Deflating The Football
So as
the protest of black oppression by some of the richest men of any color in the
United States continues across the country today in increasingly empty football
stadiums with increasingly shrinking television audiences, I thought it might
be a constructive exercise to continue to deconstruct the liberal myths fueling
the protest and begin a discussion of what, if anything, might be done to put a
little air back into the football before these misguided fellows completely kill
the golden goose.
And I
sadly have my doubts that the part of black culture that has bought into the
victim mentality that holds forth that blacks can never succeed in this country
as long as there are whites can be fixed in this generation or maybe even the
next.
So I
keep hearing that the protest is about social justice but I have yet to hear a
coherent definition of what social justice would look like. The topic seems to
cover discrimination in the work place to inequality of wealth to police brutality
to I don’t know what else.
On
social media this week there was some professor from the university of I Don’t
Care claiming that algebra and geometry
are racist. There seems to be a rather substantial push from some extreme
quadrants for white people who never owned slaves to give money to black people
who never were slaves because 150 years ago a small percentage of white people
owned a large percentage of black people as slaves.
So the topic is kind of broad and I have to agree with others who say no one really knows exactly what is being protested. I try to be careful not to make light of the absurdity of the extremes of some of the alleged issues because to just laugh at the fact that African-Americans are definitely upset about something is indeed racist, and I know I cross that line.
But
when THE Reverend Jesse Jackson says that in 150 years black people have only
progressed from picking cotton balls to picking footballs and basketballs it is
hard for my jaw not to drop open. When Whoopi Goldberg says she is being held a
slave on whatever that silly pseudo-news show is that she’s on for however many
millions of dollars they pay her for her suffering, how am I supposed to take
that seriously?
I know
there is discrimination and that’s wrong. I know there is racial prejudice and
that’s wrong. I think most of America is on board with me in acknowledging that
and being willing to do what we can to make it better.
I was
alive when the Civil Rights Bill was passed. I was alive when Jim Crow laws were
in effect although there was no evidence of them in the lilly-white suburb in
which I grew up. I have seen this country in many ways make huge strides in
eradicating racism and discrimination and creating equality of opportunity. At
least I thought so.
And
then in 2008 this country elected its first African-American president which
one would think signaled the ultimate in equality of opportunity and blindness
to skin color. And then something unforeseen happened, and while this would
pass for a fact on CNN or in the New York Times it is merely my opinion, that
very president made race an issue of a proportion it had not seen since the
1960’s.
Barack
Obama pursued a social doctrine of turning people of different colors against
each other until we reached a point where I (and others but you can point at me
since I’m writing this) believe that perhaps the most egregious racists are
black, not white. He popularized the narrative summed up in the rhetorical
chant, “White greed creates black need.”
He made
horrible and incorrect statements about police officers before the facts were
in and disproved his allegations and the liberal narratives of events that
never happened the way they were portrayed (“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” for
example) and were never recanted. He invited the single most hateful and
violent racist organization in America--#blacklivesmatter—to the White House
after supporters had murdered police officers and he praised them for their
good works.
“Pigs
in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.
“How do
we want “em?
“Dead.
“When
do we want it?
“Now.”
Good
works?
“Until the police accept
responsibility for their discriminatory behavior toward people of color, there
can be no peace.”
--Barack Obama
Does that sound post-racial to
anyone?
I don’t know who coined the term
“The Ferguson Effect,” but it describes situations in which, either because
they’ve been instructed to by city officials or because they are fearful of
going into certain parts of their towns, police withdraw from proactive policing
in black communities and crime rates spike.
Innocents who are the victims of
those crimes are mad at the police for not protecting them. When the police do
show up to do their jobs, members of inner-city communities are angry at them
for targeting young black men…in predominately black communities where most of
the criminals as well as the victims are black.
Last year black homocides
climbed to 7,881 in the United States. That’s up from 6,000 the year before
Ferguson. Police shootings of African-Americans has stayed consistently around
4% of that total. Black on black crime accounts for the rest.
According to Peter Kirsanov, an
African-American attorney and a member of the Commission on Civil Rights,
citing statistics from the Department of Justice, blacks are 2.5 times more
likely to die from gunshot wounds than whites.
Kirsanov also said in an
interview recently with Sean Hannity that following decades of a decline in
crime rates due to “Stop and Frisk” strategies in high crime areas that, as a
direct reaction to The Ferguson Effect, in New York City alone blacks are 35
times more likely to commit robberies; 38 times more likely to commit murders and 51 times more likely to engage in
shootings than white people.
When is enough enough? When can
we have an honest discussion about how to turn the tide?
In my opinion, not as long as
black leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama and Louis Farrakhan
are the mouthpieces for “The Movement.”
When the 1964 Civil Rights Bill
was passed 28% of black families were fatherless, compared to 24% of white
families. Not much difference. And by “fatherless” we aren’t talking about
divorced. We are talking about no dad in the picture.
Today the percentage of white
families with no dad in sight is still around one-fourth. The percentage of
black families with father’s missing in action is 72%. Almost triple what it
was when we passed The Civil Rights Act and almost concurrently began LBJ’s War
on Poverty.
Something didn’t work out.
Again, just my opinion—I am not
under the influence of any Associated Press delusions that I am omniscient—but
it seems to me that what may be missing in an unhappy, underachieving black
community that believes, right or wrong, that all its woes can be blamed on
oppression by whites is the presence of a father figure.
Is that any crazier than blaming
algebra and geometry?
But folks, that is not a problem
white people can fix. For me to tell young black men how to be black fathers
isn’t going to have a lot of credibility. For me to tell young black ladies
that the number of babies you can have by different fathers is not a contest is
not going to be well received.
Where are those black leaders?
From the Denver Broncos, Brandon
Marshall, one of the most ardent NFL protestors of police brutality though I’ve
never heard him cite a single, solitary specific, is putting his time and money where
his mouth is in a big way. Marshall has met with Denver Police Chief Robert
White, himself an African-American, to try and ease tensions and discuss
solutions. Marshall has spoken to students at at least one inner-city
elementary school to try and encourage attendance and completing education.
Marshall has developed The Williams-Marshall Cares Leadership Program to expose
teens in Denver and Las Vegas to black leaders.
He also works with local boy’s
and girl’s clubs to lend encouragement and put himself out there as a role
model.
I may strongly disagree with his
bias about police oppression of blacks but I respect and applaud in the
strongest terms his efforts to keep young men and women, whom the odds say may
have no male role model in their lives, on a path to success.
He can’t do it alone, but I’ll
bet he’s not. Maybe he influences some
youths in Las Vegas and Denver. Maybe some other players do more than massage
their own egos and wail on in ignorance about topics they may be further
removed from than I am and affect a few lives in other cities. Maybe it snow
balls?
Maybe it doesn’t. A lot of
people make a lot of money from keeping the black community thinking it is
helplessly victimized and that they need the same people who’ve been
shepherding them into stagnation and failure for 50 years to keep fighting the
good fight on their behalf.
I know this blog is going to
rankle some feathers. I’m sorry. You can either take my word for it or not that
I’ve nothing against anyone because of their skin color.
I just believe there has to be a
better way to solve the problem and I hope someone out there can help me think
of a better solution that outlawing algebra and geometry.
