"The Klu Klux Klan is not wearing sheets. The Klan is wearing Air Jordans."

Blaming Whitey.



"Everything that's negative about the American Negro is the fault of white America."

• "50% of black female 18- 45 have genital herpes.
• 60% of black men drop out of high school.
• The leading cause of death for black men is other black men.
• How to become a professional victim."

The contrast to an earlier generation is amazing. 

I attended a memorial service at Howard University last weekend for a very accomplished woman who died at age 97. She was black and was born during the era of Jim Crow. She wanted to be a doctor and was accepted to medical school in Kansas in the 1930s. She was told that she could only attend for two years after which she would have to transfer to a black medical school because white patients would not want to be treated by a black person. She went to Howard for her last 2 years of medical school, practiced in New York, and along the way not only delivered countless babies but attracted countless friends.  In addition to private practice she held high level positions as a medical administrator for both public and private organizations.

She is the embodiment of the individual who did not allow adversity to stand in her way. She not only overcame racial prejudice, she overcame the untimely death of both her husband and her only child. She didn’t resent, she didn’t hate, she never made excuses and lived life to the full. Her generosity was remarked by the many speakers at her memorial service. She gave generously of herself and the treasure she accumulated in this world and has gone on to her reward.  I am proud to have known her and be part of her circle of friends.

I sometimes wonder if she, and people of her generation who found an ethnic community that was much healthier than the one that exists today, may have been fortunate to live in a time when white people were open in their discrimination.  Instead, the modern Liberal continues to look down on his Black neighbors, but does so with a debilitating “benevolence” that robs them of the need to succeed.

 

What caused the change?   Why did a black woman born in 1915 succeed despite all the obstacles placed in her way while so many black women (and men) born after the Civil Rights Act blame Whitey for their failure? 

It’s interesting isn’t it? There was no federal program aimed specifically at Irish immigrants, or Chinese, or Poles or Italians despite widespread discrimination against them. Could it be that the absence of Benevolent Liberalism, “benign neglect” in Patrick Moynihan’s words, permitted them to succeed using their own efforts? How do you overcome benevolence that always looks down at you as a helpless lesser being who can’t succeed by your own effort but, like a competitor in the Special Olympics, is a racial, cultural or ethnic cripple?

Let Liberal columnist Nicholas Kristof whose column appears in the Leftist New York Times explain it.  He's writing about people living in Appalachia, but he could be talking about a major part of the the black community:

“This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.”

My friend grew up at a time when there were no government anti-poverty programs that paid unmarried women to have babies, or keep their children illiterate.

Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I., a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.

Most wrenching of all are the parents who think it’s best if a child stays illiterate, because then the family may be able to claim a disability check each month.

The transition of a child being the means for providing government aid to their parents to receiving government aid as an adult is seamless.  Kristof again:

That is a burden on taxpayers, of course, but it can be even worse for children whose families have a huge stake in their failing in school. Those kids may never recover: a 2009 study found that nearly two-thirds of these children make the transition at age 18 into S.S.I. for the adult disabled. They may never hold a job in their entire lives and are condemned to a life of poverty on the dole — and that’s the outcome of a program intended to fight poverty.

Kristof provides an example of a girl who also wanted to be a doctor but who found the government safety net  instead.

Ms. Hurley says that she was raped by a family member when she was 12, and that another family member then introduced her to narcotics. She became an addict, she says, mostly to prescription painkillers that are widely trafficked here.

Equipped with a crackling intelligence, Ms. Hurley once aspired to be a doctor. But her addictions and a rebellious nature got her kicked out of high school, and at 16 she became engaged to a boyfriend and soon had his baby.

There is very little difference between the drug addiction that destroyed Ms. Hurley's hopes and the government programs that provide low level maintenance to people who do not have the family and community support that allow people to escape the poverty trap.  I would like to think that my friend who was memorialized last weekend would have been able to achieve her goals despite all the modern obstacles that exist.  But I believe that the segregation and racism of her time was as much a spur as an obstacle, while the honey trap of government programs are vastly more debilitating.