WHITE GUILT:
The seminal racial problem in our society is not racial prejudice or white supremacy. It is white guilt. That is not to say there is not a disparity in wealth between the races, there is. But nefarious organizations like Black Lives Matter (BLM) are made possible, and even lucrative, by white guilt.
These organizations were not founded to solve any racial problem, they were founded to make money for the founders. And, these organizations in fact distract from addressing the real reasons for the disparity and do nothing to solve the problem, they acerbate it.
Blacks in our country started out in slavery which ended in 1865. Inequality has not ended in all cases. But neither has inequality ended for the young, the old, the overweight, the slow and the different. But let us focus on today. Today the Blacks have higher unemployment, lower pay, and in general, a tougher time in life. Although it has gotten better during my lifetime, there is still more prejudice shown towards the blacks than toward others. I suspect this is a carryover from the 19th century coupled with many people’s need to knock down others in order to build themselves up. This could have been solved in my lifetime but for the politicians and special interests who use issues such as this to capture votes and further their careers. This was accomplished in two ways: first, convince the Blacks that their plight is the result of the doings of others and not any fault of their own. Second, convince the Blacks, and the gullible whites, that the best way to fix a historic inequality is through laws that force inequality the other way. To make it sound good we will call it Affirmative Action. Two wrongs will make a right. That is not the way I learned that little proverb. The original intent of President Kennedy’s equal opportunity mandate was to stop racial bias in hiring; but it soon took on a role of correcting historic wrongs. The problem with correcting a historic wrong is that the ones who bear the brunt of the correction and the ones who get the benefits from the correction were not the players involved in the wrong.
An individual is responsible for what he does and has done and what he failed to do. He is not responsible for what others do or don’t do. No one wants to go to prison or pay a fine (reparations) for what his father did; let alone some distant ancestor he has never heard of. Also, there is no such thing as collective guilt for what one’s ancestors may have done. All of the Japanese people that are living today are not guilty of starting World War II. White guilt is a farce. Both the whites and blacks have been duped by the slicksters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and their predecessors like Dick Gregory. These shysters have made a fortune by convincing blacks their lot in life is not their fault. It is the fault of whites who should be made to feel guilty and pay up to fix it, emphasis on pay up. Ergo, we have affirmative action, hiring by quota and not merit, and lowering standards rather than fix education. These are the real examples of systemic racial discrimination in our country.
Instead of falling for the Sharpton – Jackson ruse, blacks should be following the example of Shelby Steele, Dr. Ben Carson or Justice Clarence Thomas or Byron Allen who have made it on their own. I have known many, seen many on TV and heard of thousands of blacks that have done it on their own and live the American dream. Jason Whitlock is one example. I know what it takes to choose a lifestyle completely out of character with how you were raised and make it happen. I have great respect for blacks who have done it. It is possible but not easy. It is much easier to blame someone else and sit back and wait for it to happen to you rather than to make it happen. The most disturbing is how easily whites are duped and that the most thoroughly duped are those in charge of educating our children.
I loved Shelby Steeles comparison of ‘dribbling’ and ‘reading’ in his book, “White Guilt”. If the black boy is having trouble dribbling a basketball, he is told it is his problem and if he wants to fix it to get out and practice. If the black boy is having trouble reading, he is told it is not his fault! He can’t do it on his own, he needs to be provided with special programs, lower standards and special treatment. It seems to me the most egregious racial prejudice is to tell a black person he can’t do it on his own, he needs racist whitey to help him.
I do not believe that our country should do nothing to help resolve the problem that blacks do not share equally in our nation’s wealth. But we need to address the root problems not the ones the slicksters use to stir up dissent. The root problem isn’t that police target blacks. The root problem is that blacks are driven to commit more crimes. Reforming police is a token effort. The root problem isn’t that blacks can’t excel in academics. The root problem is that most are not provided motivation and encouragement and an example of success. The root of these problems is the lack of a functional family. That is what we should be looking to fix and it has to start within the black community itself. No amount of white guilt will help. In fact, it hurts.
We have had sixty years of affirmative action and preferential hiring and lower standards. These have failed. They have failed because they are inherently wrong. Two wrongs do not make a right. That it has not worked for over three generations should tell us something. It should tell us to try something else.
A letter sent to the sentinel on 7 July 2021
Dumb and Dumber
The chaos and confusion in our country is only possible because we have had some 30 plus years of what John Taylor Gatto in 2002 called “Dumbing us down”. We do have an inequitable distribution of wealth between Blacks and others that is a festering sore on our national conscience. But we need to stop just pouring the same old medicine on it. It’s time to pull off the scab and find out what is really under there. You have to be dumb to believe that the high crime rate of Blacks is the fault of the police and defunding the police will fix it. You have to be dumb to believe it is Whitey’s fault even if Whitey is dumb enough to believe it. You have to be dumb to think this is a racist country when people of all colors are busting down our borders to get in. You have to be dumb to think two wrongs will make a right: Affirmative Action, quotas and preferences are the only examples of systematic racism in this country. We have tried them for 60 years and they haven’t cured the problem. You have to be dumb to not see that putting a color into the name of organizations or events (like Black Lives Matter or White Supremacy) is blatant racism and goes against all the MLK fought and died for. You have to be dumb to listen to the failed Blacks and opportunists who call for reparations and ignore the successful Blacks who say we need to fix the dysfunction of the basic family unit. You have to be dumb to even listen to a Critical Race Theory whose basic, though unstated, premise is that all people are not created equal. We better wake up in this country or we will soon be reading “The Rise and Fall of the American Empire”- in Mandarin!
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