Deflating The Football

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.