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I agree with Juan Williams.
Here's the problem in a nutshell as I see it:
The civil rights movement in the 60s had a much easier time of it since they didn't have to criticize their own---they could simply call attention to white racism and demand their rights. Mandela and Gandhi had the same situation.
It is much harder to hold onto that moral clarity when you're looking in the mirror.
The problems in black America have outlasted Jim Crow, busing, and the KKK. It is simply not credible to blame continued poverty, illegitimacy, crime, and educational failure on white racism, which has become so marginalized over the past 50 years that you'll be hard-pressed to hear anyone say anything remotely racist in private, much less in public.
It's no different really than what happened post-British colonial rule in India, or in South Africa since apartheid ended.
Yet the civil rights leaders in each of these cases clammed up when they had to take on their own.
Juan Williams, Bill Cosby, and John McWhorter are doing the right---and tough!---thing. They're speaking truth to power within the black community, and standing up for people who should be sick and tired of marginal living.
It's frankly about time that Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Al Sharpton, and the other hucksters who claim they want to elevate black Americans were called to battle pathologies within as well as outside the community.
They'll find conservatives make good allies in this fight---we're concerned about divorce, illegitimacy, crime, and poverty too. An open mind from liberals as to how to address these issues would help usher in the next wave of civil rights: the right to a secure family, safe neighborhoods, and prosperity purchased with the sweat of your brow and the sharpness of your intellect.
In this, I heartily support Mr. Williams and wish him well.
Here's the problem in a nutshell as I see it:
The civil rights movement in the 60s had a much easier time of it since they didn't have to criticize their own---they could simply call attention to white racism and demand their rights. Mandela and Gandhi had the same situation.
It is much harder to hold onto that moral clarity when you're looking in the mirror.
The problems in black America have outlasted Jim Crow, busing, and the KKK. It is simply not credible to blame continued poverty, illegitimacy, crime, and educational failure on white racism, which has become so marginalized over the past 50 years that you'll be hard-pressed to hear anyone say anything remotely racist in private, much less in public.
It's no different really than what happened post-British colonial rule in India, or in South Africa since apartheid ended.
Yet the civil rights leaders in each of these cases clammed up when they had to take on their own.
Juan Williams, Bill Cosby, and John McWhorter are doing the right---and tough!---thing. They're speaking truth to power within the black community, and standing up for people who should be sick and tired of marginal living.
It's frankly about time that Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Al Sharpton, and the other hucksters who claim they want to elevate black Americans were called to battle pathologies within as well as outside the community.
They'll find conservatives make good allies in this fight---we're concerned about divorce, illegitimacy, crime, and poverty too. An open mind from liberals as to how to address these issues would help usher in the next wave of civil rights: the right to a secure family, safe neighborhoods, and prosperity purchased with the sweat of your brow and the sharpness of your intellect.
In this, I heartily support Mr. Williams and wish him well.
posted by Teflon at 7:46 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Good article. I think the main thrust should be education and getting rid of the cultural barriers within the black community that makes being smart "uncool" or "giving in to the man."
Great point, Missy.
I'm struck by how black Americans have demonstrated excellence out of all proportion to their representation within the population again and again (for example, cultural influence), and yet hamstring themselves by tolerating things which only serve to destroy.
What would things be like if more had chosen to follow Booker T. Washington's advice than W.E.B. Du Bois' in the 60s?
Jesse Jackson and the rest of the grievance lobbyists might have had to find something productive to do, certainly.
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