Some people will make comfortable living by exploiting white guilt.
No country in the world suffers from the scourge of racism the way the United States does. In most other countries where those of African descent were freed or have migrated, they have assimilated into the general population, taken up the language with little or no difference in accent and have integrated into public life with few hitches.
In the United States, slavery ended in 1865; Brazil did not abolish the institution until 1888, but even in Brazil, blacks have integrated into the mainstream population without the evolvement of a “black identity”. Even in South Africa and Zimbabwe, where white minority rule extended well into the 20th Century, racism against the black man has become a non-story in less than 20 years.
Is America’s idealistic image as the land of liberty and justice for all truly a contradiction? Is some special evil at work in the minds of the nation’s white population, an evil that is shared by no other white population in the world? Or is there instead an over-emphasis on using the term “acism” to excuse the failure by Americans of African descent to achieve their potential?
The answer is not simplistic, but one truth does ring clear: there are some in the U.S. who profit from the continuation of a belief that racism against blacks in this country is pervasive. They make a living at it.
History does, of course, lend some credence to the belief that blacks are latecomers to the fraternity of the American Dream. While slavery ended in 1865, the harshness of the Reconstruction era led to a backlash in the South, and that backlash continued to hold tacit approval well into the 1960s. The passage of landmark civil rights legislation in 1965, however, threw down the last barriers to true equal rights, and in the 40 years since that time every government regulation and virtually all business regulations have incorporated the ideal of equality for all regardless of race.
Yet many Black Americans continue to believe that white racism is all-pervasive thanks in great measure to those who profit from a continuation of that belief.
As conservative black columnist Walter Williams pointed out in a June, 2005 column: “if the Democratic party’s share of the black vote ever fell to even 70 percent, it’s not likely that the Democrats would ever win the White House or Congress again. The strategy liberal Democrats have chosen, to prevent loss of the black vote, is to keep blacks paranoid and in a constant state of fear.”
Williams, as well as other prominent black conservatives and even some not necessarily considered “conservative” such as comedian Bill Cosby, blame a “culture of victimhood” both for the perpetuation of the belief that racism is rampant and for the continuing decline in the standard of living for American blacks. They face loud criticism from other blacks for telling the truth.
Columnist Kevin Tuma laid it out straight by asserting that To End Racism, We Must End Black Supremacy:
“Some black activists profit directly from racial enmity on a financial level; others profit by acquiring fame, notoriety, making speeches, selling books, or winning seats in government. It is in the interests of all these people to keep the fires of racism burning hot. They fully understand that their demagoguery over symbols like the Confederate flag will stir up more racial hatred, not less. That isn’t a problem for many black racial activists, because they know stirring up more racial hatred on both sides of the fence feathers their nests. It’s their job, you see. If they did away with racial hatred in the United States, they might actually have to find some other way to make a living.”
Thomas Sowell calls racism “the magic word.”
“Within the United States, Jesse Jackson and others have repeatedly scared millions of dollars out of big corporations, just by threatening to use the magic word ‘racism.’ Even the police have sometimes turned a blind eye to violations of the law, lest they be tarred with that magic word that will bring the whole liberal media crashing down on them. But letting criminal activity go on unimpeded and unpunished has hurt minority communities most of all.”
Cosby, of course, has endured the most criticism from fellow blacks for his passionate contention that blacks look at themselves for the causes of the problems which pervade the community.
People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we’ve got these knuckleheads throwing that all away? The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting, he said in Can’t Blame White People. People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different ‘husbands’ — or men or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can’t write two paragraphs It is time, ladies and gentlemen, to look at the numbers. Fifty percent of our children are dropping out of high school. Sixty percent of the incarcerated males happen to be illiterate. There’s a correlation.
“Tell the media to stop asking me what I think about people who don’t believe what I’m saying or feel that I’m too harsh or feel that I’m just running my mouth because I’m old.
Seventy percent of the teenagers pregnant happen to be African American girls. Don’t ask me to soften my message.”
Williams contends that it is the culture of “victimhood” that is destroying our black communities in spite of all the advances of legal rights, conditions are worse now for Americans of African descent than they were during the height of Jim Crow segregation.
“Only 30 to 40 percent of black males graduate from high school,” Williams writes. Many of those who do graduate emerge with reading and math skills of a white seventh- or eighth-grader. This is true in cities where a black is mayor, a black is superintendent of schools and the majority of principals and teachers are black. It’s also true in cities where the per pupil education expenditures are among the highest in the nation.
Across the U.S., black males represent up to 70 percent of prison. Department of Justice statistics for 2001 show that in nearly 80 percent of violent crimes against blacks, both the victim and the perpetrator were the same race. In other words, it’s not Reaganites, Bush supporters, right-wing ideologues or the Klan causing blacks to live in fear of their lives and property and making their neighborhoods economic wastelands.
Williams also notes that the social-welfare programs and federalization of education have also done the exact opposite of what was intended.
In 1960, only 28 percent of black females between the ages of 15 and 44 were never married. Today, it’s 56 percent, he writes. In 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks was 19 percent, in 1960, 22 percent, and today, it’s 70 percent. Some argue that the state of the black family is the result of the legacy of slavery, discrimination and poverty. That has to be nonsense. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families, comprised of two parents and children. In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households had two parents.
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