, was Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, author of “Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America.” Writing for WorldNetDaily.com, Rev. Peterson, who is black, says, “All Americans must tell blacks the truth. It was blacks’ moral poverty — not their material poverty — that cost them dearly in New Orleans. Farrakhan, Jackson and other race hustlers are to be repudiated — they will only perpetuate the problem by stirring up hatred and applauding moral corruption.”

Don’t look for Mr. Peterson to be among the speakers at the next event of this type, but his statements deserve thought.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist.

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‘Exterminate white people’ ripped as black hate speech: Comments at N.C. State forum denounced as ‘imitation Hitler’ (WorldNetDaily, 051024)

The organizer of the “Pro-Black Media Forum” in which a visiting professor at North Carolina State University said the solution to the problems faced by many blacks is the extermination of “white people off the face of the planet” has strongly denounced those remarks.

“I organized the Pro-Black Media Forum where Dr. Kamau Kambon made the comments about exterminating all whites while on CSPAN,” Opio Sokoni explained to WND. “No one could have ever known that this former North Carolina State University professor would go off the cuff and make such immoral and unproductive remarks. We were all taken off guard – especially since he had said earlier that black people were not niggers but imitation niggers. If this is the case, his comments were not pro-black but imitation Hitler.”

Sokoni continued: “Kambon, like Hitler, called for the extermination of human beings. And, like Hitler, Kambon talked about a final solution. However, unlike Hitler, Dr. Kambon has no way of carrying out his idea. Even black radicals are against anything that makes us look like the very type of people we despise – Hitler, for example.”

Kambon, who taught Africana Studies at the Raleigh school last spring, told a panel at Howard University Law School Oct. 14 this action must be taken “because white people want to kill us.”

Kambon, a Raleigh activist and bookstore owner, was addressing a panel on “Hurricane Katrina Media Coverage,” broadcast on C-SPAN.

Kambon told the audience white people “have retina scans, they have what they call racial profiling, DNA banks, and they’re monitoring our people to try to prevent the one person from coming up with the one idea. And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people, because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem.”

Kambon’s remarks reportedly received light applause in the room, to which he responded, “I don’t care whether you clap or not, but I’m saying to you that we need to solve this problem because they are going to kill us.”

Sokoni, an Oregon activist and radio talk-show host, is no stranger to controversy himself. Last year, the FBI called the office of KBMS radio in Portland to speak to the activist attorney. Then Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge was visiting the city that day with a pledge to spend $50 million to the state to fight terror. Sokoni said that morning on his show that such money should go to the black community who are the victims of police terror.

“Finally,” Sokoni said regarding Kambon’s comments, “while some of us get frustrated at times at the issues we face and the oppressive history we as blacks have experienced, advocating genocide is not our way.”

Kambon has been a visiting professor at North Carolina State since 2003. His three-hour course last spring, Africana Studies 241, is described by the university as, “Second in a two semester sequence in the interdisciplinary study of sub-Saharan Africa, its arts, culture, and people, and the African-American experience.”

In his Oct. 14 session, Kambon told the panel blacks are “at war.”

White people, he said, had set up an “international plantation” for blacks, which made “every white person on earth a plantation master.”

“You’re either supporting white people in their process of death, or you’re for African liberation,” Kambon said.

“White people want to kill us,” he said. “I want you to understand that. They want to kill you,” he said. “They want to kill you because that is part of their plan.”

Kambon, recipient of a Citizen’s Award in 1999 by the local, left-wing newspaper Independent Weekly, previously was a professor of education at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, a historically black institution, the Journal said.

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‘Party trumps race’ for Steele foes (Washington Times, 051102)

[comments by Kwing Hung: Black racism against Blacks]

Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican.

Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an “Uncle Tom” and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log.

Operatives for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) also obtained a copy of his credit report — the only Republican candidate so targeted.

But black Democrats say there is nothing wrong with “pointing out the obvious.”

“There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names,” said a campaign spokesman for Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes.

“Party trumps race, especially on the national level,” she said. “If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It’s democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy.”

Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said Mr. Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside because his conservative political philosophy is, in her view, anti-black.

“Because he is a conservative, he is different than most public blacks, and he is different than most people in our community,” she said. “His politics are not in the best interest of the masses of black people.”

During the 2002 campaign, Democratic supporters pelted Mr. Steele with Oreo cookies during a gubernatorial debate at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

In 2001, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. called Mr. Steele an “Uncle Tom,” when Mr. Steele headed the state Republican Party. Mr. Miller, Prince George’s County Democrat, later apologized for the remark.

“That’s not racial. If they call him the “N’ word, that’s racial,” Mrs. Marriott said. “Just because he’s black, everything bad you say about him isn’t racial.”

This week, the News Blog — a liberal Web log run by Steve Gilliard, a black New Yorker — removed a doctored photo of Mr. Steele that depicted him as a black-faced minstrel.

However, the blog has kept its headline “Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house.” A caption beneath a photo of the lieutenant governor reads: “I’s Simple Sambo and I’s running for the Big House.”

A spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party denounced the depiction as being “extremely offensive” and having “no place in politics or in any other aspect of public discourse,” The Washington Post reported. Democrats have denied any connection to the News Blog.

Still, Mfume spokesman Joseph P. Trippi said Mr. Steele opens himself to such criticism by defending Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. for holding a Republican fundraiser in July at the all-white Elkridge Club in Baltimore.

“The facts are the facts. Ehrlich went to that country club, and Steele said it didn’t bother him,” Mr. Trippi said. “I think that says something ... and should be part of this debate.”

Several club members told the Baltimore Sun that, though blacks are welcome as guests and there is no policy banning blacks from membership, the club never has had a black member in its 127-year history.

Democrats also have used the club for various events, including Peter O’Malley, brother of and adviser to Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, a Democratic candidate for governor. Peter O’Malley held his wedding reception there in 2003.

State Sen. Verna Jones, Baltimore Democrat and vice chairman of the General Assembly’s legislative black caucus, said black Republicans deserve criticism because the Republican Party has not promoted the interests of the black community.

“The public policies supported by Democratic principles are the ones that most impact the African-American community,” she said. “I’m not saying [Mr. Steele] is a sell-out. That’s not for me to say.”

In July, however, Mr. Mfume noted how Republicans were rallying for Mr. Steele but his party had ignored his historic candidacy. “More voters in Maryland are carrying the impression that the Democratic Party talks the talk, but doesn’t always walk the walk. People may find a way to cross over in the fall,” he said.

Steele campaign spokesman Leonardo Alcivar said state Democrats are afraid of losing the black vote to Mr. Steele.

“That has caused a great tremble throughout the Maryland Democratic Party,” he said. “Of course [they are] going to condone racism. It’s nothing new, and it’s not surprising.”

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Civil Rights Rites (townhall.com, 051102)

by Thomas Sowell

While giving my office at home an overdue cleaning up — “operation Augean stable,” as my wife and I call it — I uncovered in the paper jungle a 2005 calendar. Since there was not a lot of 2005 left, I was about to throw it out when I read its title: “2005 Republican Civil Rights Calendar.”

Sent by the National Black Republican Association in Washington, this calendar listed for each month various things that Republicans had done for civil rights over the years.

No doubt there was a need for something to counter the impression built up over time that Democrats were pro-civil rights and Republicans anti-civil rights, when in fact a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

So far, so good.

But the calendar featured a long list of minority and female individuals appointed to high office by Republicans or elected to office as Republicans. While it was good to see that the Republicans had finally woken up to a need to articulate their case on civil rights — as they need to articulate their case on a whole range of other issues — there was still something disquieting about this approach.

Civil rights cannot include everything that is done by government which benefits particular groups, individually or collectively. The whole case for civil rights is that every American is entitled to them. Civil rights are not about doing special things for special groups.

Even when there is a persuasive case for providing special benefits to particular groups — military veterans, for example — there is no need to call those things civil rights.

While blacks have had a long struggle to achieve the civil rights that many other Americans took for granted, not everything that has advanced blacks in the past or that can advance blacks in the future, is a civil right. In fact, the most dramatic economic advancements of blacks, in both incomes and occupations, occurred in the years immediately before the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

The effect of government policies on blacks cannot be judged by whether these policies were conceived or carried out with blacks in mind.

It has long been axiomatic, for example, among those who study the American economy, that “A rising tide lifts all boats.” When the economy has been booming, there have been years when black incomes rose at a higher rate than white incomes.

No one has a greater stake in various school-choice plans, including vouchers, than blacks have, even though school choice is not specifically racial. Social Security is not a racial policy either, but economists who have studied it have long described it as a system that transfers money from black men to white women, given the different life expectancies of these two groups.

Minimum wage laws have long had an adverse effect on the employment of blacks, especially young blacks, who are more likely to be looking for entry-level jobs. These are the kinds of jobs most often reduced or eliminated when the minimum wage set by the government exceeds what those jobs are worth to an employer.

This is a pattern found in countries around the world, so it is not even peculiar to the United States, much less to black Americans. But its impact on black Americans is especially harsh.

Few policies have had more devastating local impacts on blacks than severe restrictions on the building of housing under “open space” laws, which lead to skyrocketing prices for homes and apartment rents that take up half the incomes of low-income households in many California communities.

Almost invariably, such communities are controlled by liberal Democrats — and blacks have been forced out by high housing costs. The black population of San Francisco, for example, declined by 18,000 between the 1990 census and the 2000 census, even though the city’s total population rose by more than 50,000 people.

The time is long overdue for both blacks and Republicans who are trying to appeal to blacks to focus on policies in terms of their actual effects on blacks — and to stop calling things “civil rights” when they are not.

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Rush blasts ‘bigots’ at Milwaukee ‘Urinal’ Sentinel: Limbaugh astounded by newspaper assertion Clarence Thomas not a real black (WorldNetDaily, 051103)

An editorial by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel suggesting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is not a real black is being blasted by radio giant Rush Limbaugh, who is calling the newspaper’s editors “bigoted” and “Stalinist.”

As WorldNetDaily reported this week, the newspaper’s editorial board, lamenting the choice of Samuel Alito to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, opined Tuesday: “In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.”

The paper said the nomination of Alito, an Italian-American, is “troubling” because “it’s liable to divide America” and “it lessens the extent to which the court mirrors the nation’s rich diversity.”

After reading WND’s story during his national broadcast yesterday, Limbaugh tore into the editors of the paper, which he termed the Milwaukee “Urinal” Sentinel.

“You will go out and you will write stories about Bill Clinton as the first black president and you will think that you are being brilliant, and you will think that you’re being clever,” said Limbaugh. “You take an African-American, Clarence Thomas, and you say he’s not black; he doesn’t qualify because he doesn’t represent the views of the blacks in this country. ...

“Where did you people go to school? Who taught you that the Supreme Court is supposed to represent the diversity of the population?” asked Limbaugh. “Do you actually believe that only blacks – the correct ones – can represent other blacks? ...

“The point is here you have the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel engaging in blatant bigotry, blatant racism. Clarence Thomas isn’t black enough. He doesn’t think like a black person. So you have a bunch of white liberals in a newsroom, in an editorial board, typical people that run the white plantation telling blacks how they have to think, telling blacks how they have to act.”

On its website, the Journal Sentinel claims it has no political bent, stating, “We are independent, beholden to no special interest or political party.”

It also notes, “We believe that diversity unites us all for our ultimate role as shareholders of the planet. Thus, anything that separates us also weakens us. The birthright of all people is equal opportunity.”

Limbaugh called the paper’s stance “Stalinist,” acting as if Thomas were an enemy of the state.

“Clarence Thomas is an enemy of the liberal state because his mind is not right. His mind ain’t under control, and so he’s not really black. And so, he’s not really black. Well, I can’t say what I want to say to these people in Milwaukee, but if I ever see ‘em personally, I’ll be sure and pass it on the way I want to.”

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Blacks condemn paper’s Thomas editorial: Denounce notion of ‘black way of thinking that is expressly liberal’ (WorldNetDaily, 051104)

Members of a coalition of black leaders condemned a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial asserting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should have an “asterisk” next to his name with regard to his race because he “does not represent the views of mainstream black America.”

Project 21, a black leadership network, said its members strongly denounce the “notion that there is a black way of thinking that is expressly liberal in nature.”

Project 21 member Deroy Murdock said, “Agree or disagree with Justice Thomas, his personal journey from poverty in Pinpoint, Georgia, to academic achievement at Yale Law School to high-level service in several federal positions and on the nation’s highest court is an admirable example of personal dedication and success, not an asterisk.”

Murdock asserted Thomas is not on the court to “represent ‘mainstream black America’ any more than Justice Antonin Scalia is supposed to stick up for Americans of Italian descent or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is supposed to be the court’s voice of American Jewry.”

“Is there a mainstream black view on so-called ‘right to die’ cases?” Murdock asked. “What is the proper Jewish position on the Endangered Species Act’s impact on property rights? Who knows? Justice Thomas represents the conservative judicial philosophy of the president who appointed him. So far, he is doing that quite well. If liberals want to affect the philosophical tone of the Supreme Court, they should consider winning the White House.”

Project 21 member Mychal Massie, a WND columnist, said the editorial is “representative of the left’s unambiguous contempt for decency.”

“It gives one cause to question the depth of moral turpitude liberals will plumb to cast dispersions on blacks and women who do not ascribe to their perversion of reality,” he said.

In its editorial, the Milwaukee paper said the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito, an Italian-American, is “troubling” because “it’s liable to divide America” and “it lessens the extent to which the court mirrors the nation’s rich diversity.”

Radio giant Rush Limbaugh blasted the editorial after reading WND’s story during his national broadcast Wednesday, calling the newspaper’s editors “bigoted” and “Stalinist.”

Martin Kaiser, editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On its website, the Journal Sentinel claims it has no political bent, stating, “We are independent, beholden to no special interest or political party.”

Limbaugh called the paper’s stance “Stalinist,” acting as if Thomas were an enemy of the state.

“Clarence Thomas is an enemy of the liberal state because his mind is not right. His mind ain’t under control, and so he’s not really black. ... “

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Blacks disciplined more due to race? Analyst says officials ignore stats pointing to 1-parent homes (WorldNetDaily, 060113)

Following up on an investigative series, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Seattle Public Schools continue to discipline African-American students at nearly twice the rate of white students, suggesting a “chronic problem” of institutional racism.

But an examination of the district’s own records strongly suggests it’s not largely a problem of racism but of family structure, says Stefan Sharkansky, a statistical analyst whose posts at the weblog SoundPolitics.com gave firepower to Republicans in their challenge of the razor-close 2004 gubernatorial campaign.

Sharkansky says the data indicates “black students have a higher rate of discipline issues because a larger percentage are from single-parent homes.”

The Post-Intelligencer, however, calls the problem a “discipline gap” that persists even as the district makes institutional changes in an attempt to drastically lower the number of students expelled.

The paper says that compared with white students, “African Americans were nearly twice as likely last year to receive short-term suspensions, lasting 10 or fewer days. Long-term suspensions were imposed on black students more than twice the time.”

The Seattle paper, which investigated the disparity in 2002 in a special report called “An Uneven Hand,” says the district “has made an effort in recent years to provide better training to teachers and administrators and focus on alternatives to suspending or expelling students. But short- and long-term suspension rates are virtually unchanged since 2000, and in some cases are higher.”

In the introduction to its 2002 report, the Post-Intelligencer directly addressed the kind of suggestion Sharkansky is making, saying, “Plenty of people blame the race-based discipline gap on broken homes in the black community. They’re wrong, too.”

Sharkansky admits his analysis is “fairly crude” and doesn’t prove a causal link between family structure and school discipline problems, and says, “I would never suggest that every child from a single parent home is at greater risk for discipline problems than every child with two parents in the house.”

“But,” he says, “it is not hard to see how a child with two constant parents to provide love and guidance has certain advantages in his/her social development, and this hypothesis is worth further investigation.”

Seattle School Board member Darlene Flynn, chairwoman of the Student Learning Committee, told the paper the district needs to do a better job of lowering discipline rates, especially for black and Hispanic students.

“We’re still seeing a lot of disproportionality,” she said. “That hasn’t improved at all.”

District officials have been frustrated by the “daunting problem,” the paper said, convening several task forces to study it, but recommendations rarely have been followed.

A five-year strategic plan approved last spring set a goal of narrowing the discipline gap by 20% annually, starting with this school year.

Flynn says she sees a link between the discipline gap and the “academic achievement gap,” noting many students who are suspended or expelled already are weak academically and could decide to drop out.

“If we’re not connecting the dots between academic success and academic suspensions, we’re missing a very logical connection,” Flynn said, suggesting the solution might be to do away with suspensions and expulsions, except for extreme cases.

“Maybe this needs to go the same way as corporal punishment,” she told the Seattle paper.

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Republicans and blacks (townhall.com, 060131)

by Thomas Sowell

A promising new black political figure is emerging in Ohio — Ken Blackwell, a solid, pro-life conservative who has fought for lower taxes. He is seeking the Republican nomination for governor of Ohio and polls indicate that he has substantial support.

Unfortunately, Ohio’s Republicans are a lot like Ohio’s Democrats — both are for higher taxes. On this and other issues, Blackwell is described in the current issue of City Journal as “often at war with his own party as well as the Democrats.”

The Republican Party has not had much success attracting black votes in recent decades and conservative blacks have not had an easy time in the Republican Party.

Blacks have voted so overwhelmingly for Democrats for so long that Republicans have few incentives to try to gain black votes — and little success when they do.

Political inertia can be powerful. The “solid South” voted consistently for Democrats for more than a century. Today, the Jewish vote is just as automatically for Democrats as the black vote is, and with even less reason, since Jews have little to gain from the welfare state and Israel’s strongest supporters are religious conservatives.

When Republicans from time to time try to reach out to blacks, they tend to do so ineptly, if not ridiculously. For reasons unknown, they seem to want to appeal to black voters in the same ways that Democrats appeal to black voters, by adopting a liberal stance.

Why would anyone who wants liberalism go for a Republican imitation when they can get the real thing from Democrats? Republicans do not have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the votes of liberal blacks.

Nor are they likely to win a majority of the black vote as a whole any time soon. But if Republicans can get just a fourth or a fifth of the black vote nationwide, that can shift the balance of power decisively in their favor.

It is not rocket science to see that whatever chances the Republicans have of making inroads into the black vote are likely to be better among more conservative blacks.

Black religious groups opposed to abortion or homosexual marriage are an obvious group to try to reach. So are black business owners or military veterans.

Does anyone think that President Bush’s awarding a Medal of Freedom to Muhammad Ali was likely to appeal to such groups? Yet this continues a pattern in which Republicans have tried to approach black voters from the left.

Back in 1997, when black Republican Congressman J.C. Watts denounced people like Jesse Jackson and then D.C. mayor Marion Barry as “race-hustling poverty pimps,” House Speaker Newt Gingrich took it upon himself to apologize to Jesse Jackson.

To apologize for what another man said is to treat that man as if he were your child or your servant. Gingrich then added further insult by inviting Jesse Jackson to join him in his box for the Clinton inauguration for his second term as president.

Pulling the rug out from under your friends, in order to appease your enemies, may seem like clever politics to some people. But what could possibly have led Republicans to think that pro-Jesse Jackson blacks were ever going to vote for them?

Did they think that conservative blacks who might have voted for them were more likely to do so when Republicans embraced Jesse Jackson? Did they think that conservative blacks who might have considered becoming Republican candidates were more likely to do so after seeing how J.C. Watts had been treated?

Another conservative black Republican who had the rug pulled out from under him was Michael Williams, when he was in charge of civil rights at the Department of Education. Mr. Williams ruled that setting aside scholarships exclusively for minority students was racial discrimination in violation of civil rights laws. This courageous ruling was over-ruled in the first Bush administration, leaving Michael Williams with egg on his face.

Ken Blackwell’s candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor in Ohio is a golden opportunity for Republicans, not only in that state but on the national political scene as well. Still, Mr. Blackwell would do well to watch his back.

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The Myth Behind the Crisis in Black America: A review of John McWhorter’s Winning the Race (townhall.com, 060203)

Review by Dutch Martin

The year is 2006, over 40 years into the post-Civil Rights era. In many areas of life, black Americans are much better off today than in the first half of the 20th century. Yet even before the Civil Rights movement, poor and working-class black communities were relatively stable and progressive, and in these communities, families taught their children to embrace hard work, education and personal responsibility in the face of systemic racism. Such communities are a far cry from the poverty, welfare dependency, crime, drugs and fatherlessness that plague black ghettos today. What caused urban black America to descend into such a decadent state of social pathology from the late-1960s onward?

John McWhorter tackles this very important question in his new book, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America. A prominent voice in the national race relations debate since his 2000 best-seller Losing the Race and critically-acclaimed follow-up Authentically Black, McWhorter returns with a brutally honest examination of the real reasons why inner-city black communities have taken a turn for worst since the second half of the 20th century.

Using Indianapolis, Indiana as a case study, the author recounts many widely-held theories as to why black ghettos went to hell in a hand basket post-1960s, primary among them being that factories left the inner cities for the suburbs, thus leaving poor urban blacks without jobs. As widely held as this “factory-flight hypothesis” is in academia, a little-reported fact of 20th century black history – the First and Second Great Migrations – blows it out of the water. As the author puts it, “When work disappears, people move,” and that’s exactly what happened in the immediate years following WW’s I & II: poor blacks left the Jim Crow South in massive numbers and migrated to northern cities to find jobs and an overall better way of life, in an era when racism, by no means non-existent in the North, was less institutionalized than south of the Mason-Dixon. (The Second Great Migration of the late-1940s, in fact, sowed the seeds for what would become the modern-day black middle-class.)

This begs the question: If blacks of an earlier era were able to successfully travel from one region of the United States to another to find work, then what prevented their urban-dwelling progeny from moving (or, at the very least, commuting by bus or carpool) just a few miles from the city center to the suburbs, where many (though by no means all) factory jobs relocated?

McWhorter further dispels the factory-flight belief by pointing out that, though many businesses did leave Indianapolis-proper, many more remained, and that city officials and local businesses went out of their way over the years to recruit, hire and train low-income, low-skilled blacks. However, as the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. What caused inner-city blacks post-1960s to lose their thirst for work? (Hint: It wasn’t racism.)

Two things caused the downward spiral of poor blacks in Indianapolis and nationwide to the modern-day black underclass with which we are so familiar today:

* Adoption of a defiant anti-Establishment mentality as part of the countercultural revolution of the 1960s, cloaked in what McWhorter calls “therapeutic alienation,” in which righteous indignation against “the Man” for its own sake became praised by blacks and liberal whites alike as a badge of black authenticity; and

* The expansion of welfare from a temporary assistance program for widows with children to a federal bureaucracy that basically subsidized out-of-wedlock childbearing, personal irresponsibility and an aversion to work.

McWhorter devotes an entire chapter to the history of welfare and how, through an incremental relaxation of restrictions and a heavy recruitment of poor blacks who could have worked instead, it evolved into an open-ended public assistance by 1967.

These incremental changes… created “welfare as we knew it,” [where] a young woman who got pregnant in her teens had available to her a lifelong check from the government, regardless of whether the father[s] of her children worked for a living, and could keep picking up that check wherever and whenever she moved within the United States. No one black or white in the thirties, forties or fifties had known welfare of this kind…. This new version of welfare quickly took over poor black communities and became one of their defining traits. The nation’s welfare rolls increased by 107% from 1960 to 1970 – in contrast to only 17% from 1950 to 1960.

This “welfare culture” soon had such a stranglehold on poor blacks that the author quotes a welfare mother admonishing New York City mayor John Lindsey: “I’ve got six kids and each one of them has a different daddy. It’s my job to have kids, and your job, Mr. Mayor, to take care of them.” That such an attitude would have been unfathomable among poor blacks pre-1960s only drives home the point that times had surely changed.

McWhorter plunges into the roots of therapeutic alienation and its psychologically “analgesic” (to borrow Bill Cosby’s phrase) effects on blacks over the past 40 years. (In my interview with him accompanying this review, McWhorter put it this way: “Alienation can provide a substitute identity — it can be, oddly enough, a comfort zone. But while it soothes the psychology, it hinders the sociology, so to speak. It helps hold us back.”) He devotes the last third of the book to explaining how the liberal academics and popular cultural elites have bought into it, and what needs to be done to finally get over it.

John Hamilton McWhorter, V, is a scholar whose research and insight into black American culture make his contribution to today’s race relations debate crucial for three reasons. First, he takes readers on a journey back in time to black life in America before the 1960s. In doing so, he shows that, despite living under brutal and systemic racial oppression, crushing poverty, and not far removed from slavery, hard-scrabble black folks carved out a sustainable existence for themselves by living by a cultural credo where you basically played the hand you were dealt in life as best you could.

Secondly, juxtaposing this earlier slice of black life next to the 1960s – where racism was on the down-slope and the overall economic situation for black Americans was improving – McWhorter demonstrates how embracing the Anti-Establishment zeitgeist of the sixties all but nullified the cultural credo of that earlier era, thereby rendering blacks – especially the black poor – worse off culturally than before. Lastly, in Winning the Race as well as in his two previous books, McWhorter offers a ray of hope on what can and should be done to make things better.

Winning the Race represents John McWhorter’s third installment on race and culture in America that will cause readers to look at these crucial issues in fresh new ways.

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The Democrats’ own history with race (townhall.com, 060207)

by Bruce Bartlett

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond probably spoke for most blacks and liberals last week when he said the Republican Party is equivalent to the Nazi Party.

“The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side,” he told an audience at Fayetteville State University.

Also last week, a new “scientific study” was released showing that Republicans are racist by nature. “The study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did,” The Washington Post reported.

For decades, it has been a template of the major media that Republicans are the party of racism. It repeats uncritically any charges of Republican racism, no matter how unfounded. Democrats, on the other hand, are always given a pass whenever they commit racist offenses. Even a cursory review, however, will show that the media template is totally contrary to history.

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Slavery is the greatest evil ever to beset black people in this country. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, there was intense political debate on what to do about it. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 for the express purpose of ending slavery. The Democratic Party, by contrast, defended it to the bitter end.

Just to show how far Democrats would go to defend slavery, it’s worth remembering what happened to Sen. Charles Sumner, Republican of Massachusetts. After giving a speech denouncing slavery in 1856, he was viciously beaten by Rep. Preston Brooks, Democrat of South Carolina, for daring to question the right to own slaves. Being a coward, Brooks waited until the elderly Sumner was seated alone at his desk in the Senate and, without warning, struck him repeatedly with a cane. It took months for Sumner to recover.

In 1858, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat of Illinois, debated Republican Abraham Lincoln on the question of slavery. Said Douglas during one of those debates: “For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians and other inferior races.”

So prevalent were these views in the Democratic Party that Douglas was named its presidential candidate in 1860. Amazingly, Southerners actually viewed Douglas as being too moderate on the slavery issue and instead voted for Vice President John C. Breckinridge, a slave-owner who also ran as a Democrat, thus splitting the pro-slavery vote and allowing Lincoln to win.

After the war, the Democratic Party held a lock on the South for more than 100 years. All of the “Jim Crow” laws that prevented blacks from voting and kept them down were enacted by Democratic governors and Democratic legislatures. The Ku Klux Klan was virtually an auxiliary arm of the Democratic Party, and any black (or white) who threatened the party’s domination was liable to be beaten or lynched. Democrats enacted the first gun-control laws in order to prevent blacks from defending themselves against Ku Klux Klan violence. Chain gangs were developed by Democrats to bring back de facto slave labor.

President Woodrow Wilson, the second Democrat to serve since the Civil War, reintroduced segregation throughout the federal government immediately upon taking office in 1913. Avowed racists such as Josephus Daniels and Albert Burleson were named Cabinet secretaries. Black leaders like W.E.B. DuBois, who had strongly supported Wilson, were bitterly disappointed, but shouldn’t have been surprised. As president of Princeton University, Wilson refused to admit blacks and as governor of New Jersey ignored blacks’ requests for state jobs, even though their votes had provided his margin of victory.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt had his first opportunity to name a member of the Supreme Court, he appointed a life member of the Ku Klux Klan, Sen. Hugo Black, Democrat of Alabama. In 1944, FDR chose as his vice president Harry Truman, who had joined the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City in 1922. Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt resisted Republican efforts to pass a federal law against lynching, and he opposed integration of the armed forces.

Another Ku Klux Klan member, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, personally filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 14 straight hours to keep it from passage. He is still a member of the U.S. Senate today. As recently as the 1980s, Sen. Ernest Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, publicly referred to blacks as “darkies” and Hispanics as “wetbacks” without suffering any punishment from his party.

In short, the historical record clearly shows that Democrats, not Republicans, have been the party of racism in this country.

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Who speaks for black America? (WorldNetDaily, 060208)

By Jesse Lee Peterson

While increasing numbers of Americans have come to regard Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and other establishment “black leaders” as con artists, gaining money and power by promoting racial tension and class warfare, never before has a book ripped the “scam” wide open like this title from WND Books.

This is a book people like Jackson and Sharpton will try to discredit and suppress at all costs.

In “Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America,” Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson – a true black leader whom many affectionately call “the other Jesse” – shows how the civil-rights establishment has made a lucrative career out of keeping racial strife alive in America.

He reveals how establishment black leaders endlessly promise solutions to the problems of America’s inner cities, but deliver only ineffective Band-Aids. From the dismal failure of the welfare system, to the farce of the slavery-reparations movement, to the problems within black churches and the hypocrisy and corruption of current black “leaders,” Peterson argues compellingly that the real crisis we face is spiritual, and that no economic solution will suffice. He skillfully weaves the realms of politics, culture, psychology and religion into this profound and relevant book.

Rather than promote perpetual victimhood, Peterson offers a platform of true empowerment, teaching individuals and families how to tap into the power within, rather than depending on handouts.

Peterson is a successful entrepreneur, motivational speaker, author, and founder/president of a highly successful nonprofit organization, the Los Angeles-based Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny or B.O.N.D. – whose purpose is “rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man.”

Featured on many news programs, including CNN, Fox News, “World News Tonight With Peter Jennings,” and “Nightline” with Ted Koppel, Peterson also hosts his own live nationally syndicated radio talk show on Information Radio Network, hosts a television show on God’s Learning Channel, a satellite network, and is the author of “From Rage to Responsibility.”

Well-known for his public criticism of “black leaders,” Peterson considers Jesse Jackson a “racist demagogue, a David Duke in black skin.” In fact, for the past four years, “the other Jesse” has held an annual event called the “National Day of repudiation of Jesse Jackson.”

“We will hold this event every year until Jesse Jackson repents of his ways, and stops attempting to tear the races apart for his own personal gain,” said Peterson. “Dr. King is turning over in his grave seeing what his movement has become, thanks to people like Jesse Jackson.”

Unlike the limousine-riding establishment “black leaders,” Peterson is the product of a fascinating life experience and longtime grass-roots community work on the streets of riot-torn south-central Los Angeles.

“The exact opposite of the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Jesse Peterson is a truly authentic ‘black leader,’” said WND Vice President David Kupelian. “An eloquent and principled defender of traditional values, Jesse is also one of America’s best counselors. He has the kind of genuine, street-smart authenticity and inner strength that it takes to be able to grab a hardened gang-banger by the scruff of the neck, talk to him, shake him up, and make him look at himself and turn his life around.”

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Showtime at Coretta Scott King’s funeral (townhall.com, 060216)

by Larry Elder

The “funeral” of Coretta Scott King turned into an ugly, disrespectful political rally.

Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder — along with Martin Luther King Jr. — of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, castigated President George W. Bush for insufficient disaster relief, failing to provide health care and failing to cure poverty. “We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there,” said Lowery. “But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war, billions more, but no more for the poor.”

Listening to speaker after speaker complain about the poor conditions under which minorities live, one wonders whether Martin Luther King Jr. accomplished anything at all.

There stood Oprah Winfrey, the most powerful woman in television, with her net worth estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.3 billion. And she recently signed a $55 million deal with XM Satellite Radio. There stood poet Maya Angelou, who, in one recent year, grossed $3.3 million according to Forbes, and lives in a mansion while employing several people full time. There stood Shirley Franklin, the black female mayor of the city of Atlanta. There stood former presidential candidate Rev. Al Sharpton, a man who once called Jews “diamond merchants” and denounced a white Harlem storeowner as a “white interloper.” A man whom many still take seriously despite falsely accusing a man of rape, and despite the existence of a 1983 FBI surveillance tape showing Sharpton discussing, with an undercover agent, a deal to traffic cocaine. And, of course, Jesse Jackson spoke — a multimillionaire with two sons who own an Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship, and another son who serves as a U.S. congressman from the Chicago area.

Bernice King, one of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King’s daughters, gave the eulogy. Did she really complain about “materialism”? For the King family members — if the sale at Sotheby’s goes through — may net $30 million for their father’s papers. The family also owns copyrights on many of MLK’s speeches, including the “I Have a Dream” speech. The Kings sued CBS for airing part of the “I Have a Dream” speech and sued “USA Today” for reprinting the speech’s text. CBS ultimately settled the lawsuit by making a donation to the King Center, and “USA Today” had to issue an apology along with their settlement.

Most blacks are middle class and do not live in the inner city. If black America were a separate country, its GDP would place it at No. 16 in the world. Corporations like Time Warner, American Express and Merrill Lynch all have black CEOs.

Is Tiger Woods not the world’s No. 1 golfer? And say it ain’t so, but didn’t Snoop Dogg cut a Chrysler commercial? And sociologist Nathan Glazer says studies show three out of four blacks, with SAT scores between 1250 and 1299, receive admissions into the nation’s most elite colleges, yet only one in four whites with comparable SAT scores receive admission.

And isn’t this 2006, with black candidates like Michael Steele, the lieutenant governor of Maryland, now running for the U.S. Senate? And isn’t Ken Blackwell, Ohio’s black secretary of state, running for governor? And what about Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers great, who just got the Republican nod for Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race? What about back-to-back black secretaries of State, one of whom, Condoleezza Rice, many hope and wish would run for president? Polls show over 90% of whites would vote for a qualified black presidential candidate, versus one-third in 1958.

America, while not perfect, certainly has come a long, long way since the day King led the Montgomery bus boycott. But the funeral speakers confuse equal rights with equal results — two very different things. UCLA public policy professor emeritus James Q. Wilson once said, “You need only do three things to avoid poverty in this country: finish high school, marry before having a child, and produce the child after the age of 20. Only 8% of families who do this are poor; 79% of those who fail to do this are poor.” Yet today’s “black leaders” demand reparations, set-asides, race-based preferences, and still more welfare.

In 1911, Booker T. Washington seemed to address some of those who spoke at the funeral when he said, “There is [a] class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy, and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. . . . There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.”

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Steele Sense: From white racism to White Guilt, America still struggles with race. (National Review Online, 060510)

Many of us have had, at one time or another, what I will call a “Shelby Steele moment”—a moment in which the full realization of cultural change since the 1960s hits us. For Steele, it came when he was watching President Clinton wagging his finger on the morning news and saying, “I never had sexual relations with that woman.” At the time, he “thought two things: that he [Clinton] was lying and that he would be out of office within two weeks.” But the president survived, and that survival “spoke volumes about the moral criterion for holding power in the United States.”

Of course many others have written about moral corruption in modern America. But not in Steele’s voice. The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, it might seem, was about sex and the Oval Office. In fact, race was the real story, Steele argues in his stunning new book, White Guilt. “Race had dramatically changed the terms by which political power is won and held.” Race, not sex, “had become the primary focus of America’s moral seriousness.” It is our racial history that has “effectively renormed American culture around social morality.” Clinton’s generation “invented the practice of using social morality as a license to disregard individual morality.” What came to count was a commitment, first and foremost, to racial equality, not whom you slept with.

I had a Shelby Steele moment myself not long ago. I woke up not to Clinton-Lewinsky, but to the award of a Pulitzer prize for “distinguished criticism” to Robin Givhan of the Washington Post for “her witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism.” Givhan, for those who need reminding, is the lady who described Katherine Harris as a “Republican woman, who can’t even use restraint when she’s wielding a mascara wand”—a clear sign of her inability to make “sound decisions.” As for the children of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, they looked like “a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of Jelly Bellies, three little Necco wafers.” And while the president’s hair is a “dull gray thatch,” that of John Edwards “practically cries out to be tousled the same way a well-groomed golden retriever demands to be nuzzled.”

Cultural criticism? Sounded more like political criticism to me. Unabashed partisan loathing.

I thought she would be fired; I was as naïve as Steele had been about Clinton.

In 1968, a few weeks before Steele’s college graduation, he and fellow black students had marched into the school president’s office with a list of demands. A lit cigarette in hand, he let the ashes fall onto the president’s plush carpet. It was, as Steele says, “the effrontery, the insolence, that was expected in our new commitment to militancy.” Givhan (who is also black) is Shelby Steele at 22: a racial exhibitionist who revels in making clear her freedom to indulge in the effrontery that arrogantly insults conventional (white) America.

And of course much of her white readership responds by asking for more. Legitimizing black anger undoubtedly makes them feel racially cleansed.

The search for racial virtue is the subject of White Guilt. Almost in the blink of an eye, Steele argues, America moved from the dark age of white racism to the dark age of white guilt. Not that the one is the equivalent of the other. But white guilt about the nation’s racist past has been a powerful and pernicious force over the last four decades, shaping public policy, as well as private and public institutions. It created a vacuum of moral authority into which specialists in moral indignation moved—”bargainers, bluffers, and haranguers” who delivered a message of white obligation and black entitlement. Blacks suddenly acquired an invaluable new race card: the status of aggrieved victims. And they used it “to shame, silence, and muscle concessions from the larger society.” In the new age of white guilt, a repentant America had to prove its virtue to blacks.

A new black identity emerged defined by group victimization. The results have been tragic, Steele argues. “Suddenly in American life the matter of responsibility was qualified by a new social morality. If you were black, and thus a victim of racial oppression, this new morality of social justice meant you could not be expected to carry the same responsibilities as others.” Whites were powerful; blacks were helpless. “It was an injustice to make victims responsible for their own problems.” And thus “whites and American institutions live by a simple formula: lessening responsibility for minorities equals moral authority; increasing it equals racism.”

As Steele acknowledges, America has come a long way walking in the right direction. Not all is bleak. On a family trip, if his father needed to find a place to eat or a house in which to sleep, he would search for a black resident to learn the “local geography of black possibility.” Those days are gone forever, and whites as well as blacks should celebrate racial change. But a thin line divides that celebration and the theatrical display of racial virtue—in the adoption of racial preferences, for instance—that is so ubiquitous and so corrupt.

Publishers Weekly complains that Steele “stops short of offering real-world solutions” to America’s racial problems. But the charge misses the point of the book. Steele is America’s racial therapist who attempts to lay bare the crippled emotional state of whites in positions of power who do bad by attempting to do good.

Some of Steele’s earlier writing has a Henry Jamesian density and complexity. But every paragraph in White Guilt is a little masterpiece—containing profound insight, yet totally accessible. That’s essential. The argument is so at odds with conventional thinking about race that only a work in which every word is right can hope to persuade readers who will undoubtedly be taken aback by the assault on their familiar, comfortable beliefs.

I just bought four copies; I’ll give them to friends as pearls of wisdom.

—Abigail Thernstrom is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

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Blacks see threat from Hispanic illegal aliens (Washington Times, 060515)

Blacks in the region are joining Minuteman militia groups opposed to illegal Hispanic aliens working in the United States, saying they take jobs from blacks and piggyback off the strides made during the civil rights movement.

Several blacks Friday attended a Minuteman rally in the District. And yesterday, Ted Hayes, a black Los Angeles-based homeless activist and founder of the Crispus Attucks Brigade, held a rally in Upper Senate Park denouncing attempts by immigrant rights groups to link their movement to that of black civil rights.

“Illegal immigration is the greatest threat to black people since slavery,” Mr. Hayes said. “The civil rights movement was made by black citizens of this country, but [illegal aliens] are claiming civil rights as a key to cross the American border illegally.”

He and several area blacks at the rallies said losing jobs is their biggest concern.

Mr. Hayes said illegal aliens are accepting “slave wages” after decades of blacks’ not allowing employers to pay them less than minimum wage.

Northwest resident Mae Bruce, 68, said her biggest concerns are illegal aliens’ “flooding” historically black neighborhoods without assimilating and taking advantage of overburdened government resources such as public education and health care.

Sylvia Thomas, a black woman living in Alexandria, recently said she plans to join a local Minuteman chapter.

“If I’m going to be held to abiding by the law, they should be, too,” she said. “I don’t like my tax money going to people who are living here illegally.”

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows that about 80% of blacks have a favorable view of Hispanic immigrants’ work ethic and family values. The survey also shows that 33% of blacks are less likely to suggest deportation of illegals aliens, compared with 59% of whites.

However, the survey indicates that about half of blacks in the region see immigrants as a burden because they take jobs and housing. More than 50% of blacks in the region and more than 75% nationwide say increased immigration has led to difficulties in finding a job, compared with 50% of whites nationwide and 20% in the region who say the same.

The survey stated 22% of blacks and 14% of whites said they or a relative had lost a job to an immigrant.

Northwest resident Daisy Williams, 54, said she can find only telemarketing jobs, despite having years of clerical experience. She also said blacks are the first to go during layoffs and are “being pushed out of the entire picture.”

“Go to any construction site, and there are very few African-Americans,” Mrs. Williams said. “Everyone you see is Hispanics [and] it’s all over this region. ... The American dream is becoming the American nightmare.”

But Mychal Massie, a board member of Project 21, a District-based black conservative think tank, said that stance suggests that all blacks work low-wage jobs and are incapable of aiming higher.

“It’s an affront and an insult to suggest these jobs disproportionately hurt blacks because ... it plays into a [scenario] of lowered expectations,” he said.

V. Nenaji Jackson, who teaches political science at Howard University, said it also pits blacks against Hispanics, rendering both groups powerless by infighting.

“What we need to do is band together in struggle and create a new reality for ourselves,” she said.

However, blacks at the rally Friday said they held a belief similar to that of Mrs. Bruce. They don’t want to join with Hispanics because they feel snubbed by those who open shops and move into their neighborhoods.

Cameron Bonner, a Brigade member who mentors black at-risk youth in the South-Central neighborhood of Los Angeles, said tension there between blacks and Hispanics has exploded into violence in schools and jails.

“We have no opportunity to provide services [to blacks] when the first people who get in line are people who don’t belong here,” said Mr. Bonner, 40. “Come here legally and you can get in line and get anything you want. But when you come here with the direct desire to take from me ... we have a problem.”

Brigade members have also branded supporters of the immigrant movement such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and black leaders the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as “sellouts” who are “leading blacks in a circle.”

Mr. Hayes predicted their imminent overthrow.

“They do not own civil rights,” he said. “They don’t speak for us. They haven’t talked to us, the black people, about their civil rights. These are not our leaders. We’ve had 40 years of Jesse Jackson, and enough is enough. This will be his undoing.”

Organizers blamed the small turnout at yesterday’s rally on the Mother’s Day holiday and dreary weather.

The Crispus Attucks Brigade — named after Crispus Attucks, a black man and the first casualty of the American Revolution — plans to hold rallies nationwide to raise black awareness of illegal immigration, said co-founder James Spencer.

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A Great Black Hope: Old-school values transcend race. (National Review Online, 060602)

A review by La Shawn Barber

I met actor Joseph C. Phillips last year when we shared a discussion panel with Shelby Steele on race relations. At one point during the Q&A, Phillips lost his temper with someone in the audience. He admonished the person for failing to acknowledge that America’s Founders, regardless of their faults, had the right ideas. Individual liberty, freedom of expression, due process, etc., are objectively good principles, even if the Founders hadn’t intended to apply these principles to blacks.

Phillips had committed the “sin” of publicly expressing gratitude for being an American, despite America’s history of slavery and subjugation. His new book, He Talk Like A White Boy, is a semi-autobiographical collection of essays about his love for this country and his respect for the “old school” values that make America strong. Recurring themes are family, faith, and freedom.

Best known for his roles as Lt. Martin Kendall on The Cosby Show and Justus Ward on the soap opera General Hospital, Phillips is a rarity in Hollywood. He writes candidly about growing up speaking proper English (“talking white”), being different from the mainstream, and having his “blackness” questioned.

The opening anecdote of the 232-page book sets the tone and reveals what eventually becomes a lifelong frustration. After he made a comment in his junior high school accelerated English class, another black student said, “He talk like a white boy!” What does that mean? Phillips thought. Instead of chastising the girl or dealing with the substance of the remark, the teacher merely corrected her grammar.

“No, LaQueesha. Joseph speaks like a white boy!” The teacher had the entire class repeat the correct sentence. “[T]hat moment,” writes Phillips, “was not only the beginning of junior high school, it was the beginning of my life.”

Phillips began to recognize what he calls the “tyranny of opinion”—the idea that a self-anointed group stood at the doors of culture and determined who was or wasn’t black enough. As a conservative columnist and speaker, Phillips receives his share of letters and e-mail from members of this group who sling ad hominem attacks (usually anonymously) but rarely deal with the substance of his work. “In their minds,” he writes, “I no longer speak like a white boy, I now think like a white boy.”

He Talk Like A White Boy is replete with examples of this tyranny in action. Phillips recounts a nasty experience on a TV talk show called America’s Black Forum. Between segments, a black liberal journalist let loose with a profanity-laced, personal rant against him. “Imagine if I had cursed at Deborah Mathis in front of a studio audience,” Phillips writes. “My inappropriate behavior would have signaled the bankruptcy of my arguments. To the guardians however, Deborah’s inappropriate and unprofessional behavior is seen as a righteous defense of the race.”

Such a defense is considered righteous to many blacks. Criticizing negative elements of black subculture is “airing dirty laundry,” and holding opinions different from mainstream blacks is traitorous.

Airing more dirty laundry, Phillips decries the emphasis on sports in the black community over academics. “Doing well in school and reading books become anti-black, joining the debate club instead of the basketball team is anti-black as well.” But Phillips doesn’t criticize others just for the sake of it. His book is textured with honest details and examples of his own faults, and he doesn’t rationalize his wrong-headed decisions.

Phillips stays focused on the book’s themes while writing honestly about his anxiety over auditioning, his mother’s suicide, and his efforts to be a faithful Christian, a good husband, and a good father. In a poignant essay about his late father, Phillips laments the diminished role of fathers in the culture in general:

It is a shame that as social currency, fatherhood has been so drastically devalued. A man’s honor is cheap… Boys must see the pride in their father’s smile, feel the firm hand of a father’s discipline, and hear the bite of correction in his voice. Boys will not grow into men unless men lead them…Boys do not need male role models and they don’t need father figures; they need fathers in the home.

Despite the “race traitor,” “Uncle Tom,” and “self-hater” name-calling, many black conservatives understand and share the desire to identify with our racial group. “[N]o matter how successful, educated, or integrated we become, we still seek out images and stories that reflect some sense of who we see when we look in the mirror,” Phillips writes. But that doesn’t preclude telling the truth.

Phillips injects humor into serious subject matter with laugh-out-loud tales about his attempts to be “cool” while conceding that he’s “corny.” For readers interested in a black actor’s perspective on Hollywood, He Talk Like A White Boy will definitely satisfy. Phillips has met and formed strong friendships with many well-known actors. However, the name-dropping is not boastful; it’s instructive. He shares his struggle to be a working actor who doesn’t compromise his values or accept demeaning roles.

He Talk Like A White Boy is one man’s story of love of family and country. Readers looking for a forthright—and sometimes painful—account of being a black conservative won’t be disappointed.

—La Shawn Barber is a freelance writer and blogger in Washington, D.C. Visit her blog at http://www.lashawnbarber.com/.

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A Real Culture of Corruption: What a moment for the Congressional Black Caucus to make a stand. (National Review Online, 060613)

By Rich Lowry

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been outed. After a long and honorable career in public service, the truth has been revealed. She is motivated by racial animus.

That’s the conclusion we’re supposed to draw from her request that a Democratic congressman caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in bribes from an FBI informant should give up a plum committee assignment. The congressman in question is the infamous Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who was discovered by the FBI to be keeping $90,000 in hard cash in his freezer along with his ice cream and TV dinners.

Ordinarily it would be unremarkable that a congressman stinking of bribery would earn such a rebuke. But Jefferson is black. So his allies naturally turn to the race card to defend him, even if it means playing it against Pelosi, about whom many critical things can be said — but not that she’s a racist.

Jefferson has said that her request is “discriminatory.” Many members of the Congressional Black Caucus — always a sucker for self-defeating race-based appeals — are backing Jefferson. A CBC aide summarized the sentiment thusly: “Congresswoman Pelosi, by pre-emption without any legal justification, has now created a new precedent for how members are going to be treated. Unfortunately, she’s chosen to single out an African-American for this honor.”

The suggestion is that, if only a white Democrat had been secreting tens of thousands of dollars in cash in his house, Pelosi would be looking the other way. What a disgusting slur. While it is true that usually members have to be indicted to be removed from committees, if common sense ever dictated an exception, this is it. Nonetheless, black-caucus members are murmuring that their voters are tired of being taken for granted by the Democrats, in a spectacularly bizarre ordering of priorities.

Rotten public schools are cheating black kids out of an education, but Democrats don’t want to do anything fundamental to fix them. The breakdown of the two-parent family is the gravest crisis facing urban black communities, but Democrats barely speak of it. The Democrats are pushing a liberal agenda on gay marriage and other cultural issues that runs counter to most blacks’ social conservatism. All of that, the CBC is happy to swallow. But discipline one of its members for a gross ethical lapse, and they aren’t going to take it anymore.

This puts the supposed GOP-fostered “culture of corruption” in Congress — a favorite Democratic campaign theme — in a different light. One place where you find literally a culture of corruption, in the sense of a deeply ingrained pattern of corrupt practices, is in black urban politics. That is so partly because it is tolerated. There apparently has never been a black politician in America accused of corruption who isn’t the victim of racism, according to civil-rights groups and other black politicians.

This is a profoundly enabling attitude, and the people hurt by it are generally poor blacks, who suffer from the resulting degraded governance. Jefferson says he won’t step aside because New Orleans, which he represents, needs him at this time of rebuilding. As if the residents of the Ninth Ward can be ably served only by a congressman venal enough to traffic in tens of thousands of dollars in cash and stupid enough to get caught.

Given the awful history involved, it is understandable that black politics sometimes is characterized by a prickly pride and an easily roused defensiveness. But those feelings should be properly channeled into a swift and angry rejection of unethical black politicians like Jefferson, as unworthy of the struggles that made black representation in Congress possible and of the black constituents who so need and deserve good leadership.

It is telling that Tom DeLay, the supposed poster boy for Republican corruption, is out of Congress without having ever gotten near a bundle of cash. Maybe the GOP caucus has higher standards, or maybe it just doesn’t like white people.

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Black Leaders Criticize Christian Conservatives over Moral Issues (Christian Post, 060627)

DALLAS — Prominent black leaders said they will work to combat Christian conservatives they say have used gay marriage and abortion to distract from larger moral issues such as the war, voting rights, affirmative action and poverty.

The Revs. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Joseph Lowery and hundreds of black leaders from around the country are focusing on mobilizing black voters for the fall elections. They kicked off a three-day black clergy conference Monday in Dallas.

“There are no gay people coming to our churches asking to get married,” Sharpton said. “But there are plenty of people coming with problems voting or their sons in jail.”

Sharpton said tours are planned of swing states starting in July to bring out black voters and push Democrats to take a tougher stand on social justice issues.

Jackson said the mid-term elections, which will determine hundreds of congressional seats and many governorships, are a “fight for America’s soul.”

If Democrats fail to address social concerns, Sharpton said he has not ruled out a run for president in 2008.

A spokesman for evangelical conservatives accused Sharpton of stereotyping Christian conservatives, many of whom agree with black churchgoers on key issues.

“Let’s not play off each other in ways that are based on stereotypes,” said the Rev. Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals, which includes many conservative churches.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee said Democrats are not taking black voters for granted. The committee has been hiring black organizers, meeting with black leaders and speaking out on issues that concern black voters, she said.

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Dems, GOPers, and blacks II (townhall.com, 060706)

By Thomas Sowell

Should blacks vote for Democrats or Republicans? Since blacks are not all the same, any more than whites are, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Yet the black vote is more overwhelmingly tied to the Democrats than that of any other group.

Most blacks are working people and taxpayers, who are not benefiting from the welfare state programs of the Democrats or from affirmative action. Many live in places where they are more likely than whites to become victims of the violent criminals that liberal judges turn loose and liberal governors pardon.

Blacks are also more likely to gain from vouchers that would enable them to pull their children out of failing public schools and give them a chance to get a decent education in a safer environment. Democrats cannot give them that because of the enormous influence of the teachers’ unions within the Democratic party. Since the teachers’ unions contribute millions of dollars to the Democrats, only Republicans are free to support vouchers.

Violent crime is another social problem that hits blacks especially hard. In some years, there are more blacks than whites murdered in absolute numbers. However, even in high-crime neighborhoods, most people are not criminals, but are more likely to be victims of crime. That is especially true of black ghettos. In some of these neighborhoods, the probability that a young black man will be killed is greater than the probability that an American soldier would be killed in World War II.

What do the Democrats have to offer? Aside from liberal judges who are forever finding flimsy excuses for turning criminals loose, the Democrats offer “crime prevention” programs that prevent nothing, except for preventing the criminal from being put behind bars. Nothing has a proven track record of preventing crime like locking up criminals. But liberal Democrats are forever seeking “alternatives to incarceration.”

Perhaps the most dangerous dogma of the Democrats is so-called “gun control.” Gun control laws do not actually control guns. Anyone who lives in a high-crime area knows that criminals have access to all the guns they want. Gun control laws simply prevent their intended victims from being able to defend themselves.

Incidentally, most uses of guns in self-defense do not even involve pulling the trigger. Once you pull a gun on someone who is threatening to assault you, he is likely to have a very sudden change of plans and head elsewhere. In communities where most people are known to have guns in their homes, burglaries are rare and violent crime rates are low. Guns deter as well as defend.

A study by John Lott of Yale showed that it is crimes against blacks and women which fall sharpest where law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed weapons. Yet blacks and women usually vote for Democrats, who want to keep them unarmed.

Guns are, in a sense, the last line of defense against crime and violence. Moral values stop most people, long before they reach the point where they are about to commit a crime. Yet our public schools have been on a crusade against moral values for decades. Programs undermining moral values used to be called “values clarification” — until parents began to understand what that really meant. Then the name was changed.

The same approach, however, pervades all sorts of other social engineering programs under different names — programs claiming to be about “drug prevention” or “decision-making” or some other innocuous-sounding name. The idea is that each child should make up his own morality. A more stupid or more dangerous idea could not have taken root anywhere but in a school of education.

Why does this go on? Because the teachers’ unions want it to go on — and because the Democrats are in no position to challenge the teachers’ unions. Republicans don’t challenge them as much as they should. But any challenge at all from politicians in office are likely to be Republican challenges.

For the majority of blacks, Democrats have little to offer besides rhetoric on the things that matter most to them — their children’s education, their personal safety and their moral values. In all these key things, Democrats are not part of the solution, but part of the problem.

Republicans have an uphill fight to get their message across to blacks and they have not been doing a particularly good job of it. But they have more to offer than the Democrats, if they can ever manage to articulate better in the future than they have in the past.

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The niggardly use of racial epithets (Townhall.com, 060713)

By Mike S. Adams

Dear Ray:

I want you to know that I don’t get offended very often. But I am certainly offended by your recent letter telling me you are now “boycotting” my columns because I recommended a CD by David Allan Coe. The column you are referring to, “Circuit Cuidad,” was, ironically, a spoof on minority boycotts. Plenty of people misunderstood the column—perhaps none as thoroughly as you.

In today’s column I want to take some time to address your silly assertion that David Allan Coe’s use of the n-word—in more than one of his songs—means that both a) Coe is a racist and b) I am a racist for recommending his music. The former assertion isn’t important to me apart from its relationship to the latter assertion.

Before I explain why I don’t condemn others for the use of the n-word, let me explain why I do not use that word myself. There have actually been three different reasons for my avoidance of the n-word over the course of my lifetime.

My first reason for avoiding the use of the n-word was that when I was a child my mother would have punished me for using the word. Before I was able to understand what the word meant, that was a good enough reason. When I finally moved out of the house at age 20, it ceased to be a sufficient justification.

Later on, I decided that the use of the n-word was wrong because it was simply racist. But that justification for avoiding the word also eventually fell by the wayside when I realized that racism could be expressed in a number of different ways without the use of the n-word. A couple of incidents relating to a high school friend of mine named James Bluford are illustrative.

James’ father was the first black astronaut to fly a mission into space for NASA. He flew his historic mission in 1983, the year James and I graduated from Clear Lake High School. Unfortunately, when it became known that James’ father would be the first black man in space some idiotic classmates started to make racially insensitive jokes. Some said that James’ dad would be the first “coon to the moon.” Others said mission control would shout “the jig is up!” shortly after liftoff.

But, interestingly, I only heard the n-word used once in James’ presence during the course of our five-year friendship. That was done accidentally by a mutual friend of ours. James laughed at him when he did it and our friend must have apologized 100 times that evening. But no one with an IQ above room temperature would argue that his use of the n-word approached the mean-spiritedness of those racially insensitive remarks about James’ father. Those remarks were made on purpose and always outside the presence of my friend James.

So the point—just in case you missed it, Ray—is this: There are a million different words someone can use to express racial hatred. No single litmus test can effectively weed the racists from your midst.

And, so, eventually, I arrived at my third, and final, justification for avoiding the n-word; namely, that using the n-word damages a person’s credibility and makes him look like an uneducated fool. And, all things being equal, I’d rather come across as educated so people will take me seriously.

But enough about the way I monitor my own language. I have a few things to say about your suggestion that I should monitor the language of others. Specifically, I think your view is flawed for two reasons.

First of all, your view is simply unworkable. Censors like you are never satisfied by an initial goal—in this case monitoring the n-word. Pretty soon, you’ll be asking me to monitor and condemn those who use words that sound like racial epithets. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider an incident at one of our local middle schools.

When a school teacher used the word “niggardly” in a Wilmington, North Carolina, classroom a few years ago, she was accused of racism by people who didn’t even know the meaning of the word “niggardly”—or the meaning of the word “racism,” for that matter. Even a UNCW political science professor said she was being racially insensitive for using a word that sounded like an epithet.

Consider the logical implications of this for a moment. Must I refrain from talking about beer so I do not offend a queer? Must I refrain from talking about a stag so I do not offend a fag? Must I keep silent about my trigger because it might offend a—Ray, I hope you’re getting my point by now.

But the other—and more serious—reason that your view is wrong is that it is actually racist. I hear young black males (I never seem to hear it from black females) using the n-word almost every day on my campus. You have not suggested that I should condemn them for using the n-word. You want me to condemn David Allan Coe simply because he is white.

In other words, Ray, you want me to hold white people to a higher standard than black people. That is the view my university takes on a number of issues – including the admission of blacks, the hiring of blacks, and the tenure and promotion of blacks. It is simply a racist view. And, needless to say, I’ll have nothing to do with that kind of racism.

But I have another thing to say before I sign off, Ray. I want you to be a little more niggardly in your use of these boycotts. That was the whole point of the original article before racism once again took us off topic.

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Returning to the party of Lincoln (townhall.com, 060731)

By Star Parker

A strange thing about President Bush’s recent address to the NAACP annual meeting was the lack of pretense that this was anything but a partisan affair.

Referring to NAACP president Bruce Gordon, Bush said, “I don’t expect Bruce to become a Republican _ and neither do you.”

The president, later in his remarks, added, “I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historic ties with the African American community. For too long my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party.”

This causes me to ask two questions. First, if the president felt that he was effectively addressing the black national chapter of the Democratic Party, what was he trying to accomplish? Second, is it really accurate to say that the Republican Party “let go of its historic ties with the African American community?”

On the second point, with due respect to our president, I think it is the African-American community that has let go of its historic ties to the party of Lincoln.

When I think of Lincoln I think of emancipation. That bold stroke of the pen finally did what this nation was struggling to do for a hundred years _ liberate its black slaves.

Lincoln believed in freedom _ freedom for all.

The agenda of the Republican Party of recent years, an agenda fought tooth and nail by the Democratic Party and by the NAACP, has been an agenda of emancipation.

Let parents choose where to send their child to school. Emancipate them from the tyranny of a public school monopoly. Let working Americans take ownership of their social security contributions and build equity in their own retirement savings accounts. Emancipate American workers from the tyranny of the payroll tax and government-controlled retirement.

Lincoln took two great lies head on when he emancipated the slaves. The lie that one man should or could control another’s life. And the lie that the African slaves could not be free.

It is the greatest of ironies that both these great lies animate the opposition of the Democratic Party _ and the NAACP _ to emancipating reforms like school choice and private retirement accounts. They believe that government and politicians should control the education choice of private citizens and should control savings and retirement funds of poor people. And they don’t believe that African-Americans can be free and take care of themselves.

So what was President Bush trying to accomplish with his address to the NAACP?

Maybe he thought that he could plant the seeds of change by showing up, being civil and cordial, and slipping in a few remarks about choice and ownership.

But, realistically, it was a waste of time. For the NAACP leadership, Bush’s gesture was a sign that he might be ready to accommodate them, rather than vice versa. More money, more programs, more statements giving credibility to racism as the cause of poverty.

What will it take to get African-Americans back to the agenda of Lincoln and a belief in freedom and in themselves?

For one thing, understand that much of the NAACP’s power and influence results not because it monolithically represents black America, but because so much of white America thinks it does. As columnist George Curry points out, the NAACP has been exaggerating its membership for years. According to Curry, there are less than 300,000 dues-paying members of the NAACP. That’s out of a population of 38 million African Americans, 13 million of which voted in the last election.

Millions of dollars of corporate funds go to support the NAACP each year, both as result of intimidation and the mistaken belief that the NAACP is the single national organization representing black interests. The result is that corporate America plays a major role in financing the NAACP’s ongoing campaign to keep blacks as Democrats (despite campaign finance reforms that supposedly prohibit this) and on the government plantation.

Note that President Bush’s address to the NAACP didn’t touch on social issues, such as preservation of traditional marriage, which are of enormous importance to black Christians nationwide. He knows that the NAACP is a regular plaintiff in lawsuits trying to overturn traditional marriage.

Nor did he talk about the enormous success of welfare reform, 10 years old this year, which liberated millions of young black women and their children from welfare dependence. Black liberals uniformly opposed this reform, claiming then, as they do today, that young black women could not be freed from government dependence and take care of themselves.

Lincoln sought the advice of black abolitionist Frederick Douglass on getting the word of emancipation to the slaves in the south. Today’s Frederick Douglasses, those many conservative black voices around the country who believe in black freedom and dignity, must be the vehicles for change today.

It certainly won’t be the NAACP.

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Standing At the Crossroads—Black America Speaks (Townhall.com, 060911)

By Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

America stands at a crossroads in terms of thought and political ideology. This is the moment in which the conservative movement can win many converts from the black community. In order to accomplish this, conservatives must understand the real concerns of the average African American. Let me explain how I arrived at this conclusion.

Six months before the last presidential election I finished writing a book entitled High Impact African-American Churches with noted researcher Dr. George Barna. As we compiled our research, I met an enormous number of African-American pastors who thought like conservatives, not liberals. Unfortunately in most cases, their voting records did not line up with their values. This new breed of black leaders were out-of-the-box, entrepreneurial thinkers who were very serious about changing the face of their community in practical, tangible ways. Further, they were not locked into supporting the Democratic Party. These new black church leaders still preach the old-fashioned, cornbread-and-beans encouraging messages so famous in the black community, yet they do their research and their business planning with a laptop. This group was savvy enough to know that tax-and-spend policies directed at the poor have helped break down the black family structure.

U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson (L) meets with Karnit Goldwasser (C), the wife of Israeli soldier Ehud Goldwasser who was abducted by Hizbollah, and Shlomo Goldwasser, Ehud’s father, at Tel Aviv’s airport August 30, 2006. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen (ISRAEL)

Our research also told us that the white church in America is still grappling over the role of the Church in politics. Conversely, black church membership wants their religious leaders to speak out on social issues. As a result, the biblical views of the majority of blacks have been shaped by ministers such as Jackson, Sharpton, and others. To date, many outstanding black conservative voices have spoken from an academic, journalistic, or business sphere of influence. The conservative message needs to reach and transform black clergy who have a legitimate base of authority in the local community.

During the last election cycle, I began to talk in both secular and church circles about the “new black church” and the need to change its paradigms and make some major changes in how it affected its world. I often illustrated the black dependency upon the Democratic Party in terms of someone caught in an adulterous relationship. Although the democrats said that they loved us, really they were only in the relationship in order to get what they could from us.

I decided to make a difference by calling on black Christians to vote for George Bush because his morality, governing approach, and conservative values most aligned with theirs. The major roadblock black pastors faced in changing their voting patterns was the concern that the Republican Party could not be trusted to actually produce the compassionate conservatism that President Bush had articulated.

The large number of blacks who crossed the color line of the Democratic Party and voted for President Bush showed that dramatic changes were happening. . Many people believe that values-voters won the election for him. This trend can continue if conservative principles are presented in terms of clear economic and social values. I am specifically encouraging you to think about prioritizing policy changes in the following six areas:

1. Marriage Protection

2. Wealth Creation

3. Education Reform

4. African Relief

5. Prison Reform

6. Health Care

These six points are the basis of what I have dubbed The Black Contract With America on Moral Values. I’m seeking one million signatures before the next presidential election. The blacks and whites say that we can make a difference by bringing practical solutions to these challenging areas. The next few months my articles will zero in on each of these areas in depth. In addition, it will be important for you to know I’ve done two other things:

1. We’ve founded The High Impact Leadership Coalition which is attempting to facilitate minority leaders and church members stand for many national, conservative issues.

2. We’ve just begun a national radio program called The Truth in Black and White heard on approximately 500 radio stations.

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Black Colleges Struggle to Keep Students (Christian Post, 060927)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - When Jessica Page visited Hampton University in March, she considered the trip a formality. She had already made up her mind to attend the school, considered by many a jewel among the nation’s historically black institutions. Then she saw the campus.

The dorms weren’t as sleek as she had pictured. Buildings seemed antiquated. Was this “The Real HU” she had heard about?

“I wasn’t impressed,” said Page, who later enrolled at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. “Hampton was my No. 1 choice — until I visited.”

Page is part of a steady trickle of talented young blacks slipping away from the nation’s most prestigious black colleges.

Experts say aging campuses are one reason. But other reasons cited include increasing competition from predominantly white schools that are trying to become more diverse; changes in black students’ desires; and the greater opportunities available to them in a society more integrated than that of their parents.

The exodus has left some black schools struggling to market themselves to youngsters who do not feel as duty-bound to attend black colleges as their parents did.

“The issue for black colleges is not, in my view, that there are not enough students to go around,” said Michael Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund. Instead, “students have a lot more choices and those students are being careful and more selective than ever before.”

There are 103 historically black colleges and universities across the nation. Clustered mostly in the South, they were largely funded during the Reconstruction by wealthy whites as an alternative to universities that had shut out blacks.

For generations, these schools were valued by blacks for their unique campus traditions, their family-like environment and their skill at grooming the nation’s black intellectual elite.

But the attraction appears to be waning.

Total U.S. college enrollment of black men and women ages 18 to 24 has increased from 15% in 1970 to roughly 25% in 2003. The number of black students enrolling in historically black schools has slowly increased, too, from 190,305 in 1976 to more than 230,000 in 2001.

But the percentage of black college students choosing a black school has been slipping, from 18.4% in 1976 to 12.9% in 2001, according to the U.S. Education Department’s most recent figures.

Twenty-six of 87 black schools profiled by the department recorded enrollment declines between 1995 and 2004.

Alabama’s Talladega College topped the list, losing nearly 54% of its students. The University of the District of Columbia, which boasted 9,663 students in 1995, had 5,168 in 2004. More troubling to some, enrollment was down at black powerhouses like Fisk and Tuskegee during the same period. (As for some other elite black schools, enrollment was flat at Morehouse between 1995 and 2004, and was up 11.5% at Spelman.)

Experts say one explanation is that predominantly white — and often elite — colleges and universities have been working hard to attract and keep black students.

At Virginia, for instance, incoming black students are paired with black upperclassmen who can give them guidance. Last year, the school expanded a financial aid program. And when black students enroll, they are presented a stole of bright African cloth in a ceremony called the “Donning of the Kente.”

Valerie Gregory, director of outreach at the Charlottesville school and a Hampton graduate, said she is seeing more students like her daughter — independent-minded black youths who don’t feel as if they must be surrounded by other blacks.

“Students are more apt to want to be in an integrated environment and now aren’t as shy to look and see if there’s a possibility,” said Gregory, whose high schooler is weighing mostly white James Madison University in the Shenandoah Valley against Spelman.

Black colleges are trying new strategies, including stepping up marketing and working to improve in certain academic areas. The United Negro College Fund is encouraging schools to take recruitment beyond bordering states and into territory like the Midwest.

Kassie Freeman, a dean at Maine’s Bowdoin College and author of the book “African Americans and College Choice,” said black schools have been focusing too much on mining black high schools for freshmen.

She said those students are typically ready for a more diverse environment. But many students who are attending predominantly white high schools “would much rather go to an environment where they can find their roots.”

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Corrupt black leadership and culture of failure impede black progress (townhall.com, 061002)

By La Shawn Barber

On May 17, 2004, during the NAACP’s 50th anniversary celebration of Brown v. Board of Education — the 1954 Supreme Court case that ended government-mandated racial segregation in public schools — featured speaker Bill Cosby surprised the audience of limousine liberals.

Instead of a canned speech about the benefits of Brown and how far blacks had come since segregation, he led with a righteously indignant censure about wasted opportunities in the post-civil rights movement era, including criminality, illegitimacy, drug abuse and other pathologies that have eroded poor black communities.

This is what’s known in the vernacular as airing dirty laundry.

National Public Radio senior correspondent and FOX News political analyst Juan Williams has committed the same sin in his new book, Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It. Williams exhorts so-called black leaders to return to the days when leadership had meaning and purpose beyond corporate shakedowns, scandals, and outdated rants about the sins of white people.

Influenced by Cosby’s resounding and still-reverberating speech, Williams argues that poor blacks are not holding up their end of the Brown deal. With the enormous changes effected through civil rights legislation, blacks today have opportunities those who came before them couldn’t even imagine. Poor blacks aren’t poor because of white racism; they are caught up in a culture of failure, and the current crop of black leaders helps perpetuate the cycle.

Black leaders must stop painting blacks as powerless victims, says Williams, and use their energy and resources to help poor blacks equip themselves to compete in a global economy, which has little regard for historical (and outdated) racial grievances. Today’s leaders “misinform, mismanage and miseducate by refusing to articulate established truths about what it takes to get ahead: strong families, education and hard work.”

In a fluid prose style, Williams provides a panoramic view of post-slavery black leadership, which emphasized high moral character, hard work and self-sacrifice, revealing a sharp dividing line between leaders like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, and corrupt post-civil rights “leaders” Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and big-city mayors like Marion Barry.

Blacks did not make enormous gains during their struggle for full citizenship and equal justice by playing put-upon victims. They made those gains by harnessing the power to control their own destinies. Williams writes:

“A streak of self-determination rises at every turn in the history of black American leadership. But since the stunning success of the modern civil rights movement … the strong focus on self-determination has faded, at the moment when its impact could have been the most powerful. In its place is a tired rant by civil rights leaders about the power of white people.”

Swaying — let alone straying — from the party line seems to be the only taboo left in black America. High crime and out-of-wedlock birth rates were accepted as normal long ago. Williams breaks through the taboo and offers common sense advice and solutions.

I’ll dub one solution the “avoid-poverty” formula, echoing Williams’s sentiments: Graduate from high school, get and keep a job before marrying, get married, and don’t have babies until after you’re 21 and married. Williams notes the poverty rate for the black man or woman who follows this formula is 6.4%, compared to the current black poverty rate of 21.5%.

But the avoid-poverty formula sounds too simple for some. It’s also devoid of whites-as-oppressors language. Simple solutions that have served black Americans well, including the courage to face hardships, the dignity to withstand insult and persist despite obstacles, and a commitment to sacrifice for the next generation are of little interest to black leaders focused on white guilt, “oppression,” and dollar signs.

Williams quotes Booker T. Washington, a former slave who knew all about oppression and had actual grievances against white America: “We should not permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.”

That is the vital yet simple message of Enough.

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Republican ideals, Black illusions (Townhall.com, 061106)

By Star Parker

Recent polls done by AP/Ipsos Public Affairs/AOL do not paint a pretty picture regarding the current disposition of black voters toward the state of the country and toward the Republican Party.

Fifteen percent of blacks, as compared with 29% of the general population, say that the country is on the right tract. Eighty-one percent of blacks, and 66% of the general population, say we’re on the wrong track.

When it comes to President Bush, only 12% of blacks approves of the job he is doing, versus 37% of the overall population, and 86%, versus 60% of the general population, disapproves.

Congress, in contrast, gets 17% approval and 79% disapproval from blacks, compared to 25% approval and 52% disapproval from the general population.

The intensity of black negativity makes the overall dour mood of the general voting population look almost sunny.

Thin support for Republicans among blacks is hardly news. But it appeared in the presidential election in 2004 that Republicans were making inroads with black voters. Support for President Bush had jumped four percentage points over the 2000 election and other polls were showing increasing identification by blacks with the Republican Party.

It looks like gains that may have been made by Republicans with blacks have been lost. So is a Republican big tent that includes blacks a pipedream? Certainly not. But more on this later.

Two major themes driving attitudes are the economy and the war in Iraq.

Regarding the former, prevailing negativism, among blacks and among the general population, is anomalous.

By every measure _growth, productivity, interest rates, inflation, unemployment, the stock market _today’s economy is terrific. Yet poll after poll, by margins as large as 20%, show preferences for Democrats to be running the economy.

Vice President Cheney, in an interview with Cal Thomas, after noting the undeniably outstanding economic statistics, asked “How much better do we have to make it before people say, ‘Yes, that’s pretty good?’ “

In a recent survey done by the Pew Research Center, 53% of whites said they are in good to excellent shape financially, while only 30% of blacks felt this way.

Who can possibly question the daily challenges of making a living, and that, on average, blacks continue to lag behind. However, the relevant political issue is getting a realistic perspective on what the government can do to improve anyone’s personal economic reality.

Too many blacks still don’t get the fact that the only thing government can do for them is get out of the way so that they can take care of themselves. This means government needs to keep taxes, inflation and interest rates low. Politicians can steal what you have, but they certainly can’t create wealth for anyone.

By these measures _ low taxes, inflation and interest rates _ things could hardly be better.

Democratic palliatives like the minimum wage, redistribution schemes and social engineering schemes are sad illusions that far too many blacks still buy into. If these things actually worked, blacks wouldn’t be in the state they are in today.

The extent to which blacks do indeed still buy into this stuff, and clearly they do, simply tells us the extent to which they are still dreaming rather than working.

The bad news we’re getting every day about the war in Iraq is also contributing significantly to the bad mood in the country. And, again, this is more pronounced among blacks.

The AP/Ipsos/AOL polls show that 82% of blacks, compared to 58% of the overall population, say that going to war in Iraq was a mistake.

According to the Pew Research Center, even one in four moderate Democrats feel that the war in Iraq was the right move. So why do blacks poll on the farthest left fringe of the Democratic Party on this issue?

I’m afraid that it’s not because of some special insight on how better to contend with the very real threats to us from terrorists and Islamic extremists. Unfortunately, I think a lot of it is driven by the same distorted ideas about government that are so persistent in black attitudes. The issue isn’t so much about how we’re spending our defense dollars, but that we should redirect that government spending into domestic social programs (which don’t work).

Loss of ground that Republicans may have experienced this year with blacks reflects more deficiencies in getting the message of limited government into this community and not that the message is any less relevant.

Black progress still hinges on education, and this means school choice, on ownership, and on re-building black families, which means traditional values.

This is a Republican agenda. It’s clear that this party has a lot of work to do in the black community.

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Can A Black Man Be A Successful Republican? (Townhall.com, 061106)

By Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

The Maryland race for the U.S. Senate will once and for all answer the question: Can a black man really be a successful Republican? If elected, Michael Steele will continue to be one of the highest ranking, elected African Americans in government today. His next stop after the Senate may be vice-president. Although this may sound like lofty rhetoric, Steele’s credentials, credibility, and charisma speak of greatness. His personal candidacy is important but it may have consequences far beyond the borders of Maryland.

With mid-term elections only days away, many races will be decided by a small number of votes. Therefore, both parties have attempted to figure out who they can count on and drive to the polls. Surprisingly, political pundits cannot absolutely predict which way disgruntled black voters will swing.

I am not suggesting that the majority of blacks will vote for Republican candidates. Quite the contrary, most blacks will vote for Democrats. A recent AP-AOL poll reveals that 83% of likely black voters disapprove of the way the Republican-led Congress is doing its job, (compared with 75% of all likely voters). Additionally, 38% of blacks surveyed believe that they will not be treated fairly in any future national catastrophe like Katrina.

A handful of free thinking blacks, however, in key states may determine whether Republicans retain control of the Senate. This is not only true of Maryland but also of Virginia and Tennessee. In each of these states, there are black candidates and/or racial issues which have dominated the news in recent weeks.

Michael Steele is on the verge of pulling off a historic victory in Maryland, but it’s not a slam dunk. He needs his white, Republican supporters to show up in unprecedented numbers. Three distinct groups have to agree that Steele is the best choice for Maryland: the Republican base; the black Democratic protest vote; and religiously-oriented, values voters.

Steele is a human signpost who suggests that times are changing. The African-American community is redefining herself. The old monikers of “liberal” and “conservative” no longer fully describe our community’s values or preferred public policy. He has somehow mastered the ability to be fully black, politically conservative, and compassionately committed to solving problems.

The first question that the average person asks about a black Republican is whether he can appeal to black voters. In Steele’s case the answer is “absolutely!” Just this week, six key black Democratic leaders in Prince George’s County crossed party lines to endorse Steele. The most notable person in this coalition is Wayne K. Curry, former Prince George’s County Executive. In addition to Curry, five other county council members used this endorsement as a protest against the dearth of qualified, state-wide Democratic candidates. Since Prince George’s County is the richest predominately black county in the nation, we may be observing a new phenomenon.

The second group that Steele has had to reach out to is the evangelical Christian church. He has developed an amazing coalition of supporters from divergent denominational beliefs because of his pro-life, pro-family, and anti-embryonic stem cell stances.

Steele articulated his beliefs in a powerfully winsome manner Sunday October 28, during a debate with Ben Cardin (his opponent) on Tim Russert’s “Meet the Press.” In addition to speaking about the so-called wedge issues with courage and conviction, Steele set forth a credible plan for improving our efforts in Iraq. Without distancing himself from the President, he spoke about the war in a way that made sense to both blacks and people of faith. He especially emphasized the need for the Iraqi people to stand up for their nation without turning it into a terrorist breeding ground.

Steele’s final hurdle is whether he will be supported by suburban and rural white conservatives. Blacks think that the Republican Party is famous for abandoning people of color at critical moments. The most recent poster child for this phenomenon is Keith Butler of Michigan. Despite a massive war chest of 50% more money than his opponent in this year’s senatorial primaries, he could not bridge the race gap within his own party. Teamed with Butler’s loss, if Steele were to lose this year it will be harder for the Republican Party to recruit both African American candidates and members in the future.

In conclusion, I am calling on people of goodwill to come together to change America by coming out and voting for candidates with conservative values. In Michael Steele’s case, his next stop is the senate, but the last stop maybe the White House.

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Black Power: The New Conservative Stronghold (townhall.com, 061121)

By Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

Black conservatives come in many sizes, shapes, and party affiliations. The next two years are a perfect time for wise conservatives to build bridges with the leaders of the “new black church”. These church leaders are classical social conservatives. They believe that government programs alone cannot stop crime, poverty, or poor schools. The new black church is not waiting for a handout. They are promoting immediate change through wiser, biblically-informed choices and personal accountability.

They are using a new brand of black power to transform the nation. These men and women all believe that they can change America because of their faith in personal transformation (through religious conversion) and community transformation (through education and economic development). White conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, must learn new methods to advance their agenda; if they are going to protect America against a liberal deluge of poor policies and laws. The chief instrument in their tool kit will be bridge building and coalition formation.

Last week I was interviewed on a national religious program with three leaders of black super-mega churches. These men represent the new black church — power, passion, and promise. Their churches were all in excess of 14,000 members with the largest church having over 24,000 members. Each one has implemented a successful local plan that has transformed their respective communities. These church models can be replicated to help transform America.

The pastors were Dr. Floyd Flake of New York, Pastor James Meeks of Chicago, and Bishop Eddie Long of Atlanta. These men represent a “civil rights” revolution that is very compatible with the tenants of the conservative movement. Let me take a moment to introduce these pioneers and a few of their concepts to you.

Dr. Flake served 11 years as a U.S. Congressman from New York. During his years of service, he never forgot that he was called to serve his community’s needs. He never let partisan party rhetoric obscure his vision of a faith-based approach to transforming his community. On many important issues he stood with Republicans to the chagrin of his Democratic party members. Over the years he and his church helped to build 600 homes in Queens, New York. This area is now one of America’s most affluent neighborhoods, instead of the ghetto it was in the 1980’s. Today, he is the President of Wilberforce University in addition to his responsibilities as Senior Pastor of Allen Temple Church.

Pastor James Meeks of Salem Baptist Church in Chicago talked on the program about taking 300 hundred church members to a drug-infested neighborhood and singling out one crack house to pray over. These bold spiritual warriors stood on the street and stretched their hands out and prayed that the crack house would close and the leader would be converted. A few years later, a man came up to Pastor Meeks at a church service and identified himself as the owner of the former crack house. He had been converted and is a member the church Bishop Eddie Long pastors, one of America’s top five churches in terms of size. Bishop Long has encouraged business development among his members, home ownership, and trained people to be good stewards of their personal income and their families. I visited his church a few months ago for an in-house men’s ministry event. To my surprise his “men’s fellowship” had about 3,000 men sitting in the sanctuary on a Saturday morning listening to messages designed to strengthen their roles as fathers and husbands.

These kinds of churches can change the landscape of American politics and help both parties come back to the moral center. For more information about these ministries, check out their websites.

These outstanding church leaders are not alone in the positive contribution they are making to the nation. There are thousands of black-led churches with millions of members who want to make dramatic improvements is our nation. They have rejected the rhetoric of Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, but they do not yet feel welcomed into the conservative movement’s ranks. The images which David Kuo sets forth in Tempting Faith articulate their fears. Despite all the nay-sayers, bold black, entrepreneurial leaders are willing to give new coalitions a try.

The Steele campaign for the U.S. Senate is proof positive that these church leaders can be reached by an attractive candidate. His candidacy also showed that key black pastors have no problem standing against Democratic Party norms on clearly articulated moral policy issues. At the height of the campaign, pastors of 19,000, 11,000, and 5,000 member churches personally endorsed Michael Steele. In addition, these same leaders took to the air waves in a get-out-the-vote campaign that put their faces and voices on TV and radio in our region.

If you would like to encourage your minister to become involved or you would like to read more about these kinds of dynamic churches, I will send a free book, postage-paid, to the first 100 people that e-mail or call our offices to request “High Impact African American Churches” co-authored by myself and Dr. George Barna.

Let’s seize this moment to make new friends, form new alliances, and change America.

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A Christmas story — In the mall parking lot (townhall.com, 070104)

By Larry Elder (black)

“Black Man Walking,” read the headline of an article I just read in a local weekly newspaper.

The author lives in an affluent, predominately white area, and in the article he complained that when he goes for a walk, he notices whites crossing the street, presumably to avoid him. It happens so many times that the black guy, in order to “strike first,” walks across the street when he sees whites approaching. This way, he beats ‘em to the punch, let’s them know how it feels.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) New Orleans chapter Executive Board members Joseph Weadd, left, Eric Jackson, and Sterling Doucette, right, attend a news conference in New Orleans Tuesday afternoon Jan. 2, 2007. The news conference was called by the NAACP to comment on the arrest of seven New Orleans police officers on murder or attempted murder charges for the shooting at the Danzinger Bridge during the days right after Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

The writer made no mention of the disproportionate amount of crime committed by black men, a fact that undoubtedly plays into the minds of the “racist” whites who cross the street when they see him. Even Rev. Jesse Jackson once said, “I hate to admit it, but I have reached a stage in my life that if I am walking down a dark street late at night and I see that the person behind me is white, I subconsciously feel relieved.”

Nor did the writer seem to appreciate that now blacks can, in fact, move into exclusive, upscale, non-black areas. Take just one example. Singer Nat King Cole encountered racist resistance from neighbors when he became, in 1948, the first black to attempt to move into the elite, very affluent Hancock Park area in Los Angeles.

I told the author’s story to my brother, Kirk, while he and I were walking through a parking lot next to a suburban bookstore two days before Christmas. I scoffed at the writer’s “pain” by telling Kirk a recent story I experienced.

When driving to work a couple weeks ago, the convertible in front of me, with three young black men and a young black female driver, stopped for the red light at an intersection. But when the light changed to green, the convertible just sat there with the passengers yakking away. Not one of those who honks right away, I sat for a bit — from seven to 10 seconds — waiting for the driver to get going. Then I gently tapped my horn.

The three passengers immediately flipped me the bird, with the two in the backseat glowering at me as we moved forward. The staring continued until we stopped at the next red light, with the driver this time — presumably intentionally — sitting at the green light for several seconds before moving. The same thing happened at the next red light.

While I told this story to my brother, our pace slowed as we approached the bookstore. “Was I a victim,” I asked Kirk, “of being a black-man-driving-behind-a-convertible-full-of-black-people-who-flipped-me-off?”

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Black racism (townhall.com, 070122)

By Burt Prelutsky

Whenever I start thinking about all the damage that’s been done to America by the social engineering Socialists, I have to remind myself that some of my best friends are left-wingers. That doesn’t do much for my blood pressure, but at least it serves to remind me that they’re not all as self-righteous as George Soros, as fatuous as Michael Moore, as smarmy as Jimmy Carter, as shrill as Nancy Pelosi, as hypocritical as John Murtha, Ted Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, or as deceptive as Barack Obama, the fellow with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate who has managed to convince millions of people who should know better that he’s a card-carrying centrist.

I didn’t include Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton among the usual suspects because it’s probably not fair to even call these two cheap race hustlers Democrats. In truth, they’re nothing but a couple of con men who’d probably be peddling the Brooklyn Bridge to foreign tourists if this black leader gig hadn’t panned out so well.

The whole question of race is a dicey one. Pity the poor fool who wades into those troubled waters. Well, here goes. If a black person tells the truth — namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted — he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom. If a white person tells the truth — namely, that with a 70% illegitimacy rate, no amount of government hand-outs will do anything but provide the cancer victim with a very expensive band-aid — he’s condemned as a racist.

When blacks say they wish to have a dialogue with whites, it only means that they want a forum at which to bash whites, while their victims provide a Greek chorus of mea culpas, provide the coffee and Danish, and drop a little something in the collection plate on their way out.

There is such a thing as white prejudice. No doubt about it. But it has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with character, culture and values. What blacks refuse to acknowledge is that whites are intolerant of crime and the creeps who commit it, be they black thugs or white trash. The latter are those lowlifes who form Aryan gangs; tattoo themselves with skulls and swastikas; and produce, distribute and use methamphetamines. I don’t know a single white person who isn’t ashamed to be of the same race as these vicious cretins.

But if a person such as Bill Cosby says he’s ashamed of the promiscuity, drug use and illiteracy, that plague the black underclass, he’s called names. The real shame should be that millions of black kids are fatherless; that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud; that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets; whose language skills are embarrassingly abysmal; and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library.

Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate niggers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration.

Actually, what most whites are is cowardly. When we see black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are,” and we pretend that theirs is a different, but equally fine culture as our own, we’re no better than those enablers who give money to drug addicts or booze to alcoholics.

When we finally stop patronizing loafers, louts and criminals, stop encouraging people who were born 120 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 20 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, to pretend that their sloth and ignorance are the fault of whites, only then will blacks come one step closer to having that colorblind society they claim they want.

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Black History - Time to reflect as well as celebrate (townhall.com, 070205)

By Star Parker

Dr. Carter G. Woodson established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915. Woodson, a black scholar, wanted to bring the black man into the history of the United States.

Eleven years later, in 1926, he launched Negro History Week to raise awareness of the contributions of blacks. Carter picked February for Negro History Week because of the birthdays of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.

Scholars and philosophers have long examined the question of history, what it is and why we study it.

Probably the most widely quoted observation is that of philosopher George Santayana: “Those that do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

What are the lessons of the past that we might be thinking about today?

Black history has particular importance because of the unique black experience in America. That is, a history in which we began as slaves.

A slave has no history because he has no control over his life. Every day is the same. A slave’s past, present, and future is determined by someone else.

So black entry into American history might be understood as a chapter in the end of black oppression. It is a history of human beings, gaining responsibility for their own lives, and how they chose and choose to exercise that responsibility.

Black History Month is generally not a time for thought and introspection. It’s used more as a time to celebrate black achievement.

But I think it’s worthwhile to also sober up and take a serious look at things. Celebration is great, and there has been a lot of progress and achievement. But prodigious problems remain and we ought to try to understand so we can overcome.

If we understand oppression as interference in an individual’s ability to exercise control of and responsibility for their own life, then I see oppression defining three distinct chapters in black American history.

The first was slavery. The second Jim Crow. And the third, the growth and flourishing of the welfare state.

In the first two chapters, the oppression was initiated from the outside. In chapter three, the welfare state, blacks voluntarily relinquished control and turned responsibility of their own lives over to others.

We’re still in chapter three today, and blacks should be aware of it.

The path to freedom has two steps. First, removal of external barriers. Second, assumption of personal responsibility for one’s life.

Racial consciousness remains, of course, ubiquitous in America. Race sells, so the media relentlessly keeps it alive. And race means power, so politicians keep it alive.

But race is not a barrier for black achievement today.

The threat to the black present and the black future is the collapse of real values. The welfare state constituted and constitutes the mindset of materialism and the mindset that life is a social engineering problem. It’s this mindset that stands today between blacks and their own freedom.

I see articles celebrating the new black middle class. And, in fact, it is true that three quarters of black America are doing fine economically.

But, regardless of today’s incomes and the number of blacks owning their own homes and driving nice cars, what is the future of a community where family life is in such bad shape?

Only 29% of black households are headed by married couples. Seventy percent of black woman live with no spouse. Seventy percent of black children are born with no father present. Almost 300,000 black women each year destroy their own unborn children.

Many black women are doing well as professionals. I know many. And they live alone and have no children.

The collapse of black family life converges with the beginning of chapter three of black oppression: the widespread adoption of the idea that government plays a role in one’s personal life.

It concerns me that blacks still aren’t getting the message. The Democratic Party is celebrating its new power and interpreting their victory as a victory for old school liberal ideas about government power. And 90% of blacks vote for these folks.

Black history month is now just one celebration among many. Our calendars and our public spaces are increasingly filled with recognition of one group or another. Blacks, Hispanics, Women, Gays.

But time and space are limited. As we fill our time and places with these celebrations, pushed off the calendar and our public spaces are Christmas, in its true sense, and the Ten Commandments.

Maybe this Black History month we should be giving more thought to what really drives evil, what really makes us human and what really makes us free.

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French blacks: J’accuse racism (Washington Times, 070205)

PARIS — France’s comfortable image of itself as a colorblind society — already weakened by race riots in 2005 — received a further blow last week when a new survey found that a majority of French blacks believe they face discrimination in daily life.

Coinciding with a disturbing television documentary about living as a black person in France, the survey by the TNS-Sofres polling agency is the first of its kind and is galvanizing public debate just weeks before presidential election.

“This is going to change things,” predicted Patrick Lozes, president of the Representative Council of Black Associations, an advocacy group that commissioned the survey. “Until now, blacks have never been counted in this country. And I have always said that blacks who aren’t counted don’t count.”

There is no legal way to count France’s black population. Census-takers and other government statisticians are barred by law from compiling figures based on religion or race. But the poll, which appears lawful, suggests France’s cherished values of “egalite” and “fraternite” remain elusive goals for the nation’s estimated 5 million blacks.

Of the 13,000 blacks surveyed, 61% said they experienced at least one racist incident within the past year. More than one in 10 said they were frequently the target of racism that ranged from verbal aggression to difficulty finding housing or jobs.

“The findings don’t surprise me at all,” said Mouloud Aounit, president of the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples, an anti-discrimination group. “Racism exists in our daily life. Look at the Senate, the National Assembly, regional councils. Ethnic representation is totally absent.”

“Racism isn’t daily, but I face it from time to time,” agreed security guard Jacques Bassong, 36, who moved to France from his native Cameroon in 1979. “A little bit at work, at government offices, even in the stores. Some French are more racist than others, but on average, it’s bearable.”

Until now, much of the hand-wringing about minorities has focused on France’s estimated 5 million ethnic Arabs.

The seething anger among young “beurs,” French-born children of North African immigrants, grabbed the spotlight in the fall of 2005, when riots spread across France. But it was the accidental deaths of two black African teenagers, reportedly while fleeing police, which sparked the violence in the first place.

Today, only 10 of 577 National Assembly members are black, and all were elected from overseas territories. Blacks remain similarly underrepresented in the private sector, being less likely than whites to find jobs and to be promoted when they do.

Last week, France’s Canal+ channel aired a two-part documentary, “In the Skin of a Black,” a local spin on the U.S. reality series “Black. White,” which aired early last year on the FX cable-TV network.

The French program tracked a series of small and large humiliations faced by members of a white French family that, using heavy makeup, had swapped places with a black family.

“It’s important to show to our society what it doesn’t see or know,” said Mr. Lozes, who wants the government to adopt affirmative-action policies.

French politicians stumping in this year’s presidential and legislative races are beginning to grasp the potential power of the minority vote, particularly since a voter-registration drive has been stunningly successful in many low-income areas where minorities live.

Even Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose far-right National Front party opposes most immigration, is reaching out with a poster featuring a black woman making the thumbs-down sign and the slogan: “Left-Right — They’ve broken everything.”

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Ignoring black milestones paralyzes progress (townhall.com, 070207)

By Michael Medved

Could the Super Bowl mark a welcome turning point in our national obsession with black victimization?

For several years, African-Americans have comprised a substantial majority of all players in the nation’s most celebrated sporting event, and this year, for the first time, both head coaches (Tony Dungy of the champion Indianapolis Colts and Lovie Smith of the runner-up Chicago Bears) also took pride in their black identity.

A few weeks later, another audience of billions will tune in to another landmark of popular culture. At the Academy Awards ceremony, black actors and actresses will almost certainly dominate: Forest Whitaker is a sure-thing Best Actor winner for “The Last King of Scotland,” and Jennifer Hudson counts as equally certain to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “Dreamgirls.” Meanwhile, Eddie Murphy counts as the heavy favorite for Best Supporting Actor for “Dreamgirls” — giving African-Americans 75% of the available acting trophies.

These upcoming awards reflect the overall dominance of prodigiously talented black performers in every arena of entertainment. Amazingly enough, the top movie box office draw (Will Smith, whose lovingly-crafted, uplifting film “The Pursuit of Happyness” earned a jaw-dropping $150 million) and the most popular TV personality (the ubiquitous, universally admired Oprah Winfrey) both boast deep roots in the African American community.

In all forms of mass entertainment, black people have achieved disproportionate prominence and success. No other readily identifiable ethnic group or minority community (not Latinos, Asians, Jews, Irish, Italians, gays, you name it) commands anything like the popularity and adulation of black super-stars— even in previously all-white endeavors like golf and tennis.

Despite the widespread conviction that our country remains incurably racist and hostile in its attitudes toward African-Americans, ordinary people have voted with their available funds: spending countless billions to embrace black music, dance, comedy, talk shows, drama, athletic excellence, and even comic book heroes.

To top off this “black moment” in our history, a charismatic but little known Illinois politician emerged after just two years in the U.S. Senate as one of the genuine Presidential front-runners for 2008 not in spite of his African-American identity, but because of it. Whether or not Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination or the White House, his unprecedented, dazzlingly rapid rise provides one more bit of evidence that ancient biases and limitations and hatreds have begun to break down and even disappear.

The signs of reduced levels of racism have become so powerful and unmistakable, in fact, that the refusal to acknowledge this breathtaking decline in bigotry may soon comprise a greater threat to the black community than racism itself.

A new study by researchers for the “Black Youth Project” at the University of Chicago (in Barack Obama’s home town) shows disturbing levels of defeatism, paranoia and self-pity among 15 to 25 year olds.

This survey of 1,590 young people revealed that

? 48% of blacks believe “the government treats immigrants better than it does blacks”

? 68% agree with the statement that “the government would do more to find a cure for AIDS if more whites were infected” – ignoring the fact that white homosexuals do, in fact, already represent the largest group of AIDS victims in the U.S.

? 61% of blacks say it is “hard for black people to get ahead because of discrimination”

? Only 49% of blacks say that “they were rarely or never discriminated against because of their race,” compared to 83% of whites and even 68% of Hispanics.

With the many gloomy respondents to this survey, it makes no sense to argue about whether or not their discouraging assumptions are true, but it’s entirely appropriate to ask whether they’re beneficial.

Even if the government really did discriminate (at a time when four new black committee chairs have taken power in Congress), even if bigotry made it “hard to get ahead,” it’s undeniably unhelpful to embrace and affirm such assumptions.

Academics have accumulated a veritable mountain of psychological evidence to prove that optimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Martin E.P. Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, former President of the American Psychological Association, proved in his 1990 book Learned Optimism that confidence of success can play as large a role in positive outcomes as talent or hard work. In business, politics, the arts, athletics, law, medicine and every other competitive field, belief in your own ability to prevail provides an essential element in achievement.

Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times reported on “new evidence that optimism may in some ways be self-fulfilling. In a recently published study, researchers in the Netherlands found that optimistic people – those who assented to statements like ‘I often feel that life is full of promise’ – tend to live longer than pessimists. Perhaps, it has been speculated, optimism confers a survival advantage by helping people cope with adversity.”

If self-confident optimists do indeed live longer, could persistent black fears of racism contribute to lower African-American life expectancy at least as much as (illegal) discriminatory treatment by doctors and hospitals?

On the most obvious, common-sense level, the assumption that you can’t possibly succeed at some challenge makes it far less likely that you’ll ever try. In this context, the endless emphasis on black victimhood – like the much-ballyhooed, just-passed resolution by the Virginia legislature apologizing for the crimes of slavery - may well do more harm than good to the cause of continued progress.

Rather than dwelling on the unspeakable cruelties of a painful past, why not celebrate the astonishing (and scarcely acknowledged) fact that African-Americans now comprise 11% of incoming college freshmen – just slightly below their 13% of the population?

Rather than bewailing the landslide passage of a 2006 Michigan initiative outlawing racial quotas and preferences, why not recognize that many citizens voted for it (including substantial segments of all minority communities) not because of racism, but because of their conclusion that racism had already dramatically declined?

Even if blacks sweep the Oscars as expected, even if Obama draws support across all racial lines in a march to the White House, some race hustlers in the Sharpton-Jackson mode will continue to insist that the white majority is every bit as obsessed with skin color as they are. After all, if these activists recognized the truth about the vastly greater acceptance, even affection, toward black people, it might hurt the guilt-and-grudge industry that pays their salaries.

But with epic milestones in the recent past and the immediate future, and in the mist of an especially fateful Black History Month, Americans of all races can only benefit from appropriate acknowledgment of stunning advances on the march to justice. Such recognition will prove more likely to produce further steps forward than to encourage complacency.

In life, as in popular culture, we can’t afford cynicism or complacency regarding the distance we’ve traveled. “Progress might have been all right once,” sighed wit and poet Ogden Nash, “but it has gone on too long.”

Appropriate levels of optimism and confidence will help to insure that it will go on even longer.

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Bookstore Ghettoes: Why should an author’s race matter? (National Review Online, 070510)

By Thomas Sowell

If Rachael Ray had been black, there are bookstores where her cookbook would not be displayed in the same section with all the other cookbooks. It would be displayed off in a special section for black authors.

This means that many people who were looking for cookbooks would not even see Rachael Ray’s cookbook, much less buy it.

This is not rocket science, but it seems to have escaped the notice of those publishers who supply racial information on their authors, thereby jeopardizing sales of their own books.

Some years back, I was looking for a particular book on child development and was surprised not to see it in the large section of child development books at a local bookstore.

When I asked a clerk to check and see if that book was available, she checked her computer and then said that there were copies in the store right now — in the section for black writers.

I had no idea what race the author of this child-development book was, and would have considered it irrelevant if I had known. But our schools and colleges have turned out millions of people steeped in the new sacred trinity of “race, class, and gender.”

I was reminded of all this recently when I noticed that my own latest book, A Man of Letters, had as its number one official classification “African-American Intellectuals.”

This book is no more about black intellectuals — I don’t even use the term “African American” — than the child development book was about race.

Fortunately, a local San Francisco Borders bookstore that I visited seems to have ignored that classification and had the book on the shelves for books on government and politics.

Actually, A Man of Letters is a collection of excerpts from letters I have sent and received since 1960, on topics ranging from education to economics, law, the media, third-world countries and — in a very few places — black intellectuals.

Since these letters also cover events in my own life, the book is probably best classified as autobiographical. But I was happy to see it on the bookstore shelves under “government and politics,” instead of being shunted off into a racial ghetto, where people looking for this kind of book are unlikely to go.

This is only one of many examples of how much this generation — especially the “educated” part of it — has let symbolism over-ride substance.

With just a moment’s thought, anyone whose IQ is not in single digits would see the absurdity of the idea of losing book sales for the sake of symbolism. But the real problem is that so many people today don’t stop and think when they are being swept along by some fashionable notion.

The notion of honoring black (“African American”) writers with a special section in bookstores is just one of innumerable fashionable symbolic notions that ignore consequences.

In other situations, the negative consequences of mindless symbolism can be far more serious.

For example, one of the letters in A Man of Letters is from my friend and fellow economist Walter Williams, mentioning that he learned of a teaching hospital near him which had an unwritten policy against giving a failing grade to any black medical student.

Similar policies are mentioned in other letters, to and from other people, about double standards for black medical students at other places, including the Harvard Medical School in the 1970s.

Apparently the symbolism of having more black medical students on display was allowed to over-ride consideration of the consequences of sending out into the world under-qualified doctors, at the risk of their patients’ lives.

It is not that these consequences are too complicated for the people who run medical schools to figure out. But nothing gets figured out if you don’t bother to stop and think about it.

One of the reasons people don’t bother to stop and think is that symbolism lets them feel good about themselves. They can go through life leaving havoc in their wake, while enjoying a warm glow of self-approval.

Lower book sales for black writers are one of the milder consequences.

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The mess in Jena (townhall.com, 070926)

By William F. Buckley

CNN devoted an entire hour to the chaos in Jena, La., and rendered a considerable service. We hear, running through it all, the voices of critical figures — the district attorney, the school principal and a school board member, the mothers of the defendants and of the victim, the outsiders. The temptation for this journalist was to seek to isolate words and events and watch the tensions rise, the ease with which despair made its way into the picture, creating a scene reproduced throughout the world.

Kyra Phillips, CNN anchor: “... nothing has been normal since the three nooses were hung from a school tree.”

Ms. Phillips continued in voiceover: “Jena, La., population about 3,000. It’s like so many small Southern towns. Jena is about 85% white, 13% black, and people here are, for the most part, civil to one another. Still, blacks and whites keep largely to themselves. Social life here is built on two enduring pillars, high school football and church on Sunday ...

“But civility and tolerance were splintered just over a year ago, on Aug. 31, 2006, when No. 33, Kenneth Purvis, a star junior fullback for the Jena Giants, asked if he and his friends could sit under this large oak tree on the high school grounds, a tree that Purvis and other black students believed was an unofficial gathering place reserved for white students only.”

Purvis and his friends asked for, and received, permission from a school official to sit under the tree. The next day, they received a very different message from some of their schoolmates.

PHILLIPS: So, you come to school the next day.

PURVIS: Yes, ma’am.

PHILLIPS: And what did you see?

PURVIS: There was three nooses hung up in the tree.

The nooses were taken down immediately and the three white students who had put them up were identified. The school principal, Scott Windham, wanted the three expelled, but the boys’ parents appealed to the school board, which accepted their plea that hanging the nooses was a prank, not a threat. Instead of being expelled, the students were suspended for just a few days. Many of Jena’s black residents were furious.

The school principal called an assembly of students and teachers and invited longtime district attorney Reed Walters to address the assembly. Several people who were present quoted Walters as saying, “See this pen in my hand? I can end your lives with the stroke of a pen.”

Anger seemed to be boiling up again, but as one female student put it, “Then we had our first real football game, and everybody just kind of forgot about it.”

The truce lasted throughout the football season. Then on Nov. 30, the main building at Jena High burned down, apparently at the hands of an arsonist — though it has still not been determined whether those hands were black or white.

A couple of days later, there was a fight in the parking lot of a convenience store in a black neighborhood. A white student at Jena High, Matt Windham, later told police he felt threatened by three black students. Windham ran to his pickup truck, where he had a shotgun; three black students wrestled it away from him.

As Ms. Phillips reported: “Jena’s small black community was watching to see what charges would be brought against the white student with the gun. But there were none. Instead, the three black students were the ones accused — among the charges, aggravated second-degree battery, assault, disturbing the peace and theft of the weapon. Nearly a year later, those cases have yet to go to trial.”

Then on Monday, Dec. 4, came the incident that led to Jena’s unwelcome notoriety. A group of black students badly beat a single white student, Justin Barker, sending him to the hospital unconscious. One witness told CNN: “He was making racial slurs, and they had enough of it. And they took action.” Another witness said, “A lot of the blacks, if not all, that was standing started kicking him and pushing him down. When he got knocked out, they still kicked him just as hard.”

One thanks the good Lord for the football games, and for the church services every Sunday.

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Jena Six — Another Story of Unequal Justice for Blacks? (townhall.com, 070927)

By Larry Elder [KH: a black reporter]

About the so-called Jena Six, reasonable people can disagree about whether or not prosecutors initially charged the Jena, La., defendants too harshly. The black teenage defendants stand accused of beating a white teenager unconscious.

Authorities, at first, charged five of the six with attempted murder, although now none of them faces attempted murder charges. Supporters of the Jena Six claim that whites hung nooses on a tree, thus provoking a series of interracial clashes.

Revs. Sharpton and Jackson claim that harsh treatment of the Jena Six serves as a metaphor for the continued unequal justice for blacks in America. Really?

Jackson, speaking in Jena, claimed that more blacks sit in jail than in college. Irrelevant as to the issue at hand, and false.

According to the 2000 census, there were over 2.2 million blacks in college. By mid-year 2006, according to the Justice Department, 905,600 blacks were in state or federal prisons and local jails. Even if Jackson meant black men, his assertion is still debatable. The Justice Policy Institute found that at the time of the 2000 census, 603,000 black men were in college, while 791,000 were in jail. Yet only 179,000 of incarcerated blacks were between 18 and 24 years old, the customary “college age.”

Jackson, in Jena, cited the unequal treatment in prosecuting crack versus powder drug violations as evidence of racial discrimination. This calls for an explanation. Crack violators, the ones subject to the harshest punishment, are often black. But members of the Black Congressional Caucus, in the ‘80s, pushed for stiff sentences against those peddling crack, given the violence — mostly in urban areas — associated with it. Nearly half of the members of the Black Congressional Caucus voted for the 1986 anti-drug bill, which provided stiff sentences for crack. The federal Sentencing Commission, during the Clinton administration, recommended equalizing the penalty for crack and powder. Clinton signed legislation to block the recommendations.

Jackson and Sharpton suggest that the disproportionate number of blacks under the criminal justice system stems from racism.

But black defendants are more likely to be acquitted than white defendants. A study in the ‘90s found blacks convicted less frequently than whites in all but two of 14 categories of felony crimes, including murder, rape, burglary, felony theft, drug trafficking and other crimes against people. The only two types of felonies where blacks were not convicted at a lower rate than whites were felony traffic offenses and miscellaneous felonies. Cases that went to juries (only 2.8% of those examined) had a similar pattern, although juries convicted blacks more than whites for robbery, assault and property offenses.

What about the assertion that a black defendant, with the same record, is likely to serve more time than a white defendant? Many legal experts blame the results on economics — white defendants are more likely to hire a private counselor who can get them a better deal in the courtroom. Other factors that can sway judges include family support, job security and the ability to make bail — with white defendants more likely than blacks to fit this description. And black judges are more likely than white judges to give black defendants harsher sentences than white defendants.

What about DWB, Driving While Black? Many big-city police departments now record stops by race. But the compiled information tells you nothing about why police stop drivers. George Mason University professor Matthew Zingraff, who studied racial profiling, says, “Why a police officer makes a stop of an individual, we’ll never know that. We’ll never know the number of people who have not been stopped. It doesn’t tell us motivation. It doesn’t tell us what caught the police officer’s eye.”

Supporters of the Jena Six say their actions were sparked by the “hate crime” of the hanging of three — later reported as two — nooses on a high school campus tree. This, activists say, shows a prevalence of hate crimes against blacks in America. But economist Walter Williams notes that when hate crime statistics are adjusted for blacks’ lower population numbers, proportionally, blacks commit more than twice as many hate crimes as whites.

Rev. Sharpton calls Jena the “Selma of its day.” Let’s revisit. In Selma, Ala., in 1965, 500 to 600 civil rights protesters tried to march in support of black voter registration. Local authorities attacked the marchers with whips and tear gas and billy clubs, leaving 17 people in the hospital.

For what it’s worth, an Associated Press-AOL Black Voices survey asked blacks to name the “most important black leader.” More blacks named “nobody” than anybody else. Jackson was named by 15% of respondents; 2% named Rev. Sharpton; and Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, an organization also active in supporting the Jena 6, was named by 4%.

Maybe that’s the real lesson of Jena.

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Perspectives on Jena (Townhall.com, 071008)

By Star Parker

At this point, there seems little doubt about the ugliness that has simmered, and then boiled, in a little town in Louisiana called Jena.

There is a lot that has already been said, and done, about the latent racism in the town that led to the display of nooses on a tree. Racism that led, in reaction, to six black youths brutally beating a young white man, and then the subsequent disproportionate sentencing, in which those black youths could have served prison time for trumped-up murder charges.

Action has been taken, and will be taken, so that those charges, and the penalties paid, get into line.

But I want to address another aspect of this sad incident, and that is the message that is being sent to black youth across this country. From what I see and read, it is the wrong message.

This is the message engendered by the observation of the Rev. Jesse Jackson that the “Jena 6” affair is a “defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment.” And the further calling out by Jackson of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for not, in his opinion, focusing adequately on this incident.

The point is that Jena is not a defining moment like Selma, and Obama, and his current campaign for the presidency, is a major point of proof.

Both Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton made their own runs for the presidency. Jackson gained traction among black voters. Sharpton could not even do that.

But Obama’s run is real. He is a genuine candidate who thus far has raised more money than any other candidate, Democratic or Republican.

In a Gallup poll done earlier this year, 94% of respondents said they would vote for a black candidate for president.

This would have been inconceivable at the time of Selma.

Obama is not leading the Democratic field at this point. But there seems little doubt that the reason he is polling No. 2, and not No. 1, has nothing to do with his race.

Today, at a time when our nation’s relations and actions abroad have as much import on our welfare and security as they have ever had, a black woman from Alabama represents us internationally as our secretary of state. Although she works and speaks on behalf of every American of every color and background, surely Condoleezza Rice never forgets who she is, and her own roots in the rural South.

The chairmen of three Fortune 100 corporations are black men, and we see many black senior executives today in the ranks of our nation’s largest corporations.

All the above, again, would have been inconceivable at the time of Selma.

But, more fundamentally, Selma was a time when the nation still was institutionally flawed regarding the reality that blacks, as citizens, faced.

As the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments followed the Civil War, so the Voting Rights Act of 1965 followed Selma.

The Rev. Martin Luther King pointed out that “It may be true that you cannot legislate morality, but behavior can be regulated.” He observed that through legislation, he may not be able to get the other guy to love him, but he sure can use it to stop the guy from lynching him.

The chapter of history that Selma defined was a chapter when legislative action was needed to deal with the problem of race. In that sense, it was a defining moment.

But today, we do not have institutional problems. We have human problems.

Whereas King was correct — that we can regulate behavior with legislation — it is also true that this can only get us part of the way to solving our problems. Even after establishing legislative protections, we still have human reality to deal with. And in this sense, our achievements individually, and as a society, will only reflect our choices and qualities as individual human beings.

We just saw, in the grotesque case at Duke University, how charges of racism can be used as a political tool to serve the selfish goals of ambitious individuals. Sadly, the press, the NAACP, Sharpton, the president of Duke University and 88 members of the Duke faculty bought into the evil scheme of then-District Attorney Mike Nifong.

Black youth today must not submit to the politics of hatred, and not lose perspective that they live in a country that is free. They must not lose perspective that despite the limitations of the human condition — that the tendency to do evil cannot be eradicated by legislation — if they work hard, and keep their values intact, their dreams can be achieved.

So Jena is not a defining moment, but part of an ongoing reality toward which we must constantly be aware and toward which we must constantly be vigilant.

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Sowell of a Justice: An early influence on Clarence Thomas. (National Review Online, 071001)

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me. — Matthew 25: 35

Thomas Sowell changed a young Clarence Thomas’s life.

Or, to be more specific, a Michael Novak review of a Thomas Sowell book, that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

“I felt like a thirsty man gulping down a glass of cool water,” Justice Thomas writes in his deeply personal memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, released today, about reading the review.

Thomas recalls that a friend who knew that Thomas felt isolated — having rejected black power (after flirting with it in college), being uncomfortable with conventional liberalism, and not quite knowing where he fit in — called the review to his attention: “Take a look at the book review in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. It’s about another black guy who thinks like you.”

The review was of Sowell’s Race and Economics.

Thomas writes, “His very first words took my breath away. ‘Honesty on questions of race is rare in the United States. So many and unrecognized have been the injustices committed against blacks that no one wishes to be unkind, or subject himself to intimidating charges. Hence even simple truths are commonly evaded.”

“It was as though he were talking directly to me,” Thomas writes.

Thomas quotes in its entirety the last paragraph of Sowell’s book, as Novak had in his review:

Perhaps the greatest dilemma in the attempts to raise ethnic minority income is that those methods which have historically proved successful — self-reliance, work skills, education, business experience — are all slow developing, while those methods which are more direct and immediate — job quotas, charity, subsidies, preferential treatment — tend to undermine self-reliance and pride of achievement in the long run. If the history of American ethnic groups shows anything, it is how large a role has been played by attitudes — and particularly attitudes of self-reliance.

Thomas had an immediate admiration for Sowell — this after he had previously dismissed Sowell. During his younger, angrier days at Yale, someone had given him a copy of Sowell’s Black Education: Myths and Tragedies. Thomas trashed it after skimming it, “furious that any black man could think like that.” A few years later, that which had initially repulsed him was now the attraction: Thomas recalls, “Here was a black man who was saying what I thought — and not behind closed doors, either . . . “

Speaking honestly and openly about race was a hard road Thomas was destined to travel, however reluctantly. And it was one that Sowell ultimately inadvertently set him on. In 1980, Sowell asked Thomas to attend a conference in San Francisco on race in America. Thomas recalls: “The purpose of the conference, he explained, was to stimulate new thinking about the issues confronting blacks, and he wanted me to sit on a panel that would discuss education policy.” During the course of the conference, he got talking to a young reporter. And the rest was history.

Thomas writes, “A young black reporter from the Washington Post, Juan Williams, was seated next to me, and we struck up a conversation. I had no idea that what I said might find its way into the Post — I wasn’t used to talking to reporters — and I spoke to Williams in a straightforward, unguarded way, explaining that I was opposed to welfare because I had seen its destructive effects up close in Savannah.”

Thomas also told Williams that his own sister was “a victim of the system, which had created a sense of entitlement that had trapped her and her children.” (An assessment his sister didn’t disagree with, even if it wasn’t Thomas’s intention to share it with the world.) He told Williams that he opposed busing, supported school vouchers.

And on December 16, 1980, his straight talk made it to the Washington Post, complete with a picture. Juan Williams had, Thomas writes, “presented my opinions accurately and fairly. But I’d gone against the liberal consensus on race, something that blacks weren’t supposed to do — and in the Post, no less! For the next few days, strangers on the street glared disapprovingly at me as I walked by.” Black staffers on the Hill gave him grief because in their minds there was but one way for a black man in America to think on issues of race.

But straight, honest, independent thought is what he had to do. “I could only choose between being an outcast and being dishonest.” As he explains later in the book, to do any other would be to reject what he had been raised to be. His grandfather and grandmother raised him and they didn’t raise him to live the easy way. And so, in the face of watermelon and Uncle Tom comments, he kept the voice of his grandfather as his conscience and motivation: “Son, give out but don’t give up. Get up every day and put one foot in front of the other.”

In My Grandfather’s Son, Thomas explains that when he finally read Race and Economics, he didn’t regard it as “a political statement, nor was it meant to be one: It simply tried to tell the truth about a subject that too many people were unable or unwilling to discuss honestly. Reading it didn’t turn me into a conservative, much less a Republican. All I cared about was finding answers, no matter who had them.”

My Grandfather’s Son may hit unsuspecting readers similarly.

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A Great American Story: Clarence Thomas’s tale of pride, determination, and independence. (National Review Online, 071002)

By Rich Lowry

If only Clarence Thomas weren’t a black conservative, his new memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, would be hailed as a kind of classic, a powerful, moving tale of a black man’s ascent from bone-crushing poverty to the pinnacle of the American system of government.

But Thomas has a unique lot in life. On top of the discrimination, insults, and condescension he has experienced simply as a black man have come the outrage, insults, and condescension he has experienced as a black man who broke with liberal orthodoxy. In his view, all this culminated in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, when liberal interest groups revived the old smear of the sexually rapacious black man in the guise of Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment.

The final section of the book dealing with the hearings is getting the most attention, and Thomas is being portrayed as the aggressor. He “lashes out,” according to a headline in the Washington Post. Those pages do indeed pulse with anger, but how could it be otherwise when Thomas contends — persuasively — that he did Hill a favor by hiring her to work for him in the federal government, he had never mistreated her, and her accusations were a brutal instance of the politics of personal destruction?

Thomas survived, of course, and if his opponents had been able to read this book they would have known he would. My Grandfather’s Son is a tale of pride, determination and independence — from the constraints of discrimination and the deadening influence of group-think.

Thomas was abandoned by his father and didn’t even meet him until he was 9 years old. He was raised in segregated Savannah, Ga., by his grandmother and his grandfather, a steely disciplinarian determined to keep Thomas and his brother out of trouble through sheer hard work.

“Old Man Can’t is dead — I helped bury him,” his barely literate grandfather used to say. He sent Thomas and his brother to a Catholic school where the nuns were nearly as strict as his grandfather. Missing school wasn’t an option. His grandfather warned us, Thomas writes, “that if we died, he’d take our bodies to school for three days to make sure we weren’t faking.”

Thomas remembers, years later, watching his grandfather dote on Thomas’s own son and wondering why he hadn’t been so tender with him when he was growing up. “Because you were my responsibility,” his grandfather replied. Thomas’ upbringing was a triumph of mind over matter, of will and discipline over social injustice and economic deprivation.

Thomas says he came to realize, “I had been raised by the greatest man I have ever known.” His book is so moving because it is partly an unrequited love story between the two men, whose stubbornness and insecurities kept them from ever truly reconciling after various blowups and sleights.

Thomas’ pride was a key to his slow turn from radicalism to the right. His accomplishments and his reputation were paramount to him. When he graduated from Yale Law School, he realized that when he went on job interviews people assumed he wasn’t as talented as his peers because of affirmative action. White liberals had cheapened what he had worked so hard for; he took a 15-cent sticker from a cigar and stuck it to his Yale diploma to symbolize its true worth.

Thomas is painfully honest about his struggles in this book: the drinking, the broken marriage, the debt, the despair that had him contemplating suicide even as he ascended in Washington. He constantly worried that he had exposed himself too much by being frank about his conservative views, and when the first President Bush nominated him to the Supreme Court, he was filled with dread. He feared his political enemies would stop at nothing.

He was right. But the ordeal drove him to the Christian faith of his grandparents, making him more than ever his grandfather’s son. This is a great American story, written by an extraordinary man.

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A Grandfather’s Son (National Review Online, 071002)

[Kate O’Beirne]

I had the pleasure of joining about 20 members of the new media for a dinner with Amazon’s #1 author for dinner this evening. Justice Thomas was wise, candid, and upbeat. The “controversial” justice stresses that he hasn’t had a negative incident in his 16 years on the Court. He explains it is humbling that he is treated so well by audiences he addresses and others he meets. He cheerfully notes that when he has encountered some opposition on university campuses, “it is always the faculty, never the students.” He laughingly allowed that he would have to be “a Middle East dictator with nuclear weapons to be invited to Columbia,” adding that it wasn’t an invitation he was interested in.

His terrific book wasn’t easy to write. Many of the events of his life, like the loss of loved ones, were painful tragedies to recall. He puts his confirmation ordeal in another category. That episode represented “being set upon by bad people.” He is at a loss when asked what he thinks is the most prevalent misconception about him because he doesn’t concern himself with what others are saying. “I know who I am. I don’t have to go into Fun House mirrors to see what others think.”

Justice Thomas offered his opinions about leadership. He would put a premium on selecting leaders based on whether they possessed the “vigorous virtues.” He explains that academic credentials aren’t as important as character in selecting judicial candidates. The cases aren’t that hard, according to Justice Thomas, the challenge is what a judge does when he finds the right answer. He believes that doing the right thing takes “courage, fortitude, and intellectual honesty.” He sees these attributes as far more important than class rank.

His book recounts a meeting he had with President George H. W. Bush’s counsel Boyden Gray who explained that Clarence Thomas’s performance as a Reagan appointee had persuaded the White House that he was unlikely to “buckle” once he was on the Court. (Souter-shy?). They were right. They had found the best-qualified nominee.

The source of his equanimity is no mystery. Justice Thomas brought his favorite prayer, the “Litany of Humility,” to our attention.

I first met this remarkable man about 20 years ago. I’m familiar with his ready, hearty laugh, his generosity and his compassion. Some of those present tonight were meeting him for the first time. All present will no doubt see the disgraceful ordeal he endured as even more unjust than they had imagined. Now, the large audience he deserves can meet Clarence Thomas.

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Interview with a Grandson: Clarence Thomas on his memoir. (National Review Online, 071002)

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

My Grandfather’s Son, the memoir published Monday by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is the fulfillment of a promise. As Justice Thomas explained in an interview with National Review Online on Monday afternoon, “I made a promise to myself.” Citing the Golden Rule, Thomas recalls when he was “young and vulnerable,” and promised himself that when he was in the position to help others, “I wouldn’t ignore them the way I was ignored.”

Clarence Thomas famously doesn’t give interviews. But right about now, you might say he’s giving a lifetime’s worth of interviews. The occasion for all of his talking—starting with a positive 60 Minutes feature Sunday night—is not the opening of another Supreme Court term, although the new Court term does coincide with the sudden outburst of Thomas talk, but the release of his memoir. And maybe, just maybe, you can’t help but figure he’s thinking, I can live in interview-free peace after this. As he told me on Monday, “I prefer not to talk at all.”

But you could be easily fooled listening to the garrulous Thomas. When I ask him if he agrees with the early Washington Post buzz that he’s got an “angry” book out, Justice Thomas just laughs a hearty laugh. It’s the kind of full-bodied laugh that sounds like it comes from a man who lives life fully and well. But that’s no surprise if you’ve read his new memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, for that’s it exactly. The book is about living life fully and well.

And the answer is “no,” he doesn’t view it as an angry book. “That is ridiculous,” Thomas says. “What happens is that people think that is what they would be [in similar situations], and so they transpose and impose.”

Talking to Thomas, it is easy to forget you are talking to a Supreme Court justice. His straight-talking honesty is the stuff of raw father-and-son (or grandfather-and-grandson, in this case) this-is-the-way-the-world-is heart-to-hearts. Clarence Thomas may sit on the highest court in the land, but he’s an “ordinary man” and his book is “the story of the journey of an ordinary person,” he tells me

Thomas explains that he wrote My Grandfather’s Son for people who work hard and pay their bills: “I wrote it for people who are still trying . . . for people trying to sort out the problems in their lives.” It was with this audience in mind that Clarence Thomas went through the painful process of recounting past struggles, injustices, and mistakes — the history that is at the heart of the book. In My Grandfather’s Son, Thomas goes through his childhood, abandoned by his father; he goes through the racism that drove him from what he thought was his vocation to the Catholic priesthood; he goes through his struggle to know how honest to be in public life, as his peer group tried to discourage the honesty he knew his grandfather taught him; he goes through the “guilt” of his divorce. And, of course, he writes about the world-famous confirmation hearings. But don’t pick up the book for lurid details, just the all-too-human story.

(At one point in the book, Thomas tells of a woman approaching his wife, Virginia, years after the hearings. The woman was crying. She had worked for one of the groups that had opposed Thomas’s nomination. “‘We didn’t think of your husband as human, I’m sorry. . . . We thought that anything was justified because our access to abortions and sex was at risk.”)

Speaking from his Supreme Court chambers by phone on Monday, Justice Thomas explains that young people take you seriously once they know that you know what they’re going through. “Once they see that you understand them you’ve made a connection.” That’s why he wrote about his radical youth and his youthful anger at his grandfather — who, with his grandmother, raised Thomas and his brother. A young person with similar obstacles reading this book will understand that Thomas has “been there.”

“I was nine years old when I met my father,” Thomas begins My Grandfather’s Son. “When [young people] realize they can ask, ‘How did you get over being upset at your father?,” all of a sudden you have made a connection. And you can say to them, ‘There is a way out.’”

And how do you get over losing your religious faith? That’s part of Thomas’s story, too. When I ask him what it was that ultimately brought him back to the Catholic faith of his youth, Thomas tells me, “my grandfather used to say something. He used to say you just live long enough. He was right.” Life, Thomas says, “is so full of uncertainties and challenges.” He says that his “faith came back slowly . . . and then flooded in.” He recalls, “I really completed my journey home when I returned to my Catholic faith.”

And it’s that faith that keeps him in Washington. No fan of the Beltway, Thomas writes in the book that “in Washington, what matters is not what you do but what people can be made to think you’ve done.” But living there — even in such a public position—has been worthwhile regardless, “because it is our country. . . . Do you think those kids who are over in Iraq want to be there?” Did the soldiers in Normandy, or in Gettysburg? he asks. They are probably not standing on the battlefield because there is nowhere they would rather be, but they know “the job is worth doing.” What the jobs have in common are that they are “about something bigger than yourself.”

Thomas remembers fondly, both in the book and in our conversation, the nuns who taught him at the black Catholic St. Benedict’s School in the Georgia of his youth. “They were great,” he remembers fondly. “They were the ones in the segregated South who would never question—never ever, never ever—that we were inherently equal.” In their eyes, he remembers, “we were all made to love and serve God and live with him in the next life. And that was the end of it for them. And so they had the same expectations of us [the black children] as of anyone.”

But do not mistake his deep and abiding faith as a revelation of the heart of a conservative Catholic activist on the Supreme Court. That Catholicism that he’s come full circle back to doesn’t influence his Court opinions, he tells NRO. “Neither does the fact that I’m a man. Neither does the fact that I’m black. Neither does the fact that I’m a huge Cornhuskers fan.”

What faith does, though, he says, is it “sustains you. It gives you hope.” As for its role on the Court: “You take an oath to God to do this job in an impartial way.” He emphasizes that it is not just “any employment contract. . . . It would be a violation to do it as a Catholic.” Similarly, he says, it would be wrong to approach every case “as a black man . . . I am a judge.” What faith does, though, is make clear the gravity of the oath. “Faith puts value in what that oath means.”

And about that “conservative” label: I’m reminded that early on in our conversation Thomas warned against putting people in boxes. That includes putting him in a conservative one, even today. “I really never considered myself a conservative,” he says. What he is, he tells me, is what his grandfather was, what his neighbors were. “I believe in liberty. . . . I believe in personal responsibility. . . . If that’s conservative, I guess I am.”

Speaking of boxes: What would Justice Thomas tell blacks who say today what he thought in his early Yale days: That “no self-respecting black could ever vote for a Republican”? He’d say, “Grow up.” Thomas continues: “I’d say do what I did and grow up. You have to be a lot more mature than that.” He adds, “My first job [with former Senator John Danforth] was for a Republican and my first job was the best job I ever had.” And here he adds: “Judge people as individuals, don’t put them in a box.”

Thomas couldn’t exude more pride when talking about his son, Jamal (“my child is a great man”). He tells me with a knowing laugh that he sent Jamal to private school because “I didn’t want people experimenting on him in public school.” “My grandfather was the same way,” Thomas says; that’s “why he sent us to Catholic school.” Thomas says he “wanted [Jamal] getting an education in an environment conducive to learning.”

Also close to Thomas’s heart are his law clerks. When I ask him who he is closest to on the Court, he points out that the Court is “a different environment than the city. Everyone here gets along.” Thomas starts naming justices, with friendship and admiration in his voice: Scalia, Stevens . . . but then quickly stops and homes in on his SCOTUS pride and joy: “the best part of the job is hanging out with my law clerks.” He calls them, “my kids — they’re smart and entertaining. They’re a hoot.”

His best day on the Court thus far? “Any day we have the chance to do the right thing is a good day.” And with that our interview came full circle. It really is about the fundamentals. And he really is his Grandfather’s Son.

With this book, Thomas tells me, he really wanted “to leave something positive for good people.” Like grandfather, like grandson.

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A Conversation With Clarence (townhall.com, 071002)

By Mary Katharine Ham

It’s the opening day of the Supreme Court term and Justice Clarence Thomas has snuck away the Supreme Court press corps, citing the old adage about teaching a pig to sing. “You’ll just irritate the pig and waste your time,” he says with a smile.

Instead, he’s meeting with a group of conservative commentators about his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” It’s been 16 years since Thomas first took his seat at the bench after the nasty fight and nastier allegations that clouded his confirmation. In recounting a story, he stumbles on the vote tally. “How many votes did I get? 51?”

The rest of the room, almost all of which except me were integral in the 1991 fight for the Justice piped up simultaneously, “52-48!”

It becomes very clear in listening to Thomas, and in reading his new book, what is really important to the Justice, and it is most certainly not the Anita Hill controversy that has unfortunately come to define him for some Americans.

It is also not the fawning affection of media and D.C. elites:

“Hey, I’d have to become a Middle Eastern dictator with nuclear weapons to be invited to Columbia. I’m just not interested in that.”

When asked if it was painful to write his raw and moving memoir, to relive the tragedy of the Anita Hill controversy, he quickly puts it in perspective.

“That wasn’t a real tragedy; that was being set upon by bad people,” he said. The real tragedies were losing his grandmother and grandfather, who raised him, and then his younger brother eight years ago. The deaths of all the members of his childhood home prompted him to make sure their story was told and, along with it, his own story.

“I didn’t want to leave the telling to those with careless hands and malicious hearts,” he said.

The result is a book that is as frank and self-assured as the Justice himself, as clear as his baritone voice, and that pulses with the grit and glory of the race-scarred, Christ-haunted South he calls home. It’s a story of bigotry beaten, of racism, then radicalism and then redemption.

Thomas still calls the interest groups who set upon him during his 1991 confirmation hearing “clowns,” but chuckles at the media’s assertion in early reviews of his book that he is still so “angry” about Anita Hill.

“They don’t know me. How do they know I’m angry?”

He knows well the media’s and his political enemies’ tendency to create a picture of him that is not always accurate and sometimes recklessly unfair. He noted that in all of his travels, all of his speeches, he’s never had a negative incident. There have been protests—”The black law professors at the University of North Carolina law school walked out, but whoop-dee-do. If you’re so smart, why don’t you stay to talk?”—but even those protests have been trumped up to a great extent by media.

Thomas talked of a commencement speech he gave at the University of Georgia’s law school while I was an undergrad there. His appearance and the protests by law school faculty were reported on extensively before the event, but Thomas laughs heartily when he remembers he was greeted by about three protesters.

“It’s always the faculty. You can count on it. It’s never the students,” he said.

A more common response at his speeches is that of an older black man he met at an Atlanta speech who came up to him afterwards, visibly moved. “I came here prepared not to like you, but they’ve been lying about you,” the man said.

But he can’t meet every student, can’t correct every misperception in person, so he wrote his story down.

Here are some thoughts from the question-and-answer session we had with the Justice. He is funny, spins a great tale, and has a laugh that would make Zeus jealous (seriously, the audiobook will be great). It was a privilege to spend some time with him.

On his turn from black radical to black conservative, what happened?

“I grew up. As my grandfather used to say, ‘you just live long enough.’ I lived long enough.”

He told the story of a night of rioting at Harvard Square during his college days, fueled by “liquid courage.” After it was all over, Thomas was walking home, thinking, “what did I just do?” He stopped in front of a church and had a moment of prayer. It was a turning point for him, he said.

On judicial philosophies:

“I’m not high on theories…[When a case deals with a document], I stay as close to that document as I can. I try to tack as close to that as I can...but I don’t go in with a pre-fab philosophy.”

On life at the Court:

“This is not something I expected or sought. It’s actually something I resisted, but at some point, you stop worrying and accept your calling.”

“It doesn’t bother me that I will spend the rest of my life on the Court…I suspect that I’ll stay as long as I can do the job.”

“Compared to the rest of this city, it’s a delightful place to work,” he said, remarking that the Justices eat lunch together instead of stewing in their ideological corners. It’s a change in the atmosphere from past Courts, brought on in great part, by Sandra Day O’Connor’s efforts. “The names that people call each other in this city…I’ve never heard that on the Court.”

On what he would have done if he hadn’t been a Supreme Court Justice:

“I’d probably have been a small-to-medium business owner in a rural Southern area. I’d like to coach football or baseball and just be part of my community.”

“I’d like to drive 18-wheelers. I kind of like the equipment,” he said, at which point he shared a couple stories about driving around the country in his RV bus, stopping at truck stops in order to live a little part of the dream.

He said there’s an art to visiting a truck stop, filling up, acting like you know what you’re doing.

“You’ve got to be professional...You don’t go in a truck stop if you don’t know what kind of engine you have,” he said.

He said he’s not often recognized on the road, but he did have a man come by his bus and say, “Anybody ever tell you you look a lot like Clarence Thomas? I bet it happens all the time.”

On the brutal confirmation process, both for him and newer justices:

“Justice White was appointed, went through hearings, and confirmed within 10 days. What you have to ask is, ‘what has improved at the Court as a result of the difficult hearings?’”

“The people in charge of the processes need to make sure they’re not hijacked by the special-interest groups instead of giving into it and giving legitimacy to it.”

On the kind of people presidents should seek to appoint:

“I do think you can find people who have been in the heat of battle. [If they haven’t], you have no idea what they’re gonna do when the first shot is fired. As the wise philosopher Mike Tyson said, ‘Everybody’s got plans until they get hit the first time.’”

On communicating with the younger generation:

He said he meets with a lot of young people. He mentioned the University of Georgia football team, specifically. There’s initially a barrier, but they warm up pretty fast, he said.

“Kids aren’t buffaloed by it [the prevalent media story about Clarence Thomas], and as soon as you burst that bubble, they start to question everything else they’ve heard.”

I asked him specifically about the idea, sometimes found in the black community, that to be authentically black is to be aggrieved. To be successful without buying into the victim philosophy is being a sell-out:

“They’re selling kids this poison. It doesn’t help them to tell them not to do well.”

It is the opposite of the lessons his grandfather taught him, among them:

“If we died, he’d take our bodies to school for three days to make sure we weren’t faking.”

Clarence Thomas’ life is a remarkable one, framed by the bigotry of the backwards and the urbane, and marked by his ability to overcome both without bitterness, thanks to the lessons of the remarkable man who raised him. It’s an American story, through and through, and those Americans who’ve never given Thomas a chance would do well to read it.

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Thomas seen as role model (Washington Times, 071003)

By Carleton Bryant

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in his new memoir describes overcoming poverty and prejudice.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has lived a life that should serve as an example for today’s youth — one of hard work, self-discipline, academic achievement and moral conviction, conservative blacks say.

“We need more Clarence Thomases, quite frankly,” says Donald E. Scoggins, president of the think tank Republicans for Black Empowerment.

“He’s an African-American who has achieved greatness,” says Michael S. Steele, Maryland’s former lieutenant governor. “He’s an example of success and leadership ... personal achievement and perseverance.”

Radio talk-show host Mychal S. Massie says that Justice Thomas “perfectly exemplifies the character and morality I share [with] my son and young people as a whole.”

“Just think of the damage done to our youth by pronouncing Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur [as being] good and representative of the black culture,” Mr. Massie adds.

In his new memoir “My Grandfather’s Son,” published by HarperCollins, Justice Thomas describes a childhood of hard work and strict discipline under the tough but loving care of his grandfather, Myers Anderson, in Pinpoint, Ga. — a dirt-poor life set in a segregated society that was hostile to blacks. Through perseverance, education and helping hands, he was able to forge a professional life as a lawyer, a federal official, a federal judge and a Supreme Court justice.

But Justice Thomas has come under fire from critics who say his opposition to affirmative action betrays his race and ignores his success under it. He says affirmative action stigmatizes achievements by blacks as something that is given to them solely because of their race.

Mr. Steele differs with Justice Thomas on the issue. “There’s some truth to that [stigma],” he says, noting that a few whites have expressed that view to him.

Affirmative action was created to level the playing field and redress past discrimination, Mr. Steele says.

“My hope is that there will be a day when it won’t be needed, but that day has not yet come,” he says, adding that affirmative action should be based more on economic need and not solely on race.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a black Los Angeles minister and founder of Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, fully supports Justice Thomas’ contention.

“Affirmative action implies that blacks ... are not mentally or physically capable of succeeding on their own through hard work,” he says. “It also taints the success and achievements of those who would succeed regardless of government programs. Race-based affirmative action is racist within itself.”

Mr. Peterson, whose group aims to help men and families via personal development programs, says that Justice Thomas has shown that blacks can succeed without government help.

“All the civil rights bills will not instill character and a strong work ethic,” Mr. Peterson says. “Justice Thomas has shown that he’s not beholden to the liberal civil rights establishment and that it’s OK to leave the liberal plantation.”

Mr. Scoggins agrees. “At what point will blacks be considered as having got to where they are based on their own merits?” he says, arguing that affirmative action creates an inferiority complex in the minds of blacks, who use the policy as a “crutch” to compete in the world. “When you see an Asian person [succeed], do you think they got there by affirmative action? No.”

Mr. Scoggins says that certain “cliques” in black communities dominate the debate in those areas, contributing to a devaluation of education in black neighborhoods.

“What does it say about the mind-set of a people who are surprised that hard work, discipline and appropriate behavior in conjunction [with] a sound education would breed success?” says Mr. Massie, who also is a columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, an online news-and-opinion site.

Lee H. Walker, president of the New Coalition for Economic and Social Change and a senior fellow of the Heartland Institute, says that affirmative action was conceived in the 1960s as a racial remedy for past discrimination but lost its efficacy in the 1970s when women used it to achieve professional and political gains. “White women have suffered many things, but racial prejudice is not one of them,” he says.

Mr. Walker, who says he became friends with Justice Thomas in 1980, shares the justice’s conservative views, adding that many blacks have a similar point of view.

“Most blacks are conservative, if you scratch below the surface,” he says, citing opposition to same-sex “marriage,” among other issues. “But the term conservative — it’s a social term, not a political one.”

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SCOTUS Furnace: Why is Clarence Thomas so angry? (National Review Online, 071005)

By Mona Charen

National Public Radio was one of the first out of the box greeting Clarence Thomas’s memoir, My Grandfather’s Son. Nina Totenberg acknowledged that it was, “in some ways a beautifully written book” but went on to declare it “a book of complete bitterness and rage.” The Washington Post’s front page announced that Thomas had “settled scores” in his “angry” book. And Washington Post columnist (as well as Charen pal) Ruth Marcus writes of Thomas’s “blast furnace” anger.

Imagine that. He hasn’t gotten over it. Totenberg, for those who may have forgotten, was the journalist who first reported that Anita Hill had made allegations against Thomas (though at the time, Hill had not agreed to go public). And she was a prominent Hill enthusiast during the contretemps.

Totenberg affects surprise that Thomas is angry? It would require a masochist not to be angry. Imagine that your spotless reputation had been thoroughly trashed before a worldwide audience. Imagine further that everything you had attempted to accomplish in your career was undermined in two weeks by ideological opponents ready to do anything to keep someone with your heterodox views down. It is my experience that people often become enraged when they read even small inaccuracies about themselves in the newspapers. Contemplate enduring a campaign of vilification. How many years is it supposed to take to get over something like that? Is Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky thing?

Actually, speaking of President Clinton, the brouhaha over Thomas and what he did or did not say to Hill now seems almost quaint in retrospect. Even if we assume (and I do not) that the worst of Hill’s allegations were true, they do not stack up to the kind of brutish behavior attributed to Bill Clinton by Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick. But the very same people who adjudged Thomas one of the lowest creatures on Earth, found Clinton’s behavior a private matter of no consequence with no public implications.

Of course, while there is anger in the book — justifiable anger, one might argue — there is also tenderness, vulnerability, brutal honesty and overflowing gratitude. None of the major reactions to the book seem to have noticed those things. There is also unswerving intellectual integrity. A small example among many: In law school, Justice Thomas relates, “I was uncomfortably aware that blacks failed to pass the bar exams at a much higher rate than whites, and that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund had filed lawsuits alleging that the exams they took were racially discriminatory. . . . At first I assumed that the disproportionate black failure rate was conclusive evidence of racial discrimination, but the more closely I looked at the facts the more apparent it became that I was wrong. At that time each question on the bar exam was graded separately by a difference scorer and each completed exam identified solely by number, thus making it impossible for the graders to tell which examinees, if any, were black.” Thomas concluded that the poor education many blacks received was the culprit, but by differing from the conventional wisdom he was already on the road to heresy.

Justice Thomas has continued that apostasy on the Supreme Court, courageously and brilliantly arguing his philosophy in one magnificent opinion after another. Jan Crawford Greenburg, longtime Supreme Court reporter for the Chicago Tribune, now with ABC, dismisses in her recent book the claim that Thomas is some sort of cipher on the Court (a view held only by the abysmally ignorant). “An extensive documentary record shows,” she writes, “that Justice Thomas has been a significant force in shaping the direction and decisions of the court for the past 15 years.” No one who has read his opinions could fail to appreciate that.

Finally, no one who has had the pleasure of meeting Clarence Thomas would recognize him from the public descriptions that have greeted this book. His legendary laugh is sonorous and infectious. His manner is dignified yet approachable. Those who know him are aware of his passionate efforts to help other blacks — and of his equally passionate refusal to advertise this. The Anita Hill business is a tiny part of this man’s story — a story that makes for very rewarding reading.

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Read This Book: Clarence Thomas’s memoir is almost as important a contribution to his beloved country as his work as a Supreme Court justice. (Weekly Standard, 071008)

by William Kristol

At the most recent Democratic presidential debate, Tim Russert asked the candidates to name their favorite Bible verse. The answers tended toward the unexceptionable—including the Sermon on the Mount (not a “verse,” but who’s counting?) and the Golden Rule. Watching the debate, I idly wondered how I’d respond.

Upon a bit of reflection, I think my answer would be Numbers 10:35, one of the verses read in synagogue on Saturday in preparation for the reading from the Torah. When the ark is opened, revealing the Torah scrolls, the congregation stands, as the Israelites stood at the base of Mt. Sinai, and chants the verse: “When the ark was carried forward, Moses would say, ‘Arise, Lord! May Your enemies be scattered, may Your foes be put to flight.’” For some reason, this has always been one of my favorite moments in the service.

I don’t know if Clarence Thomas has ever attended a Shabbat service, but I suspect he might like this verse too. Not because he’s consumed by “rage” or because of his “roiling state of mind,” as unfriendly commentators have claimed in the week since the publication of his memoir, My Grandfather’s Son. In fact, the book, like the man, is remarkably calm, though it recounts times of justified anger, legitimate rage, and understandable roiling. But Thomas understands that he does have enemies, who stooped very low indeed to try to bring him down. And he has called on the Lord for strength to help him scatter them and put them to flight.

Thomas cites Scripture at key points in My Grandfather’s Son. He writes that during the crucible of his Supreme Court confirmation fight, “It was in the consoling words of the prophet Isaiah that I found my own watchword: ‘But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles: they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.’” And he closes the book with his prayer as he joins the Court: “Lord, grant me the wisdom to know what is right and the courage to do it. Amen.”

Wisdom and courage: These are the themes of My Grandfather’s Son. Thomas offers an education in practical wisdom and moral courage. Particularly instructive, and moving, is the portrait of his grandfather, Myers Anderson, who raised Thomas after his own father abandoned him as a toddler. Anderson was hard-working, upstanding, stern, and iron-willed. He made it possible for Thomas to grow up, to succeed, to become a man. He concealed his love for the boy out of fear that showing softness would undercut the discipline necessary to instill in his grandson a character strong enough to survive and flourish in a difficult world. His character building worked. But his iron will and forbidding demeanor made it hard for Thomas, as a young man, to get along with him.

One of the most gripping passages in the book is Thomas’s account of what turned out to be his last meeting with his grandfather. His grandmother was in the hospital, and after Thomas had visited with her, he had “a wonderful talk, the best we’d ever had,” with his grandfather. Afterward they embraced, “the first and only time in our lives we did so.” Thomas hoped this might set the stage for a new and more intimate relationship with this man he revered, but he would never see him alive again.

Earlier, Thomas had described his grandfather’s indulgent treatment of Thomas’s son Jamal. “As far as Daddy [Thomas’s grandfather] was concerned, Jamal could do no wrong.” Thomas posed the question: “Tell me something, Daddy, you never make Jamal do anything he doesn’t want to do. You let him do whatever he wants. You do whatever he asks you to do. But you never treated [my brother] and me that way. Why not?” His grandfather replied, “Jamal is not my responsibility.”

As Thomas comments, “It really was as simple as that. Daddy had to raise us, but he only had to enjoy Jamal, so he kissed and hugged him.” And Thomas goes on to wonder “how hard it had been for him to hide his affection from us. How often had he looked in on my brother and me as we slept, gazing at us with the same sweetness I saw each time he looked at Jamal? How often had he longed to hold us, hug us, grant our every wish, but held himself back for fear of letting us see his vulnerability, believing as he did that real love demanded not affection but discipline?”

Thomas’s memoir raises fundamental questions of love and responsibility, family and character. His book is a brief for the stern and vigorous virtues, but in a context of faith and love. It’s a delightful book—you really can’t put it down—but it’s also a source of moral education for young Americans. It could be almost as important a contribution to his beloved

country as Clarence Thomas’s work as a Supreme Court justice. And it suggests one more contribution he could make. Thomas in 2012!

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Clarence Thomas’ very American story (townhall.com, 071022)

By Star Parker

Futurist John Naisbitt, in his most recent book, talks about trends and leadership.

He notes the price that genuine leaders often pay, evoking envy and resentment, because they refuse to be defined by “prevailing values, rules, and expectations” in their pursuit of higher goals.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a case study of the phenomenon. He is a far too humble man to describe himself in these terms. But this is the case.

Sixteen years after being sworn in to the nation’s highest court, Thomas shares his story in a new autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son.” It is a highly readable and quintessentially American story of persistence, idealism, suffering, faith, and success.

Regarding the dangers and pitfalls of being too far ahead of the rest, Naisbitt quotes former New York governor and failed presidential candidate Al Smith: “Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that people don’t know you’re in it.”

This has been the challenge for black conservatives. It is a lonely business to get blacks to appreciate that the values and principles of individual liberty, which have made this country so great, are as relevant and applicable to them as to everyone else.

Moreover, and perhaps tragically ironic, it is a lonely business to convince blacks that they are equally capable of living by and benefiting from these great principles. That indeed, for every black American to realize his or her potential, they must.

Clarence Thomas believes these things, and as result he has paid a price. All black conservatives have been out ahead of the parade. But Thomas is a particularly high profile one, with an important job. So he has paid a particularly high price.

The personal story that Thomas tells in his book shows that he is everything that his enemies would have us believe he is not.

First and foremost, it is clear that the plight of blacks in America has been his central, driving lifetime concern. Liberals, black and white, don’t like his answers. So they would like us to believe that because his answers are not theirs, it means he really doesn’t care. The book shows the opposite.

Second, liberals would have us believe that he is a crude opportunist. In fact, his life has been defined by a persistent idealism. Thomas’ journey, from poverty in rural Georgia to the United States Supreme Court, proceeded in unplanned chapters, each one emerging from the one before as a result of his assessment of what the right thing was to do at that moment. This was no career planning exercise, but rather a hard fought crystallization of an inner sense of mission and ideals.

Third, for whatever reason, it is beyond the ken of any liberal to accept that a black individual can arrive at conservative principles as a result of his or her own struggles and deliberative processes. This is so unfathomable to liberals, black and white, that they are convinced that behind every black conservative is a white Republican who has made it worth his or her while. This is, of course, obscene.

Thomas’ conservatism began to formally crystallize, from his own thoughts and experiences, when he was an undergraduate at Holy Cross. This was long before he had anything to do with the Republican Party.

In fact, his real grounding in the values of self reliance, hard work, and faith started with his grandfather, Daddy, who raised him, and for whom he names the book.

Daddy started his own fuel oil business when he decided that a man shouldn’t work for someone else. He raised his grandson with an iron hand, and taught him that “Any job worth doing is worth doing right.”

Needless to say, the book gives an account of Thomas’ confirmation hearings and the tawdry and sickening Anita Hill affair. That an unsubstantiated accusation, submitted in confidence to a Senate committee, and then leaked to the press, can be transformed into a carnival-like public hearing that can threaten and defame a Supreme Court nominee, should concern every citizen about the state of our government.

Struggles and suffering are not without purpose. The parade is starting to catch up to Clarence Thomas and black conservatism is taking root. Ironically, simultaneous with the appearance of Thomas’ book is Bill Cosby’s new book, in which Cosby argues it is important for blacks to replace dependence and victimization with personal responsibility.

“My Grandfather’s Son” is an important story by an important American. It should be read.

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Lawyer: ‘Jena 6’ Teen Mychal Bell Sent Back to Jail for Probation Violation (Foxnews, 071012)

NEW ORLEANS — A judge decided the fight that thrust a teenager into the center of a civil rights controversy violated his probation for a previous conviction and ordered the boy back to jail, the teen’s attorney said.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers is accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court in Jena on Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of his attorneys.

Instead, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced Bell to 18 months in jail on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

“We are definitely going to appeal this,” she said. “We’ll continue to fight.”

Bell had been hit with those charges before the Dec. 4 attack on classmate Justin Barker. Details on the previous charges, which were handled in juvenile court, were unclear.

Mauffrey, reached at his home Thursday night, had no comment.

“He’s locked up again,” Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. “No bail has been set or nothing. He’s a young man who’s been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it.”

After the attack on Barker, Bell was originally charged with attempted murder, but the charges were reduced and he was convicted of battery. An appeals court threw that conviction out, saying Bell should not have been tried as an adult on that charge.

Racial tensions began rising in August 2006 in Jena after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended but not prosecuted.

More than 20,000 demonstrators gathered last month in the small central Louisiana town to protest what they perceive as differences in how black and white suspects are treated. The case has drawn the attention of civil rights activists including the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Sharpton reacted swiftly upon learning Bell was back in jail Thursday.

“We feel this was a cruel and unusual punishment and is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement,” said Sharpton, who helped organize the protest held Sept. 20, the day Bell was originally supposed to be sentenced.

Bell’s parents were also ordered to pay all court costs and witness costs, Sharpton said.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Jones said. “I don’t know how we’re going to pay for any of this. I don’t know how we’re going to get through this.”

Bell and the other five defendants have been charged in the attack on Barker, which left him unconscious and bleeding with facial injuries. According to court testimony, he was repeatedly kicked by a group of students at the high school.

Barker was treated for three hours at an emergency room but was able to attend a school function that evening, authorities have said.

Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw were all initially charged — as adults — with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit the same. A sixth defendant was charged in the case as a juvenile.

Bell, who was 16 at the time, was convicted in June of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime. LaSalle Parish prosecutor Reed Walters reduced the charges just before the trial. Since then, both of those convictions were dismissed and tossed back to juvenile court, where they now are being tried.

Charges against Bailey, 18, Jones, 19, and Shaw, 18, have been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery. Purvis, 18, has not yet been arraigned.

==============================

The Jena Defendants: Is Thuggery a New Right? (townhall.com, 071030)

By Carl Horowitz

“You think we brought thousands to Jena. You wait ‘til we go to D.C. and bring the whole country, because there’s Jenas all over America. There’s Jenas in New York. There’s Jenas in Atlanta. There’s Jenas in Florida. There’s Jenas all over Texas.” — Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking in Jena, Louisiana, September 20, 2007

Times had been tough for a while for Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other self-proclaimed civil-rights spokesmen. Their attempt to sway public opinion in the hopes of railroading into prison three white Duke University lacrosse players on phony rape charges backfired badly this spring. In this context, the unfolding crisis in Jena, Louisiana that began at the start of the 2006-07 school year has been a godsend, a renewed opportunity to put the “real” America on trial.

It’s hard to say which is more depressing: the vicious, unprovoked stomping on December 4, 2006 by six (or more) Jena High School black students of an innocent fellow white student, Justin Barker, or the subsequent outpouring of nationwide sympathy among blacks for the alleged assailants. The charge of attempted second-degree murder against each of the six defendants subsequently was reduced to aggravated second-degree battery at an arraignment for five of them.

To supporters, the defendants, known collectively as the “Jena Six,” merely had overreacted to a continuing legacy of white racism. Whatever wrongs they had committed pale in comparison to another wrong committed a few months earlier: the hanging of empty nooses from a shade tree on school grounds. Apparently, a six-on-one assault, euphemistically known as “a fight,” wasn’t the injustice; prosecuting the assailants while declining to prosecute the noose-hangers was.

The rage rose and eventually crested, for the time being, this past September 20, when an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 people descended by bus upon Jena, population 3,000, to demand that the prosecution drop all charges against the attackers. A parade of speakers, including New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, California Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Martin Luther King III, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, gave the people what they came to hear — an indictment of American justice.

Remember, signs at the rally read “Free the Jena 6,” not “Reduce the Charges against the Jena 6.” The demonstrators really believed the assailants were innocent. For them, the three white kids (Justin Barker, for the record, was not among them) who admitted to hanging the noose, ultimately receiving an in-school suspension rather than an expulsion, were the real criminals.

The buses long have left town. But the indignation that fueled the event burns as intensely as ever. On October 1, student activists staged walkouts at more than 100 schools around the country in support of the “Jena 6.” Organizers in particular offered praise for 17-year-old Mychal Bell, the only defendant thus far convicted. Having spent nearly 10 months in jail, Bell was released in late September on $45,000 bail (he’d wrongly been tried as an adult, concluded a state judge), and is now back behind prison bars for violating probation for a separate prior offense. Bell “could have been my brother,” said Amira Rahim, who helped organize the walkout at the University of Pittsburgh.

Such is the mentality at far higher levels. At an emotionally-charged October 16 hearing, members of the House Judiciary Committee grilled Donald Washington, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. The push for racial solidarity was in the air. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Tex., demanded, “I want you to tell me why you, the first black [Western District of Louisiana] U.S. district attorney, did not do more, and I want to know what you’re doing to get Mychal Bell out of jail.” Washington lamely responded: “I did intervene. I will tell you that just like you were offended, I was offended.”

Perhaps the most egregious flight from reality occurred at Black Entertainment Television’s Hip Hop Awards show, held Saturday night, October 13, and broadcast the following Wednesday. Two of the Jena 6 defendants, Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis, had been selected to present the award for Video of the Year. The pair received a standing ovation as they walked on stage at the Atlanta Civic Center. Purvis, the only defendant thus far not yet arraigned, declared that the September 20 Jena march proved “our generation can unite and rally around a cause.” He then handed Kanye West the award for his hit single, “Stronger”; West shook hands with both teens.

How does one rationalize bringing Jones and Purvis aboard? The show’s host, comedian Katt Williams, put it this way: “By no means are we condoning a six-on-one beat-down.... But the injustice perpetrated on these young men is straight criminal.” This was a case, he added, of “systematic racism.”

Such comments are very much in line with a plethora of do-it-yourself videos recently posted on YouTube. Though the presentations vary by length and production quality, their guiding assumption is invariably the same: The six black defendants are not thugs, but victims of white racist America. Footage of the September 20 march and rally is especially prominent. One video, a real tear-jerker, has Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” playing over a photomontage of the day’s events — talk about sacrilege!

We at the National Legal and Policy Center (www.nlpc.org), a Falls Church, Va.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting public accountability, decided to fight fire with fire. If YouTube has become a forum for distorting the record, we thought, it also can be a forum for setting it straight. And so NLPC President Peter Flaherty and I, with some outside production help, earlier this month recorded a roughly 20-minute video, broken into two parts, to counteract common misconceptions about Jena. The presentation, titled, “Sharpton & Jackson: Wrong about Jena,” is up on YouTube.

We’ve made every effort to summarize events and put them into context. What’s more, we identified not only the race-hustlers, but some of their major corporate enablers.

Building publicity for a nationwide political campaign costs money. The organizers of the “Jena 6” agitprop know that without outside support, events such as the September 20 rally might not have come off. But they’re savvy. Over the years they’ve cultivated close working relations with executives of many major corporations. Jesse Jackson in particular has secured generous funding for his organizations from Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Boeing, Toyota and other companies. And Al Sharpton for a number of years has served in a compensated position on PepsiCo’s African-American advisory board. Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, for his part, has praised Sharpton as a “dynamic leader.”

We can expect Black Entertainment Television to bankroll a celebration of Jena’s black defendants. The Washington, D.C.-based cable network, after all, was founded back in 1980 as an explicit expression of black identity — though, one might add, with the crucial help of $500,000 in venture capital from cable mogul John Malone, who is white. But officials of McDonald’s, Anheuser-Busch and other companies whose product lines are not inherently connected to racial identity should be more circumspect. They might not be directly aiding the Jena publicity machine, but their donations have helped make it possible all the same. Let the race-hustlers dig into their own pockets to fund their deluded campaign.

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Come On People: The civil-rights fight continues. (National Review Online, 071126)

[KH: good strategy of using referendums to boost the conservative vote]

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Believe it or not, we have come a long way regarding race in America. Though blacks have gone from being discriminated against in the law to being victimized by laws intended to help them, there have been positive changes. Ward Connerly, head of the American Civil Rights Institute, hopes to make more changes next November — by breaking black Americans free from the chains of dependency.

Racial preferences are “the last thing that connects black people to the era when blacks were dependent on the government,” Connerly told me earlier this month. With an eye toward nailing the coffin shut on black victimization by the government, he is calling his Election Day 2008 campaign, “Super Tuesday for Equal Rights.” On that day, he is hoping for a victory over racial preferences in referendums in Nebraska, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

According to Connerly, victories on these ballots could mark “the end of an era.”

Connerly is in a good position to make such grand claims and have such high hopes. Whereas Election Day 2006 was a widespread wipeout for Republicans, he was a rare winner that day. His Michigan Civil Rights Initiative received an affirmative from 58% of voters to amend the state constitution to prohibit state and local government “from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the areas of public employment, public contracting and public education.”

He won despite a barrage of ridiculous and desperate attacks. A radio ad from One United Michigan asked, “If you could have prevented 9-11 from ever happening ... would you have?” It continued, “If you could have prevented Katrina ... what would you have done?” Then, “On Nov. 7, there’s a national disaster headed for Michigan ... the elimination of affirmative action.” The ad argued that a “yes” on the referendum would issue a “no” to equal opportunity for women and minorities.

In truth, Connerly’s effort is all about equal opportunity. It is about ending discrimination against white males, and ending the stigmatization of blacks as victims. As we head into 2008, Connerly sees a convergence of factors pointing toward a time of real transition for America. Barack Obama, whose interracial parents could not have gotten married in some states a few decades ago, is a serious Democratic contender for president. Blacks and whites alike see the power of Oprah Winfrey. Bill Cosby, in his book with Alvin F. Poussaint, Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, encourages individual responsibility and “no more excuses.” Cosby and Poussaint point out that in 2002, there were 1.2 million black-owned businesses in the United States, which marked a 45% increase in five years. More than ever, this is a land of opportunity.

Fifty years ago this fall, we needed the 101st Airborne to get black children into their Little Rock, Ark., high school. America has “come so far,” Connerly tells me. “And now the rollback against government victimization of blacks may soon be complete.” That would be quite the Super Tuesday.

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Interview: Author on Black Christian Racialism (Christian Post, 071226)

With one of the top presidential contenders vying to be the first African American in the White House, many are curious if black religious voters will coalesce behind him because of his shared race.

Pamela G. Wilson, former journalist and author of the new book Finding Soul Brothers: Dismantling Black Christian Racialism,”, spoke to The Christian Post to give her input on black unity versus faith in the African American community.

CP: You talk in your book about black religious leaders who endorse black candidates at the sacrifice of their moral values as taught in the Bible, such as on the issue of abortion. What is the reason behind their willingness to make such concessions?

Wilson: A lot of black Christians will pretty much ignore that issue because they don’t want to face the contradiction between their faith and who they are voting for. People won’t even talk about it and that’s a problem because most of the time you will find that people are supporting a candidate based on how they feel they will advance the African American race.

I heard many people come straight out and say, “I don’t believe in abortion but people have the right to choose.” Well to me that doesn’t make any sense. You say you don’t believe in somebody committing murder but then it’s ok for someone to commit murder.

I’m saying that if you are a Christian you should make yourself align with people who believe and support the Bible on these important issues.

CP: Why is it that statistically African Americans have been shown to be highly religious and widely against gay ‘marriage’ and abortion, but then vote for a candidate that supports such rights?

Wilson: I think one of the things in the black community is there has always been more of a stigma about being gay than having an abortion because people really believe that abortion is not a black issue. I had very educated black people tell me that black people don’t really have abortion, they just have children out of wedlock and that’s just not true.

There are many studies that say black women are three times as likely as white women to have an abortion. That 10 million black babies have been aborted since 1973, and more people have died that way than AIDS, cancer, heart disease and tragic accident combined. The reason I think African Americans are not rallying in masses behind abortion is because they think it doesn’t affect them.

But they think the issue of gay would affect their community because they have seen it affect them in some way. But I believe this, when people become more educated about what the Bible says about it (abortion) – because life is clearly recognized at conception – I believe that trend will be changed.

CP: Can you address in more detail why black Christians vote against their values?

Wilson: Here’s why. It all goes back to black unity. If you go back to things that are most important to a particular voting demographic, like African Americans, the things that are most important to them are issues of affirmative action, civil rights, equality in the United States and all these different things that they believe they have fought for for so many years.

This is what is very odd about it - it’s like a knee-jerk thing - even people who have achieved a great measure of success, who are professionals who live in half-million-dollar houses are still doing the same thing and saying, “We got to fight for rights!”

I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist and there is no discrimination, but we have come away from where people had to rally behind someone because you needed them to support you so you can have fairness in the United States.

I feel people are stuck in that and it’s hard to get out of it and people have said time and time again, “Well somebody told me to vote this way because they’re there for black people,” and without even thinking about it.

That’s where in my book I said we have to stop this. I can understand a non-Christian black American doing that, but when it comes down to an African American Christian, I think they are doing it for the same reason the rest of the secular black people do it—because it is a racial unity thing.

People just jump on the black bandwagon at the expense of their faith. Civil rights is an important issue but I think people need to look past that, particularly if you are a Christian and espouse the belief that God will help you overcome all your obstacles.

I’ll give you another example. Let’s look at something like the Gospel Music Awards. They will put a secular entertainer in there where their lifestyle, their music or their entertainment does not reflect biblical values. But they will include them in it because they are a prominent black person.

You’ll see prominent people in the religious community hang around with high profile people in the music industry just because they are high profile and they’re black. That again goes back to black unity. Instead of holding people accountable and saying, “I appreciate you as a young person in the entertainment industry but your music really doesn’t reflect what we believe God wants you to do as a young person,” there are examples after examples where Christians have chosen black unity over their faith. And I call that being unequally yoked.

CP: What is your opinion on a relatively new movement of conservative black leaders, such as Bishop Harry R. Jackson and the High Impact Leadership Coalition?

Wilson: I think Harry R. Jackson is fabulous and I wish I had known more about him when I was writing my book…I think people like him are exactly what the body of Christ needs.

There are a lot of very prominent, up-and-coming black preachers that are telling people, “Stop being a pigeon-hole politically and socially and start doing things that you know reflect the Bible.”

So I applaud him. I believe those are the people that represent what a Christian leader should be thinking. They are saying we are apolitical. Even though someone may be registered a certain way to vote, they are telling people, “Let’s stay in line with our faith and once we stay in line with our faith then we can be flexible because sometime there might be a Democrat that is more in line with our faith, and sometimes there might be a Republican.”

But I think as Christians we need to say faith first and everything else second. So I see him as being one of those people and I think the more this message gets out through him and others, then the more this movement will grow.

CP: What methods do you advise for black Christians to start aligning themselves with their spiritual brothers rather than their ‘soul brothers’?

Wilson: I think one of the things that black people can begin to do is to start worshipping together with people of other races. Not only visiting different churches but also do service projects together. If you start doing service projects with people that don’t particularly look like you, those things go a long way to be able to reach out to other people of other race who are Christians.

CP: Do you have anything you want to add?

Wilson: My book talks about this issue because I have become so passionate about this topic since I’ve become a believer. I just think this is a message that needs to be told. It is sometimes not a pleasant message because it makes people do some self-examination, but in the end it will help everyone understand that one of the most divisive issues in the church right now is black Christians.

Black Christians are one of the elements that have prevented the church from coming together. It isn’t the only element, but black Christians being so race focus is really tearing away from the mission of the total unity of the body of Christ.

If people read this book and walk away with anything, they need to understand why it is happening, how it is happening, and some of the tools to fix it and that is what I talk about in the book.

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How Christians Ended Slavery (townhall.com, 080114)

By Dinesh D’Souza

Isn’t it remarkable that atheists, who did virtually nothing to oppose slavery, condemn Christians, who are the ones who abolished it?

Consider atheist Sam Harris, who blames Christianity for supporting slavery. Harris is right that slavery existed among the Old Testament Jews, and Paul even instructs slaves to obey their masters. During the civil war both sides quoted the Bible. We know all this. (Yawn, yawn.)

But slavery pre-dated Christianity by centuries and even millennia. As we read from sociologist Orlando Patterson’s work, all known cultures had slavery. For centuries, slavery needed no defenders because it had no critics. Atheists who champion ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome somehow seem to forget that those empires were based on large-scale enslavement.

Atheist Michael Shermer says Christians are “late comers” to the movement against slavery. Shermer advanced this argument in our Cal Tech debate in December. That debate is now online, and you can watch it at michaelshermer.com.

But if what Shermer says is true, who were the early opponents of slavery who got there before the Christians did? Actually, there weren’t any. Shermer probably thinks the Christians only got around to opposing slavery in the modern era.

Wrong. Slavery was mostly eradicated from Western civilization—then called Christendom—between the fourth and the tenth century. The Greco-Roman institution of slavery gave way to serfdom. Now serfdom has its problems but at least the serf is not a “human tool” and cannot be bought and sold like property. So slavery was ended twice in Western civilization, first in the medieval era and then again in the modern era.

In the American South, Christianity proved to be the solace of the oppressed. As historian Eugene Genovese documents in Roll, Jordan, Roll, when black slaves sought to find dignity during the dark night of slavery, they didn’t turn to Marcus Aurelius or David Hume; they turned to the Bible. When they sought hope and inspiration for liberation, they found it not in Voltaire or D’Holbach but in the Book of Exodus.

The anti-slavery movements led by Wilberforce in England and abolitionists in America were dominated by Christians. These believers reasoned that since we are all created equal in the eyes of God, no one has the right to rule another without consent. This is the moral basis not only of anti-slavery but also of democracy.

Jefferson was in some ways the least orthodox and the most skeptical of the founders. Yet when he condemned slavery he found himself using biblical language. In Notes on the State of Virginia Jefferson warned that those who would enslave people should reflect that “the Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.” Jefferson famously added, “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep for ever.”

But wasn’t Jefferson also a man of science? Yes he was, and it was on the basis of the latest science of his day that Jefferson expressed his convictions about black inferiority. Citing the discoveries of modern science, Jefferson noted that “there are varieties in the race of man, distinguished by their powers both of body and of mind...as I see to be the case with races of other animals.” Blacks, Jefferson continued, lack the powers of reason that are evident in whites and even in native Indians. While atheists today like to portray themselves as paragons of equal dignity, Jefferson’s scientific and skeptical outlook contributed not to his anti-slavery sentiments but to his racism. Somehow Harris and Shermer neglect to point this out.

In the end the fact remains that the only movements that opposed slavery in principle were mobilized in the West, and they were overwhelmingly led and populated by Christians. Sadly the West had to use force to stop slavery in other cultures, such as the Muslim slave trade off the coast of Africa. In some quarters the campaign to eradicate slavery still goes on.

So who killed slavery? The Christians did, while everyone else generally stood by and watched.

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‘Follow the Lord Jesus’ (Breakpoint, 080201)

By Chuck Colson

It’s Black History Month—and in classrooms around the country, children have been learning about famous African-Americans and their contributions to our culture. That’s a good thing. But there is one thing most kids have not been learning about many of these famous men and women: that is, their Christian faith and how it motivated their lives and their work.

For instance, Sojourner Truth is often identified as a women’s rights advocate and abolitionist. Overlooked is the source of Sojourner’s fiery devotion to human rights: That was her commitment to Jesus Christ. “The Lord gave me the name Sojourner,” she declared, “because I was to travel up and down the land, showing people their sins, and being a sign unto them.” At age 88, her dying words were, “Follow the Lord Jesus.”

And then there is Rosa Parks. Many people know the story of the seamstress who helped ignite the modern civil-rights movement. But far fewer people know that Parks is a devout Christian and that it was her faith that gave her the strength to do what she did that day in 1955. “Since I have always been a strong believer in God,” she says, “I knew that He was with me, and only He could get me through that next step”—that is, refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man.

Our kids have also been hearing a lot about Jackie Robinson’s quiet dignity in the face of racial bigotry on the ball field. But many do not realize the source of Robinson’s ability to turn the other cheek: It was his faith in Jesus Christ. During his 10 years with the Dodgers, he endured racist remarks, death threats, and unfair calls by umpires. But Robinson’s faith helped him keep his anger in check. Every night, he got on his knees and prayed for self-control.

Most people know that George Washington Carver was a chemist and agronomist. Born a slave in 1860, Carver rose to become director of agricultural research at Tuskegee University in Alabama. He is remembered for developing 118 derivative products from sweet potatoes and 300 from peanuts—including my favorite food, peanut butter. Thanks to his efforts, by 1940, peanuts were the second largest cash crop in the South. But go to his name in the encyclopedia, and you will find no reference to the most important aspect of his life: how his faith in God inspired his creativity.

“I didn’t make these discoveries,” Carver once said. “God has only worked through me to reveal to His children some of His wonderful providence.”

Stories like these are a reminder of what a central role the Christian faith has played in the lives of many great Americans. We Christians need to reclaim our cultural heritage from those who seem intent on deleting it from history books—and from Black History Month celebrations. So I urge you: Before the month ends, make sure your own kids learn about the abiding faith of Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, George Washington Carver, and, of course, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. And consider donating some of the good biographies written about these people to local schools and libraries—biographies that tell the whole story.

Our kids deserve to know, not only of African-American contributions to science, politics, and culture, but also of those individuals’ commitments to Christ.

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Obama pastor’s theology: Destroy ‘the white enemy’: ‘If God is not for us and against whites ... we had better kill him’ (WorldNetDaily, 080318)

Barack Obama’s suddenly radioactive pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has defended himself against charges of anti-Americanism and racism by referring to his foundational philosophy, the “black liberation theology” of scholars such as James Cone, who regard Jesus Christ as a “black messiah” and blacks as “the chosen people” who will only accept a god who assists their aim of destroying the “white enemy.”

“If God is not for us and against white people,” writes Cone, “then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community.”

Wright has not talked to media since video segments of his sermons over the past decade surfaced last week – including one in 2003 in which he encouraged blacks to damn America in God’s name. But in a 2007 interview replayed on the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity and Colmes” show Friday, he repeatedly fended off Sean Hannity’s questions with an appeal to authority, asking if the host had read any of the books of Cone, professor at New York’s Union Theological Seminary, or Dwight Hopkins, professor at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, notes the Asia Times columnist who writes under the pseudonym Spengler.”

Obama, who has spoken of his pastor of more than 20 years as his mentor and moral compass, “wants to talk about what Wright is, rather than what he says,” notes Spengler, by referring him as a “respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago.”

But Spengler says “that way lies apolitical quicksand.”

Cone, he points out, was the most prominent theologian in the “black liberation” school in the 1960s, teaching that Jesus Christ himself is black.

The theologian explains:

Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants.

Rather than viewing God as a sovereign being who does as he wills according to his purposes, Cone insists God must do what we want him to do, or we must reject him.

What the black community wants, Cone says, is for God to assist in its goal of destroying “the white enemy.”

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community

... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

‘I reject outright’

As WND reported yesterday, Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago has removed from the “About Us” page of its website a section outlining its radical belief system for blacks.

Obama issued a statement Friday referring to the taped statements from sermons, saying he strongly condemned and denounced “some inflammatory and appalling remarks [Wright] made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.”

Despite having been at the church for two decades, Obama said he was not in attendance when Wright made any of the statements and never heard such talk in private conversations.

“Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy,” Obama said. “I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.”

Late Friday, Wright stepped down from his formal role in Obama’s campaign, as a member of his African American Religious Leadership Committee.

Stamp of approval

Spengler pointed out that in his response to Hannity, Wright “genuinely seemed to believe that the authority of Cone and Hopkins, who now hold important posts at liberal theological seminaries, was sufficient to make the issue go away.”

“His faith in the white establishment is touching; he honestly cannot understand why the white reporters at Fox News are bothering him when the University of Chicago and the Union Theological Seminary have put their stamp of approval on black liberation theology,” Spengler says.

It’s possible, Spengler continues, that Obama “does not believe a word of what Wright, Cone and Hopkins teach.”

“Perhaps he merely used the Trinity United Church of Christ as a political stepping-stone,” he writes. “African-American political life is centered around churches, and his election to the Illinois state Senate with the support of Chicago’s black political machine required church membership. Trinity United happens to be Chicago’s largest and most politically active black church.”

It seems unlikely Obama would identify with the ideological fits of the black-power movement of the 1960s,” Spengler says.

“Obama does not come to the matter with the perspective of an American black, but of the child of a left-wing anthropologist raised in the Third World. ... It is possible that because of the Wright affair Obama will suffer for what he pretended to be, rather than for what he really is.”

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Obama’s preacher sanitizes website: Removes radical ‘Black Value System’ from church ‘About Us’ page (WorldNetDaily, 080316)

A black Chicago church attended by Democrat presidential frontrunner Barack Obama has removed from the “About Us” page of its website a section outlining a radical belief system for blacks, WND has learned.

Trinity United Church of Christ, which describes itself as “unashamedly black,” drew fire last week after inflammatory sermons by its senior pastor were broadcast on cable TV news.

Obama responded he was shocked to hear the profane anti-American and anti-white rhetoric delivered by his Rev. Jeremiah Wright and strongly objected to it.

While critics say the sermons reflect militantly segregationist views, Obama says they were taken out of context and do not reflect the broader message of his preacher and church.

Until recently, however, Trinity’s website outlined a controversial code of ethics written by blacks for blacks called the “Black Value System.”

It asks members to commit their time, money and talents to the black community, black businesses, black institutions and black political leaders. The program also demands black members disavow “the pursuit of middleclassness.”

The section has since been deleted from the About Us page, which has added videotaped testimonials from church members extolling the virtues of the church, including a white official from the parent United Church of Christ who said she feels welcome at predominantly black Trinity.

“These black ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever blacks are gathered,” the original webpage said.

Here is the entire text of the section before it was redacted:

“Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System, written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by the late Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:

1. Commitment to God

2. Commitment to the Black Community

3. Commitment to the Black Family

4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education

5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence

7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect

8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”

9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community

10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions

11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System

12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.”

Critics argue Wright has used his tax-exempt church to exercise a radical political agenda.

A longtime friend of Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan, Wright has called for divestment from Israel and refers to Israel, as well as America, as a “racist” state.

“Theologically he believes that the true ‘Chosen People’ are the blacks,” said Caroline B. Glick, an editor for the Jerusalem Post. “Indeed he is a black supremacist.”

“He believes that black values are superior to middle-class American values,” she added, “and that blacks should isolate themselves from the wider American society.”

Wright currently is on “sabbatical” and unavailable for comment. Trinity did not immediately return phone calls seeking explanation regarding its revised webpage.

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OK, Sen. Obama, Let’s Have the Race ‘Talk’ (townhall.com, 080327)

By Larry Elder

In his Big Speech defending his 20-year membership in a church headed by a racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, conspiracy-believing pastor, Democratic candidate Barack Obama says America needs a frank “talk” about race.

For crying out loud, we talk incessantly about race! Pick up a newspaper — any newspaper — or turn on cable news and wait a few minutes. Race — usually something about how blacks feel, how blacks think, how blacks and whites see things differently, yada, blah, etc. — comes up.

Obama’s plea reminds me of one of my “talks” about race — this one more than 30 years ago. Back in college, I dated a young lady whom today I would call a “victicrat.”

One day she came back from her sociology class. “We discussed race today,” she said cheerfully, “and boy, did they get an earful.” She then proceeded to tell me how she attacked “the white boys” for slavery, Jim Crow and the “continued oppression of blacks.”

When I called it unfair to condemn her classmates for oppressing blacks, she said, “That’s what they said, too, but we let ‘em have it.”

I then said, “What’s so amusing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your smile. You sure look like you’re having fun. Turn around. Look in the mirror.”

She turned and looked in the mirror hanging on the wall. Her expression of joy even surprised her.

“You really like putting down white people,” I continued. “What, is this some sort of payback for slavery?”

We argued into the night. I saw an America full of promise and hope, and she saw only barriers with little sign of improvement.

Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, similarly seems downright joyful in attacking America, blaming the government for AIDS and drugs, and attributing the Islamofascist attacks of 9/11 to America’s racism.

Wright believes that, in the year 2008, it remains hard out there for a black guy. So, too, do many members of the media, who called Obama’s speech a “refreshing” call for a dialogue to deal with the “chasm” and “divide” between America’s blacks and whites.

But consider the “talk” about race by former slave turned educator/author Booker T. Washington in his book “Up From Slavery” — written in 1901, a mere three and a half decades after the end of slavery:

“I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.

“In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy’s birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his task even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.

“From any point of view, I had rather be what I am, a member of the Negro race, than be able to claim membership with the most favoured of any other race. I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights and privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments. I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded. This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong.”

American blacks live in a post-slavery, post-Jim Crow world, with a growing, thriving black middle class. We live in a country where, for the most part, hard work, focus, ability and some luck determine success. Why, then, the continued anger, negativity, and finger-pointing, in a country to which much of the world — if it could — would happily relocate?

So, let that talk begin.

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If Jeremiah Wright is a Prophet, Isaiah Wasn’t (townhall.com, 080401)

By Dennis Prager

Were the controversial comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright “prophetic”? That is the claim made by a large number of black and white clergy, by the head of the United Church of Christ and by many other defenders of Rev. Wright.

As summarized by the religion editor of the Kansas City Star (March 29, 2008):

“Scholars and black clergy say Wright … simply reflects a heritage of prophetic preaching in the black church. Prophetic preaching ‘is the trademark of the black church tradition, of which Jeremiah Wright is perhaps one of the most illustrious exemplars,’ said Walter Earl Fluker of Morehouse College in Atlanta.

“‘Black prophetic preaching emerges from black slavery,’ said the Rev. Angela Sims, instructor of Christian ethics and black church studies at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. ‘Black prophetic preaching can be associated with Old Testament prophets, including Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah and Isaiah,’ she said.

“‘The African-American church has always had a prophetic role in black life in America,’ said the Rev. Donald D. Ford I of Second Missionary Baptist Church of Grandview.

“‘Wright fits in that tradition,’ said Peter Paris, professor emeritus of Christian social ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey.” The Chicago Tribune (March 28) reported that “Wright’s preaching … is in the ‘prophetic’ tradition, one of many that have evolved in black pulpits. … ‘Shocking words like ‘God damn America’ lie at the core of prophetic preaching,’ said Rev. Bernard Richardson, dean of the chapel at Howard University.”

In the Wisconsin State Journal, Bill Wineke, a columnist and ordained clergyman of the United Church of Christ (UCC) wrote:

“You see, you and I may look at the short clips of Wright sermons played almost endlessly on cable television and agree that they are filled with ‘hate.’ [Hillary] Clinton knows better. … She knows the tradition of prophetic preaching in the church. Every theologian I know who has actually attended Trinity United Church of Christ — including Martin Marty, probably the most popular theologian in America today — agrees Wright’s sermons, taken in context, rest squarely in that tradition.”

Wineke then goes on to relate how another UCC minister, from a generation ago, also spoke from the prophetic tradition:

“In Madison, the late Rev. Alfred W. Swan, minister of the First Congregational Church (now part of the UCC) from 1930 to 1965, was regularly denounced for his preaching. One Sunday in 1952, Swan mounted the pulpit to announce ‘I am not a Communist, and I have no intention of being one.’ That was after Swan had criticized the Korean War, urged the country to make peace with China and suggested that Russians were better off than they had been before the 1917 Revolution. Not surprisingly, Swan regularly faced calls for his dismissal.”

The Rev. Anthony B. “Tony” Robinson wrote in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (March 28), “After 9/11, Wright charged that ‘America’s chickens are coming home to roost’ … he said ‘God damn America.’ … Sounds like what the Bible calls a prophet.”

The Dallas Morning News (March 29) reported, “More than two dozen well-known black preachers and scholars, in Dallas for a long-planned conference, offered unequivocal support Friday for one of their number who was not there. … Several of the scholars and preachers spoke at a news conference. They said that Dr. Wright’s sermons fit into a long-standing black tradition of prophetic preaching.”

Warren Bolton, associate editor of Columbia’s (S.C.) The State (March 26), compared the Rev. Wright with Jesus Christ.

The Rev. Marshall Hatch, pastor of New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, wrote in the Austin Weekly News (March 26): “It is providential that this has come in the midst of Holy Week 2008, a season when we commemorate the crucifixion of Christ and the vindication of God for faithfulness to prophetic speech.”

The Dallas Morning News (March 19) quoted the Rev. Tyrone Gordon, pastor at St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas, as saying: “One thing I said to the church on this past Sunday is that a lot of us are taking it personally because it is an attack on the whole black prophetic experience.”

Now, what are some of the comments that are so widely deemed “prophetic?”

“We’ve bombed Hiroshima, we’ve bombed Nagasaki, we’ve nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.”

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards.”

“America’s chickens are coming home to roost. Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism.”

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America’? No, no, no, not ‘God Bless America,’ ‘God Damn America.’”

“The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

As morally disturbing as the Rev. Wright’s comments are, and as troubling as is the fact that the man favored to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for president of the United States chose to stay in the reverend’s church for 20 years, there is something even more disturbing in the widespread labeling of these comments as “prophetic.”

It is one thing to have a broken moral compass as do the Rev. Wright and those many Americans of all colors who also see America as a force for evil; who also believe immoral American behavior caused the slaughter of 9/11; who similarly regard America as morally equivalent to its terrorist enemies; and who see Israel as the moral equivalent of those who seek to exterminate the Jewish state. But to distort the biblical prophets’ values to mean the opposite of what they actually mean is arguably an even greater sin.

The essence of the real prophets was not that they said things that disturbed people; the moral essence of the prophets was their moral clarity. They knew the difference between good and evil. “Woe unto those who call good ‘evil’ and call evil ‘good,’” said the Prophet Isaiah.

Those who cannot see the monumental moral gulf between America and the unspeakably evil jihadists America is fighting in Iraq and elsewhere are not prophets. Those who think Americans got what they deserved on 9/11 are not prophets. Those who think the Russian people were better off under Communism are not prophets. Those who think America developed AIDS and infected people of color with it are not prophets. Those who think America is more worthy of damnation than of blessing are not prophets. They are fools.

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Dreams From My Father, Lame Excuses From My Grandfather (Ann Coulter, 080409)

Since a Chinese graduate student at Columbia University, Minghui Yu, was killed last Friday when black youths violently set upon him, sending him running into traffic to escape, I think B. Hussein Obama ought to start referring to the mind-set of the “typical Asian person.”

As of Wednesday, police had no motive for the attack, and witnesses said they heard no demand for money or anything else. The Associated Press reports that the assailant simply said to his friend, “Watch what I do to this guy” before punching Yu.

Meanwhile, let’s revisit the story about Obama’s grandmother being guilty of thinking like a “typical white person.” As recounted in Obama’s autobiography, the only evidence that his grandmother feared black men comes from Obama’s good-for-nothing, chronically unemployed white grandfather, who accuses Grandma of racism as his third excuse not to get dressed and drive her to work.

His grandmother wanted a ride to work at 6:30 in the morning because, the day before, she had been aggressively solicited by a homeless man at the bus stop. On her account, the panhandler “was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn’t come, I think he might have hit me over the head.”

Even Obama’s shiftless grandfather didn’t play the race card until pretty far into the argument over whether he would drive Grandma to work. First, the good-for-nothing grandfather told Obama that Grandma was just trying to guilt him into driving her, saying, “(S)he just wants me to feel bad.”

Next, he complained about his non-work routine being disrupted, saying: “She’s been catching the bus ever since she started at the bank. ... And now, just because she gets pestered a little, she wants to change everything!”

Only after Obama had offered to drive his grandmother to work himself and it was becoming increasingly clear what a selfish lout the grandfather was, did Grandpa produce his trump card. The reason he wouldn’t get his lazy butt dressed and drive Grandma to work was ... she was a racist!

As Obama recounts it, on Grandpa’s third try at an excuse, he told Obama: “You know why she’s so scared this time? I’ll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black. That’s the real reason she’s bothered. And I just don’t think that’s right.” So I guess I’ll be heading back to the sack now!

That makes sense. It certainly never bothers me when crazy white people harass and threaten me.

This is Obama’s own account of what happened, which — as anyone can see — consisted of his slacker grandfather making a series of excuses to avoid having to drive the sole bread-earner in the family to work.

But Obama says, “The words were like a fist in my stomach, and I wobbled to regain my composure.” (It was as if he had been punched by an aggressive panhandler at a bus stop!) And not because his grandfather’s sorry excuse reminded him that he came from a long line of callow, worthless men, both black and white.

No, Obama swallowed his grandfather’s pathetic excuse hook, line and sinker, leading Obama to a reverie about his grandparents: “I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears.” That’s true — assuming his brothers and sisters were menacing people at bus stops.

How deranged would you have to be to cite this incident as evidence that your grandmother thought like a “typical white person” — as opposed to your grandfather being worthless and lazy? For those keeping score, Obama is aghast at his grandmother’s alleged racism, but had no problem with Jeremiah Wright’s manifest racism.

If Obama is sent reeling by the mere words of an elderly white woman, how is he going to negotiate with a guy like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What if Ahmadinejad calls him “booger-face”? Will he run crying from the table?

Your grandmother wasn’t a racist, Barack. Your grandpa was just a loser. Can we wrap up our national conversation about race now? I think we’d like to move onto questions about your stupid plan to hold talks with Iran.

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Planned Parenthood Puts A Hit Out On Black Children (townhall.com, 080428)

By Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

Last Thursday a group of black pastors released a letter calling for all presidential candidates and other politicians to return or refuse to accept campaign donations made by Planned Parenthood nationally. I was proud to be a part of that effort. A recent Wall Street Journal story cited that Planned Parenthood is contributing an unprecedented 10 million dollars to various political campaigns this election cycle.

At first blush this seems like an extravagant, if not frivolous, use of money. Only those who are aware of the 305 million dollars a year of federal money that this organization rakes in would understand this strategic move. When the average person thinks of special interest groups, they often look at big businesses or certain industry lobbyists. But this is not always the case.

Planned Parenthood has a public face that says they are supporting the rights of women to assert their reproductive rights. Unfortunately, recent investigations and reports suggest that this organization is actually peddling death in an aggressive and unethical manner. In Kansas the organization is under criminal investigation for falsifying documents and performing late term abortions. It faces 23 felony counts.

Planned Parenthood has also dealt in the realm of deception concerning the age of its customers. In Ohio, Planned Parenthood is being sued for failing to report the rape of a 16-year-old by her father. This is not the first time that center leaders have tried to bend age-related reporting requirement. Eleven months ago UCLA student Lila Rose appeared on the O’Reilly Factor stating the some Planned Parenthood centers attempt to hide child abuse or statutory rape by encouraging underage mothers to falsify their ages in order to receive an abortion.

Others believe that the organization, founded by Margaret Sanger, has actually swindled the government out of money. In California, former Los Angeles city officials have accused the California Planned Parenthood organization of defrauding taxpayers of over 180 million dollars.

What made us as black leaders decide to address the issue at this point in time? I cannot speak for all the other ministers, but I believe that my concerns are shared by many of them. The simple answer is that so many reports about Planned Parenthood’s blatant disrespect for the law have recently surfaced that it required response immediately. I believe that before these court cases and accusations become old news, people of conscience of all races must stand up and be counted.

If Planned Parenthood is brought into check, it will substantially affect the entire abortion industry. Planned Parenthood has 850 centers around the country and is the largest provider of abortions in the nation. In addition, experts estimate that 75% of Planned Parenthood centers are located in close proximity to minority neighborhoods.

Known as a eugenicist who spoke of sterilizing those she designated as “unfit,” founder Margaret Sanger had no love in her heart for blacks. Today scholars have discovered the following statement written by Sanger, “We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” As a result the black community is disproportionately affected by the posture, placement, and philosophy of this organization. Over 1,200 black babies are aborted every day in America which amounts to over 35% of the total number of babies aborted in the nation. This genocide teamed with the rise of HIV/AIDS deaths and murders may lead to negative population growth.

This a moral issue of great magnitude that can affect the black community for decades. A final straw that has broken the camel’s back has been added to the litany of problems that this organization has created — Planned Parenthood facilities around the country have been accused of accepting contributions from racist donors. A group of concerned people conducted their own “sting” operation which has exposed a willingness of Planned Parenthood employees to accommodate racist donors. In fact, clinic personnel in Ohio, New Mexico, Idaho and Oklahoma have been captured on tape pandering to a potential donor with a racist agenda.

In general, the media has turned a deaf ear to the issue of abortion. Reporters often call this issue divisive and polarizing. I am thrilled that there are a growing number of black leaders who are willing to stand up and be counted on this important issue. Interestingly, it is the black leadership in this anti Planned Parenthood initiative that is beginning to draw national attention. To the press, it’s a “man bites dog story” – a reversal of common wisdom. Now is the time for blacks and whites to work together, to strike a blow against the unethical practices of the “death industry” in America.

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Radical Rantings (BreakPoint, 080508)

By Chuck Colson

Black Liberation Theology

I have refrained from commenting extensively on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy because this is an election year, and I avoid partisan questions. Until now, the Rev. Wright has been closely aligned with the Democratic front-runner.

Two recent events, however, now lead me to speak out about him. First, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has denounced Wright’s radical teachings. Second, Rev. Wright has raised questions that go far beyond the current political campaign. Specifically, he is a proponent of black liberation theology, a radical movement that emerged some 40 years ago.

One of the founders of black liberation theology is a mentor of Rev. Wright. He is James Cone, author of a 1969 book titled Black Theology and Black Power. The book presents Jesus as a liberator who identified with poor and oppressed peoples. Cone links the Christian faith with the African-American struggle for full equality.

Among Cone’s more radical teachings: God is against white people. My friend Mike Gerson, the columnist, quotes Cone as saying, “Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy.” Jesus, Cone declares, did not come for all, but only for the poor and the oppressed.

Clearly, these beliefs are inconsistent with biblical teaching. Jesus was concerned, of course, about the rights of the oppressed, but He also made it clear that the Good News is for everybody—male and female, Jew and Gentile, and even the Roman soldiers who nailed Him to the cross.

I had always written off black liberation theology as a movement embraced only by isolated radicals. You can imagine how surprised I was to read in the New York Times this week that perhaps a quarter of all black pastors are followers of this movement.

Black liberation theology parallels the liberation theology within the Catholic Church. A few years ago, many believed that the impoverished masses of Latin America would embrace liberation theology with its Marxist promises of justice and redistribution of wealth. But the people wanted none of it. Why not? Because their governments had become so corrupt that they would not put their trust in them.

What South Americans chose instead, as I write in my new book The Faith, was a reinvigorated faith in Christ, orthodox Bible-preaching churches. Women love this because they saw the results: Their husbands came home to be with their families at night instead of hanging out in bars. The Church spread.

It is hard for me to believe the New York Times is correct about all this. But if it is, I hope African-American leaders will recognize liberation theology for what it is: Marxism that failed everywhere it has been tried; and a theology that brings about not reconciliation, but further alienation.

Now, as a white man, I obviously cannot understand all the feelings in the black community. But having worked in the prisons with so many African-Americans and with so many black pastors over 30 years, I do have some appreciation for the anger and resentment they feel over America’s treatment of their ancestors and of them—rightly so. But their hope should be in the orthodox Gospel, not a chimera like liberation theology.

If the Times is correct, this is sad and frightening news. Black liberation theology is no more than secular liberalism once again invading the Church—and, like all such movements, it will only end up betraying its followers.

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Black Politics? You mean liberal politics (townhall.com, 080811)

by Star Parker

A feature story in this week’s New York Times Magazine asks, “Is Obama the End of Black Politics?”

This in the wake of a full week of TV talking heads asking if presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama played the “race card” in his response to John McCain’s Obama “celebrity” ads. And an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by black journalist Juan Williams saying “The Race Issue Isn’t Going Away.”

Williams is right. The race issue isn’t going away. And the New York Times feature, which profiles new young black politicians around the nation — like Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, Newark, N.J., mayor Corey Booker, and Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter — sheds little light on the issue in what it says.

More revealing about the Times piece is what it doesn’t say.

The Times reporter never found it relevant to note that every black politician he spoke to is a Democrat. Nor did he see a need to talk to a single black conservative.

It’s not like black conservatives have nothing to say here. Hoover Institution scholar Shelby Steele wrote a book about Obama. Tom Sowell has regularly written about him, as have I.

But black conservatives are not considered relevant to these discussions because race is not an issue of ethnicity but an issue of politics. Black politics means liberal politics and hence black conservatives are not black.

When I do media and speak as a conservative, I can expect emails pouring in from blacks calling me a sellout, who cannot conceive that I actually believe what I say, and for whom there is little doubt that I am a paid Republican shill.

Almost a third of blacks surveyed in a recent Wall Street Journal poll responded that race is the most important or one of the most important considerations in their vote.

But practically speaking, it makes no difference. Despite black excitement and pride in the Obama candidacy, the black vote would go for whoever headed the Democratic ticket, white or black. In 2004 John Kerry got 88% of the black vote.

The dynamics that the Obama candidacy has interjected is new only in form, not in content.

In the past, the liberal at the top of the heap for whom blacks overwhelmingly voted was white. Now that liberal is black. That’s new.

Barack Obama, as Shelby Steele has written, departs from the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton brand of politics in that he is far more sophisticated and subtle in how to play on white guilt and how to intimidate. That’s new.

But the liberal content and agenda is not new, and this blacks continue to buy en masse.

The points conservatives have been hammering home for the last 20 years have not been for naught. There is increasing awareness among blacks how family breakdown is driving the social problems of the community.

This is not lost on Obama. His speeches paying credence to the importance and relevance of personal responsibility are well received among blacks, but also play well to the whites he wishes to reach.

But the program behind the words remains comfortably lodged on the far left. Big government answers for everything, redistribution of wealth, use of law as a tool for politics, liberal abortion policies, and legitimization of the gay agenda.

The relevant question is not if Obama means the end of black politics. The issue is will black politics — black uniform support for liberals — ever change?

In a Pew Research Center survey of blacks done last year, almost 90% said that Oprah Winfrey is a “good influence,” but only 50% said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and just 31% said Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are.

In the same survey, almost 70% of blacks said they “almost always/frequently” face discrimination when applying for a job or when renting or buying an apartment or house.

Despite the fact that the survey showed that blacks have traditional and conservative views regarding crime and promiscuity, the sense of vulnerability defines black attitudes and politically trumps everything else. There’s a lot of history driving these feelings and liberals will continue to exploit them.

Things won’t change until blacks begin to see that these same liberal politics and attitudes are at the root of their problems today.

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Barack Obama and White Privilege (townhall.com, 080917)

by John Stossel

Complaints about racism still dominate media discussion of the disparity between black and white success. Comedian Chris Rock tells white audiences, “None of ya would change places with me! And I’m rich! That’s how good it is to be white!”

I assumed that the success of Barack Obama, as well as thousands of other black Americans and dark-skinned immigrants — many of whom thrive despite language problems — demonstrates that America today is largely a colorblind meritocracy. But a white campus lecturer, Tim Wise, gets tremendous applause from students by saying things like, “[W]hite supremacy and privilege continue to skew opportunities hundreds of years after they were set in place” and in America, “meritocracy is as close to a lie as you can come.” His message is in demand — he is invited to more than 80 speaking engagements a year.

But black writer Shelby Steele argues that whites do blacks no favors wringing their hands about white privilege.

“I grew up in segregation,” Steele told me. “So I really know what racism is. I went to segregated school. I bow to no one in my knowledge of racism, which is one of the reasons why I say white privilege is not a problem.”

Steele claims, “the real problem is black irresponsibility. ... Racism is about 18th on a list of problems that black America faces.”

Whites’ preoccupation with guilt and compensation such as affirmative action is actually a subtle form of racism, writes Steele in his book “White Guilt”. “One of the things that is clear about white privilege, and so many of the arguments for diversity that pretend to be compensatory, is that they advantage whites. They make the argument that whites can solve [black people’s] problems. ... The problem with that is ... you reinforce white supremacy. ... And black dependency.

“White privilege is a disingenuous idea,” he adds. In fact, now there is “minority privilege.”

“If I’m a black high school student today, there are white American institutions, universities, hovering over me to offer me opportunities. Almost every institution has a diversity committee. Every country club now has a diversity committee. I’ve been asked to join so many clubs, I can’t tell you. ... I don’t have to even look for opportunities in many cases, they come right to me.”

Of course, there is still racism in America. At ABC News we’ve aired hidden-camera video showing sales clerks spying on black customers, cab drivers passing blacks to pick up whites and employers favoring white-sounding names.

Steele says those are minor problems.

“The fact is,” he adds, “we got a raw deal in America. We got a much better deal now. But we can’t access it unless we take ... responsibility for getting there ourselves.”

He makes good points. White privilege does still exist, but Barack Obama’s success is more evidence that it’s not the whole story. There are plenty of people in America who want to vote for someone because he is black. Or female.

It’s not politically correct to say that. Hillary Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro said she wouldn’t have been nominated for vice president in 1984 were she not a woman and that Obama would not have been doing so well were he not black. “Could I have said ... his experience is what puts him there? No. Could I say because his stand on issues have distinguished him? No ... If Obama were a white man, he would not be in this position. ... He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

For saying that, she was repeatedly called racist. The heat got so intense, Ferraro had to resign from Clinton’s finance committee, and Clinton disavowed her remarks.

There is black privilege — and white privilege. It’s time to stop complaining about past discrimination and to treat people as individuals, not as members of a certain race.

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The High Cost of Racial Hype (townhall.com, 080917)

by Thomas Sowell

Sometimes you don’t know when you are lucky. Certainly I did not consider myself lucky when I left home at seventeen and discovered the hard way that there was no great demand for a black teenage dropout with no experience and no skill.

In retrospect, however, those days of struggling to earn money to pay the room rent and buy food left little time or energy for navel-gazing over things like “identity.”

All this came back to me recently when I saw a font-page story about middle-class blacks worrying about their racial identity. There, on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, was a picture of a black teenager whose mother was fixing his bow tie as he was getting dressed in a tuxedo, in preparation for a cotillion.

I never had the problem of wearing a tuxedo to a cotillion, so it was hard for me to empathize with their angst.

When I was that kid’s age, I had real problems that taught me real lessons to remember when times got better, not navel-gazing problems that can distract you from reality for a lifetime.

Apparently there are middle-class blacks who spend a lot of time and energy worrying about losing their roots and losing touch with their black brothers back in the ‘hood.

In one sense, it is good that there are people who think about others less fortunate than themselves. That’s fine but, like most good things, it can be carried to the point where it is both ridiculous and counterproductive for all concerned.

In a world where an absolute majority of black children are born and raised in fatherless homes, where most black kids never finish high school and where the murder rate among blacks is several times the national average, surely there must be more urgent priorities than preserving a lifestyle and an identity.

During decades of researching racial and ethnic groups in countries around the world— with special attention to those who began in poverty and then rose to prosperity— I have yet to find one so preoccupied with tribalistic identity as to want to maintain solidarity with all members of their group, regardless of what they do or how they do it.

Any group that rises has to have norms, and that means repudiating those who violate those norms, if you are serious. Blind tribalism means letting the lowest common denominator determine the norms and the fate of the whole group.

There was a time when most blacks, like most of the Irish or the Jews, understood this common sense. But that was before the romanticizing of identity took over, beginning in the 1960s.

Back in 19th century America, the Catholic Church took on the task of changing the behavior of the poverty-stricken Irish immigrants, in order to prepare them to rise in American society. As this transformation succeeded, employers’ signs that said “No Irish Need Apply” began to disappear in the 20th century.

The Jewish community likewise made many efforts to change the behavior of immigrants from Eastern Europe, to enable them to better fit into American society— and to rise in that society.

The Urban League and other black uplift groups made similar efforts to prepare their fellow blacks to rise in American society. In fact, those efforts began to pay off in dramatic reductions in poverty among blacks, even before the civil rights laws of the 1960s.

The unanswered question is why an approach with a proven track record, not only in American society but in various other countries around the world, has been superseded by a philosophy of tribal identity over-riding issues of behavior and performance.

Part of the problem is the “multicultural” ideology that says all cultures are equally valid. It is hard even to know what that means, much less take it seriously as a guide to living in the real world.

Will time and energy spent on rap music and wearing low-riding baggy pants like guys in prison— as badges of identity— provide as good a future for young people as learning math, computers and the English language?

Romantic self-indulgence and self-deception are things that some people can afford when they reach the point where they can afford identity angst. But millions of other people will remain mired in poverty if they believe such notions.

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My Triumph Over Kwanzaa! (Ann Coulter, 081224)

Is it just me, or does Kwanzaa seem to come earlier and earlier each year?

This year, I believe my triumph over this synthetic holiday is nearly complete. The only mentions of Kwanzaa I’ve seen are humorous ones. Most important, for the first time in eight years, President George Bush appears not to have issued “Kwanzaa greetings” to honor this phony non-Christian holiday that is younger than I am.

It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers and a dupe of the FBI.

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the ‘60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Using that criterion, Karenga’s United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American ‘60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the ‘60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution. Those were the precepts of Karenga’s United Slaves. United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented “African” names. (That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named “Jamal” currently sit on death row?)

Whether Karenga was a willing dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear. Curiously, in a 1995 interview with Ethnic NewsWatch, Karenga matter-of-factly explained that the forces out to get O.J. Simpson for the “framed” murder of two whites included: “the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Interpol, the Chicago Police Department” and so on. Karenga should know about FBI infiltration. (He further noted that the evidence against O.J. “was not strong enough to prohibit or eliminate unreasonable doubt” — an interesting standard of proof.)

In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the ‘70s, Karenga was quick to criticize rumors that black radicals were government-supported. When Nigerian newspapers claimed that some American black radicals were CIA operatives, Karenga publicly denounced the idea, saying, “Africans must stop generalizing about the loyalties and motives of Afro-Americans, including the widespread suspicion of black Americans being CIA agents.”

Now we know that the FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In one barbarous outburst, Karenga’s United Slaves shot to death Black Panthers Al “Bunchy” Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins on the UCLA campus. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as a black studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.

(Sing to “Jingle Bells”)

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

Whitey has to pay;

Burning, shooting, oh what fun

On this made-up holiday!

Kwanzaa itself is a nutty blend of schmaltzy ‘60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven “principles” of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. (“Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.”) It takes a village to raise a police snitch.

When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from “classical Marxism,” he essentially explained that under Kawaida, we also hate whites. While taking the “best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism” — which one assumes would exclude the forced abortions, imprisonment of homosexuals and forced labor — Kawaida practitioners believe one’s racial identity “determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding.” There’s an inclusive philosophy for you.

Coincidentally, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming invention of the Worst Generation. In 1974, Patricia Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snake head stood for one of the SLA’s revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani — the exact same seven “principles” of Kwanzaa.

Kwanzaa was the result of a ‘60s psychosis grafted onto the black community. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural nonsense that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga’s United Slaves — the violence, the Marxism, the insanity. Most absurdly, for leftists anyway, is that they have forgotten the FBI’s tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.

This is a holiday for white liberals — the kind of holiday Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn probably celebrate. Meanwhile, most blacks celebrate Christmas.

Kwanzaa liberates no one; Christianity liberates everyone, proclaiming that we are all equal before God. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Not surprisingly, it was practitioners of that faith who were at the forefront of the abolitionist and civil rights movements.

Next year this time, we’ll find out if our new “Halfrican” president is really black or just another white liberal. If he’s black enough to say the “brothers should pull up their pants,” surely Obama can just say no to Kwanzaa.

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The NAACP’s Descent (townhall.com, 100716)

Mona Charen

The NAACP’s decision to condemn “racist” elements within the tea party movement is about as surprising as the U.N. Human Rights Council voting to condemn Israel. Still, there’s a difference. The U.N. Human Rights Council never had moral authority to lose. The NAACP did.

The NAACP was formed on the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, in 1909, in a small New York apartment. “The Call” proclaimed the organization’s mission: “If Mr. Lincoln could revisit this country in the flesh, he would be disheartened and discouraged. He would learn that on January 1, 1909, Georgia had rounded out a new confederacy by disfranchising the Negro, after the manner of all the other Southern States ... Added to this, the spread of lawless attacks upon the Negro, North, South and West — even in the Springfield made famous by Lincoln — often accompanied by revolting brutalities, sparing neither sex nor age nor youth, could but shock the author of the sentiment that ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people; should not perish from the earth.’”

The NAACP’s role in fighting racism was a noble one. The organization was the moving force behind anti-lynching laws. The Legal Defense Fund’s Thurgood Marshall argued and won the case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, marking a new legal era in the United States.

But the glory days are long gone. In recent decades, the NAACP has transformed itself into just another liberal advocacy group, absurdly dragging “racial justice” into nearly every public policy argument. In 1994, the NAACP filed suit against the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, claiming that a proposed fare increase would discriminate against minorities. That same year, an NAACP spokesman suggested that raising the retirement age for Social Security could “exacerbate racial divisions” because blacks tend to have shorter life expectancies. When Ohio passed a law requiring high school students to pass a ninth-grade level exam in order to get a high school diploma (yes, sad), the NAACP sued. Julian Bond, the organization’s chairman, described the Reagan administration as “crazed locusts” waging “an assault on the rule of law.”

If the NAACP were to make its case on honest grounds — that it likes and believes in big government liberalism — that would be inoffensive. But the NAACP frames its policy preferences in the language of fighting racism and bigotry, and accordingly engages in serial slanders.

In 2000, the NAACP ran scurrilous, highly inflammatory radio and television ads against George W. Bush, suggesting that he tolerated the horribly brutal lynching of James Byrd in Texas. The rationale, if you can call it that, was that Bush declined to sign a hate crimes bill. But a) Texas already had a hate crimes bill; and b) of the three perpetrators, two were sentenced to death, and one to life imprisonment on Bush’s watch.

Now come the tea parties — overwhelmingly peaceful, orderly, and spontaneous demonstrations against overweening government, the Obama health care bill, accumulating debt, and federal bailouts. Though tens of thousands of Americans have rallied and marched, there has been almost no violence or vandalism. Of thousands upon thousands of signs and banners, a tiny handful have been offensive, and an even smaller percentage of those — maybe one or two of those I’ve seen on the Web — have been arguably racist.

So what is the NAACP talking about? Many of the signs mentioned as racist refer to Barack Obama as a Nazi. While it is no more acceptable to fling the accusation of Nazism at Obama than it was to use it against Bush (which was commonplace), how exactly does it amount to racism?

Worse, the resolution (the text of which has not, as of this writing, been released by the NAACP) reportedly cites the bogus name-calling alleged by members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

This charade has been amply exposed by bloggers (see for example Powerlineblog.com). Alas for the congressmen who claimed that the tea party crowd shouted racial epithets at them, a number of videos from different angles have captured the events of that evening. None of them recorded the “n” word or anything similar. All of the evidence suggests that the congressmen lied in order to libel as racists those who opposed Obamacare.

Racism was a stain on the American character. But the wanton smear of racism against your political opponents when you are losing the argument on points is pretty ugly as well.

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New Black Panther Leader Defends Group in Voter Intimidation Case (Foxnews, 100709)

Malik Zulu Shabazz, chairman of the New Black Panther Party, speaks to Fox News, July 9. 2010. (FNC)

The chairman of the New Black Panther Party, in an interview Friday with Fox News, defended his group amid an uproar over a voter intimidation case dropped by the Obama administration, a move that an ex- Justice Department official alleges was for racial reasons.

Malik Zulu Shabazz distanced himself from the actions of Minister King Samir Shabazz, seen in an amateur video from November 2008 brandished a billy club at a Philadelphia polling station, an incident that led to charges of coercion, threats and intimidation. The Black Panther chairman told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that the actions caught on video “were outside of organizational policy.”

“We still do not condone the carrying of nightsticks at polling places and we have been consistent on that since Day One,” he said. “Any individual member that violates organizational policy cannot be attributed to the organization any more than any individual member of the Catholic Church, one of their acts can be charged to the Vatican.”

Malik Shabazz’s comments come after J. Christian Adams, who quit the Justice Department last month over the handling of the case against the Black Panthers and its members, accused his former superiors of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

Adams’ allegations have led the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to plan a new round of subpoenas and call for a separate federal probe.

But Shabazz alleged that the story is being “overhyped and overblown” as “part of a right-wing Republican conspiracy to demonize President Obama, his administration, to demonize the New Black Panther Party and blacks in order to drum up white dissatisfied support for the midterm elections.”

Asked whether he agreed with the sentiments of Samir Shabazz, seen in other video footage calling white people “crackers” and urging blacks to kill them and their babies, the chairman said “no.” But he acknowledged he may have called whites “crackers” himself.

As chairman, Malik Shabazz was one of three Black Panthers charged in a civil complaint with violating the Voter Rights Act in the November 2008 incident, and Samir Shabazz specifically was accused of brandishing what prosecutors called a deadly weapon.

The Obama administration won a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panthers didn’t appear in court to fight the charges. But the administration moved to dismiss the charges in May 2009. Justice attorneys said a criminal complaint against Samir Shabazz, which resulted in the injunction, proceeded successfully.

The injunction states that Samir Shabazz cannot appear at a polling station in Philadelphia until after 2012.

Malik Shabazz said that it was “right” for the Justice Department to drop the charges against the organization and the party’s leadership.

He also said Samir Shabazz was suspended for his actions before he was reinstated as a Black Panther member.

When asked whether Samir Shabazz is a racist, Malik Shabazz said, “I can’t speak for him on that. I would say the New Black Panther Party is not a hate group or a racist organization.”

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NAACP Resolution Calls on Tea Party to Repudiate ‘Racist Elements’ in Movement (Foxnews, 100714)

The NAACP adopted a resolution Tuesday condemning “racist elements” in the Tea Party movement and calling on the movement’s leaders to repudiate bigotry, despite claims from Tea Partiers that the measure is just a political ploy.

The nation’s leading civil rights group took up the language at its annual convention in Kansas City, Mo. The resolution initially said the NAACP would “repudiate the racism of the Tea Parties” and stand against the movement’s attempt to “push our country back to the pre-civil rights era,” though the wording was amended to downplay criticism of all Tea Partiers while asking them to repudiate bigots in their own ranks.

“We take no issue with the Tea Party movement. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy,” the NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a written statement announcing the unanimous vote. “What we take issue with is the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements.

“The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no place for racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry in their movement.”

NAACP leaders have referenced an incident in March when Tea Party protesters allegedly hurled racial epithets at black lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of a health care vote.

But Tea Party members have challenged claims that their activists accosted black lawmakers in March and no visual evidence has been produced depicting a racist attack. Dallas Tea Party founder Phillip Dennis said “there was no proof” of racist behavior at the event and that the movement welcomes minority members.

“We don’t care about the pigment of one’s skin,” he said. Dennis accused the NAACP of playing the “race card” and called the organization “irrelevant.”

The nearby St. Louis Tea Party had an all-hands-on-deck response to the NAACP’s plan. The group has drafted a resolution of its own condemning the civil rights group for reducing itself to a “bigoted” and “partisan attack dog organization.”

Debate was mostly closed to the public, but the final version “calls on the tea party and all people of good will to repudiate the racist element and activities within the tea party,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau.

The final wording won’t be released until the NAACP’s national board of directors approves the resolution during its meeting in October. But the original called for the NAACP to “educate its membership and the community that this movement is not just about higher taxes and limited government.” It said something could evolve “and become more dangerous for that small percentage of people that really think our country has been taken away from them.”

In a matter of hours, the St. Louis group fired off to the NAACP the statement demanding the organization withdraw its “bigoted, false and inflammatory” resolution. The missive accused the NAACP of resorting to political tactics and urged the IRS to reconsider whether it can continue to qualify for tax-exempt status.

Tea Party organizers routinely defend themselves against charges of racism, disavowing racially charged signs that appear in their protest crowds and provide fodder for Tea Party critics. The NAACP resolution, first reported by the Kansas City Star, was expected to make reference to the March incident on Capitol Hill.

St. Louis Tea Party organizer Bill Hennessy wrote on the group’s website Tuesday that the Tea Party stands for smaller government and fiscal responsibility, and accused the NAACP of abandoning black America.

“When you look at the crime and poverty and family breakdown of the African-American community ... you see a half-century of failure by the NAACP,” he wrote. “None of those persistent problems was caused by the Tea Party movement, yet the principles of the Tea Party are exactly what’s needed to wind down the multigenerational destruction in the African-American community.

“The NAACP was once a vital weapon in the war against segregation and oppression. All that’s left is a bigoted and malicious shell that does far more harm than good for people who need a break,” he wrote.

Fellow St. Louis Tea Party organizer Dana Loesch accused the NAACP of morphing into a political organization.

“They no longer prioritize civil rights,” she told Fox News.

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Race Card Fraud (townhall.com, 100720)

Thomas Sowell

Credit card fraud is a serious problem. But race card fraud is an even bigger problem.

Playing the race card takes many forms. Judge Charles Pickering, a federal judge in Mississippi who defended the civil rights of blacks for years and defied the Ku Klux Klan back when that was dangerous, was depicted as a racist when he was nominated for a federal appellate judgeship.

No one even mistakenly thought he was a racist. The point was simply to discredit him for political reasons— and it worked.

This year’s target is the Tea Party. When leading Democrats, led by a smirking Nancy Pelosi, made their triumphant walk on Capitol Hill, celebrating their passage of a bill in defiance of public opinion, Tea Party members on the scene protested.

All this was captured on camera and the scene was played on television. What was not captured on any of the cameras and other recording devices on the scene was anybody using racist language, as has been charged by those playing the race card.

When you realize how many media people were there, and how many ordinary citizens carry around recording devices of one sort or another, it is remarkable— indeed, unbelievable— that racist remarks were made and yet were not captured by anybody.

The latest attack on the Tea Party movement, by Ben Jealous of the NAACP, has once again played the race card. Like the proverbial lawyer who knows his case is weak, he shouts louder.

This is not the first time that an organization with an honorable and historic mission has eventually degenerated into a tawdry racket. But that an organization like the NAACP, after years of fighting against genuine racism, should now be playing the game of race card fraud is especially painful to see.

Some critics of the Tea Party have seized upon banners carried at one of its rallies that compared Obama with Hitler and Stalin. Extreme? Yes. But there was nothing racist about it, since extreme comparisons have been made about politicians of every race, color, creed, nationality, ideology and sexual preference.

Some Obama supporters have long regarded any criticism of him as racism. But that they should have to resort to such a banner to bolster their case shows how desperate they are for any evidence.

Among people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, those who are likely to be most disappointed are those who thought that they were voting for a new post-racial era. There was absolutely nothing in Obama’s past to lead to any such expectation, and much to suggest the exact opposite. But the man’s rhetoric and demeanor during the election campaign enabled this and many other illusions to flourish.

Still, it was an honest mistake of the kind that decent people have often made when dealing with people whose agendas are not constrained by decency, but only by what they think they can get away with.

On race, as on other issues, different people have radically different views of Barack Obama, depending on whether they judge him by what he says or by what he does.

As Obama’s own books point out, he has for years cultivated a talent for saying things that people will find congenial.

You want bipartisanship and an end to bickering in Washington? He will say that he wants bipartisanship and an end to bickering in Washington. Then he will shut Republicans out of the decision-making process and respond to their suggestions by reminding them that he won the election. A famous writer— Ring Lardner, I believe— once wrote: “‘Shut up,’ he explained.”

You want a government that is open instead of secretive? He will say that. He will promise to post proposed legislation on the Internet long enough for everyone to read it and know what is in it before there is a vote. In practice, however, he has rushed massive bills through Congress too fast for anybody— even the members of Congress— to know what was in those bills.

Racial issues are more of the same. You want a government where all citizens are treated alike, regardless of race or ethnicity? Obama will say that. Then he will advocate appointing judges with “empathy” for particular segments of the population, such as racial minorities. “Empathy” is just a pretty word for the ugly reality of bias.

Obama’s first nomination of a Supreme Court justice was a classic example of someone with “empathy” for some racial groups, but not others. As a Circuit Court judge, Sonia Sotomayor voted to dismiss a case involving white firefighters who had been denied the promotions for which they qualified, because not enough blacks or Hispanics passed the same test that they did.

A fellow Hispanic judge protested the way the white firefighters’ case was dismissed, rather than adjudicated. Moreover, the Supreme Court not only took the case, it ruled in favor of the firefighters.

Obama’s injecting himself into a local police matter in Massachusetts, despite admitting that he didn’t know the facts, to say that a white policeman was in the wrong in arresting a black professor who was a friend of Obama, was more of the same. So is Obama’s Justice Department overlooking blatant voter intimidation by thugs who happen to be black.

There is not now, nor has there ever been, anything post-racial about Barack Obama, except for the people who voted for him in the mistaken belief that he shared their desire to be post-racial. When he leaves office, especially if it is after one term, he will leave this country more racially polarized than before.

Hopefully, he may also leave the voters wiser, though sadder, after they learn from painful experience that you can’t judge politicians by their rhetoric, or ignore their past because of your hopes for the future. Voters may even wise up to race card fraud.

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New Black Panther Leader Sang About Getting Trained by Bin Laden (Foxnews, 100720)

Before King Samir Shabazz wielded a nightstick outside a Philadelphia polling station ... before he was videotaped calling white people “crackers” and urging blacks to kill them and their babies ... the head of the New Black Panther Party in the City of Brotherly Love was singing about being trained by Usama bin Laden.

The New Black Panther Party claims to believe in nonviolence, but a song performed by Shabazz’s group, Coup Da’Ta, in 2004 includes descriptions of violent attacks against police as well as anti-Semitic statements and claims of having trained with both the most-wanted terrorist in the world and the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

This is the chorus of “Damn Rebels,” repeated seven times in the song:

“I’m a warrior trained by Khalid Muhammad

I’m a terrorist trained by Usama bin Laden

Demolitionist, breaking down the walls of the rotten

Never hit and miss

So, first time, take out your target”

The song at one time was posted on the home page of the New Black Panther Party’s national website, but it has been removed. It also has been taken down from other sites that host Coup Da’Ta’s music.

In response to a request for an interview with Shabazz, the national chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz, wrote in an e-mail:

“King Samir is not doing any interviews. Our only statement on that is that his music is art, and not to be taken as literal political speech or a New Black Panther organizational statement.”

His art, on display in “Damn Rebels,” includes violent descriptions of attacking police:

“Hittin’ back, bust a cop’s ass — son with a bat

And after that split a jackhammer to his rackin’ back

And look ‘em in his eye, tell us what he did (get) for that

I will snatch you, break you down, kick you and bat you

I had to

Break your molecules and regraft you”

Other references to police include: “Off-duty cop kicked in the mouth with this boot.”

The song also includes:

“War time got me heated, government come in and conquer / Holy war in effect, Newt Gingrich is a sponsor.”

Other references include: “Clinton evils of this world,” and “Jewish-ass labels,” and “Coup Da’Ta—making Jews mad at us.”

“They’ll have me put on same list as a terrorist/Despite intelligence my head got no fear in this”

The Department of Justice did not respond to FoxNews.com’s questions about whether the agency was aware of “Damn Rebels” when it decided not to pursue most charges of voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party at a Philadelphia polling station in 2008.

King Samir Shabazz — whose real name is Maurice Health — was named in the original indictment, but charges against him were dropped.

Two weeks ago, a former Justice official, J. Christian Adams, testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating how the polling intimidation case was handled. Adams told the commission that the Justice Department had a tendency to show bias in favor of black defendants.

Requests to discuss the song sent to multiple e-mail addresses belonging to King Samir Shabazz were not returned.

The other member of Coup Da’Ta, an emcee named Lazarus, did not respond to an e-mail request for comment. Phone calls to a number listed on a contact page for the group were unsuccessful.

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Why are we discussing racism? (townhall.com, 100726)

Star Parker

Can anyone tell me why suddenly race is the hot topic of national discourse?

According to Gallup polling of last week, the issues most on the minds of Americans are the economy and jobs followed by dissatisfaction with all aspects of government.

I didn’t notice racism on the list anywhere.

The NAACP says it was “snookered” by Fox News on the Shirley Sherrod story.

I say we’ve all been snookered by the NAACP.

The NAACP has shown that those who have written this organization off as irrelevant are wrong. It demonstrated this past week that if it so chooses it can dominate the national discussion with its racial agenda, regardless of what the real pressing issues of national concern may be.

The accusation about Tea Party racism is ridiculous. But even if you don’t think it’s ridiculous, is this the discussion we need to be having when national unemployment hovers at 10%, and when black unemployment is closer to 15%, double that of whites?

Now, of course, we should be talking about racism if this is what is driving black unemployment. But is it?

I don’t think so. Nor do most blacks.

In January of this year, well into our recession, and well into the emergence of the Tea Party movement, the Pew Research Center surveyed black attitudes.

In answer to the question, “When blacks don’t make progress, who or what is to blame?”, 52% of blacks responded that “blacks” themselves are “mostly responsible”, and 34% said “racism.” This is the reverse of how blacks responded to this question just 15 years ago, when 56% said that racism was the impediment to black progress.

In the same survey, blacks responded almost identically as whites to the question of whether success in life is “determined by forces beyond one’s control” or whether “everyone has the power to succeed.”

77% of blacks and 82% of whites said that “everyone has the power to succeed” and 16% of blacks and 12% whites said success is “determined by forces beyond one’s control.”

And when blacks were asked in this same survey about the main problems facing black families, the response was overwhelmingly exactly the same as the general result of the Gallup poll of last week. Jobs.

So, Americans of all colors today generally feel responsible for their own lives and the main concern of most is the sick state of our economy.

So let’s have that discussion.

Clearly, there are differences of opinion about how to light a fire under this economy and the role of government. Some think government is the answer. Some think it’s the problem.

But this is a difference of opinion about how the world works. Why are we talking about racism?

Racism is about people being persecuted and endangered because of their color. It’s about not be treated equally under the law or denied access to public facilities or work because of one’s color.

Fortunately, those ugly days are behind us. And aside from the political and legal truths that verify this, black attitudes themselves, as the Pew data bears out, support it. And, if we need further verification, sitting in the White House is a black man who is there with the help of 43% of the votes of white Americans.

Talk about racism may help employment for those in the race business. But it has little relevance to getting the American economy working again, which is what we should be single mindedly focused on.

And allowing race to become the focus of public discourse shuts out the very message that blacks need to hear. That they are disproportionately hurt by a recession being prolonged by excessive government growth and interference.

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GOP Lawmakers Call for Investigation Into Alleged Racial Politics of Justice Dept (Foxnews, 100724)

Republicans on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees are calling for an investigation into allegations that the Justice Department wrongly abandoned a case against the New Black Panther Party and has adopted a policy to ignore voting rights violations against white victims.

Senate Judiciary Republicans sent a letter Friday to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the committee, requesting a hearing and House Judiciary Republicans wrote President Obama on Thursday asking him to direct Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to launch an investigation.

A spokesman for Leahy did not return a message left on his cellphone Saturday. The White House did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The requests come as the bipartisan and independent U.S. Commission on Civil Rights continues its yearlong investigation of the allegations. Earlier this month, the commission, which has a conservative majority, called on the Justice Department to investigate its civil rights division after a former employee, J. Christian Adams, now a conservative blogger, testified that supervisors in the division instructed attorneys to ignore voting rights cases that involved black defendants and white victims.

The controversy began in Philadelphia on Election Day two years ago when two members of the New Black Panther Party were caught on video in front of a polling place dressed in military-style uniforms, and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick.

The Bush Justice Department prosecuted three members of the group, accusing them in a civil complaint of violating the Voter Rights Act. The Obama administration won a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the defendants did not appear in court. But then the administration moved to dismiss the case the following month after getting an injunction against the nightstick-wielding member to stay away from any polling place in Philadelphia until 2012.

The Justice Department has said that the civil rights division determined “the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims” against the two other defendants and denied Adams’ accusations of reverse racism.

But Republican lawmakers aren’t satisfied.

“If these alarming allegations are true, the Civil Rights Division is actively engaged in widespread politicization and possible corruption,” Senate Republican Judiciary members wrote. “It is imperative that you schedule a hearing immediately so we can determine the validity of these claims and whether DOJ, as Mr. Adams testified, ‘abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens.’”

In their letter to the president, House Republican Judiciary members said the Justice Department’s “continued refusal to give any legitimate reason for the dismissal has only increased suspicions that race and politics played a role in the decision.”

“Recent allegations from a former Civil Rights Division attorney confirm our concerns that the Justice Department has adopted a policy of race-based non-enforcement of federal voting rights law,” they wrote. “If these allegations are true, it means that the Justice Department has become politicized and only an independent entity can effectively investigate this matter.”

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Charlie Rangel Is a Symptom of a Bigger Problem (townhall.com, 101122)

Star Parker

Charlie Rangel, convicted of eleven ethics violations – the most ever found against any member of Congress – was resoundingly re-elected, getting 80% of his district’s vote.

After 40 years representing these folks, you can’t conclude he was an unknown commodity. Granted, the conviction occurred after the election, but the charges were well publicized.

Has Charlie Rangel’s leadership produced life so grand in Harlem that flagrant and persistent unethical behavior by their Congressman means nothing to its residents?

The national poverty rate is around 14%. In the 15th district of New York, Charlie Rangel’s district, it’s 24.3%. The child poverty rate is 30.9%.

Whatever it is that Harlem voters find so attractive about Mr. Rangel, it’s hard to conclude that quality of life is something they feel they owe to him.

But let’s think about this in a broader context.

Charlie Rangel is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

There are now 41 House members who belong to the Caucus. In the most recent elections, 37 of them ran as incumbents and all regained their seats handily. The four seats that were vacated were easily captured by new black Democrats.

That’s a 100% return rate. These Black Caucus Democrats recaptured their seats getting an average 75% of their district’s vote.

In a year when 62 Democrats were defeated – a 25% reduction in the bloc of 252 Democrats in the current Congress – the reduction of the bloc of 41 black Democrats was zero.

The average poverty rate in the districts of Congressional Black Caucus members is 20.3% — 6% higher than the national average. The average child poverty rate in these districts is 28.8%.

So, as in Charlie Rangel’s case, it’s hard to conclude that these Black Caucus Democrats are being sent back to Washington by large voting margins, year after year, because they are delivering such fine lives to their constituents.

A problem here is that elections in Black Caucus districts are not exactly what might be described as free and open.

About three quarters of these districts are Majority Minority districts, hard wired to guarantee election of blacks. The remaining districts are also gerrymandered through various schemes flowing from collusion of political parties and state legislatures.

The initial provision of the Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965, to deal with voting problems was structured to counter schemes going on in the South – literacy tests, etc – rigged to keep blacks from registering and voting.

But by the 1970’s, this provision morphed into district gerrymandering. What was initially meant to protect the voting rights of blacks evolved into provisions to guarantee the election of blacks.

The result of this overall process is a bloc of politically manipulated districts which, coupled with other institutional biases protecting incumbents, virtually guarantees the election of black Democrats.

You might say that rigged elections might be justified if it meant better lives for black constituents.

But given that these districts are largely characterized by persistent poverty and some of the worst public schools in the country, this is a conclusion that’s hard to reach.

Earlier this year, the New York Times profiled the prodigious money raising prowess and dubious ethics of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. The Times editorialized, “Of all the money machines shaving ethical corners, few rival the Congressional Black Caucus…..the caucus spends far more on gala entertainments and golf outings than on the scholarships that billboard its charity drives.”

Political markets are like commercial markets. The absence of competition results in shoddy products.

When we send American soldiers into harm’s way abroad to fight for free elections, perhaps we should spend more time considering the quality of our own democracy at home.

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Walter Williams’ Memoir (townhall.com, 101208)

Thomas Sowell

Walter E. Williams is my oldest and closest friend. But I didn’t know that his autobiography had just been published until a talk show host told me last week. I immediately got a copy of “Up from the Projects,” started reading it before dinner and finished reading it before bedtime.

It is the kind of book that you hate to put down, even though I already knew how the story would end.

The first chapter, about Walter’s life growing up in the Philadelphia ghetto, was especially fascinating. It brought back a whole different era in black communities— an era that is now almost irretrievably lost, to the great disadvantage of today’s generation growing up in the same neighborhoods where Walter grew up in Philadelphia or where I grew up in Harlem.

Although Walter’s memoir is titled “Up from the Projects,” the projects of the era when he was growing up bear virtually no resemblance to the projects of today.

For one thing, those projects were clean, and the people living in them helped keep them clean, by sweeping the halls and tending to the surrounding areas outside of the buildings as well. The people living in the projects then were probably poorer than the people living in the projects now. But they had not yet succumbed to the moral squalor afflicting such places today.

More important, they— and the whole black community of which they were part— were far safer than today. As late as 1958, when Walter was a young taxi driver in Philadelphia, he used to park his cab in the wee hours of the morning and take a nap in it. As he points out, “A cabbie doing the same thing today would be deemed suicidal.”

There were jobs for black teenagers in those days, and Walter worked at a dizzying variety of those jobs. Most of those jobs are long gone today, as are the businesses that hired black teenagers.

While there are greater opportunities for many blacks today, there are far fewer opportunities for those blacks at the bottom, living in ghettos across the country and trapped in a counterproductive and even dangerous way of life.

The times in which Walter Williams grew up were by no means idyllic times, nor was Walter a model child nor always a model adult, as he candidly shows. He even reproduces the documents recording his court martial in the Army.

How Walter Williams changed for the better— partly as a result of his wife, who “became a civilizing and humanizing influence in my life”— is one of the themes of this book. The other great influence in Walter’s life was his mother, one of those strong and wise black women who has had much to do with providing the foundation from which many other black men and women rose out of poverty to higher levels of achievement.

With Walter, that path was not a straight line but had many zigs and zags, and there were times when he was a disappointment to his mother. But, in the end, he vindicated all the efforts and hopes that she had invested in him.

There were also teachers, and then professors, who played a role in developing his mind— especially hard-nosed teachers in Philadelphia who chewed him out when he messed up and UCLA professors who bluntly told him when his work wasn’t good enough.

None of them was the kind of warm, chummy educators that so many hold up as an ideal. After Walter Williams earned his Ph.D. in economics and went on to become a professor himself, he was scathing in his criticism of fuzzy-minded faculty members who think they are doing students a favor by going easy on them or giving them higher grades than they deserve.

As he began to write about racial issues, Walter was able to draw not only on his research as an economist, but also on his personal experiences in the Philadelphia ghetto, in the Jim Crow South and in South Africa, where he lived for some months during the era of Apartheid.

Few others had so much to draw on, and many of them failed to understand that Walter Williams saw a lot deeper than they did. As a result, his conclusions made him a controversial figure.

When I finished reading “Up from the Projects,” I wished it had been a longer book. But it got the job done— and its insights are much needed today.

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