… whose chief domestic imperative for 50 years has been ending racism and righting long-standing wrongs against blacks—with such success that we now have an expanding black middle class, a black secretary of state, black CEOs of three top corporations, a black Supreme Court justice, and a serious black presidential candidate—how can there still exist a large black urban underclass imprisoned in poverty, welfare dependency, school failure, nonwork, and crime? How even today can more black young men be entangled in the criminal-justice system than graduate from college? How can close to 70 percent of black children be born into single-mother families, which (almost all experts agree) prepare kids for success less well than two-parent families?
The legacy of slavery and racism isn’t the reason, economist Thomas Sowell has long argued. That legacy didn’t stop blacks from raising themselves up after Emancipation. By World War I, Sowell’s data show, northern blacks scored higher on armed-forces tests than southern whites. After World War II and the GI Bill, black education and income levels rose sharply. It was only in the mid-1960s that a century of black progress seemed to make a sudden U-turn, a reversal that long-past events didn’t cause. Beginning around 1964, the rates of black high school graduation, workforce participation, crime, illegitimacy, and drug use all turned sharply in the wrong direction. While many blacks continued to move forward, a sizable minority solidified into an underclass, defined by self-destructive behavior that all but guaranteed failure.
What was going on in the mid-sixties that could explain such a startling development? Political scientist Charles Murray gave the first answer to that question: welfare benefits sharply rose just at that moment. Offering more purchasing power than a minimum-wage job, the dole, he argued, provided an economic incentive for women to have out-of-wedlock babies and for their boyfriends to live off their welfare payments, too.
A decade after Murray, I suggested that, though welfare was part of the answer, the real explanation was larger. It was cultural, not economic. Begun by the elites, vast changes reshaped mainstream attitudes in the 1960s. Sex became fine outside marriage, and illegitimacy lost its stigma. Drugs were cool; social authority and tradition weren’t. America was deemed a racist, unjust society that victimized and impoverished blacks, who could rarely better their condition and who therefore deserved generous welfare benefits as reparations for past and present oppression. If blacks committed crime, the system that drove them to it, out of poverty or as an act of protest, was at fault: we shouldn’t blame the victim, as the saying went—meaning the poor criminal, not his prey. Since people shape their actions according to the ideas and beliefs they hold, when these new attitudes reached the inner cities, what could result but an epidemic of social dysfunction?
Well worth your time.
Running tally of oversimplistic, either/or explanations, UPDATED!
Penny: …message is one of personal responsibility (EITHER) rather than the pathology of victim games and excuses for failure (OR).
Honeypot: The welfare system (EITHER) was put in place to keep the blacks and other minorities in their place. It makes sure they will never succeed, or be self reliant individuals (OR).
Dudley Morris: Systemic Discrimination” (EITHER) = “there is no discrimination but we’re not getting the results we want, and there cannot be any issues with the ‘inputs’ (ie people, population group) involved” (OR).
Rob: It’s always someone else’s fault. Always playing the victim card (EITHER). Personal/parental responsibility (OR) is a non-issue to lefties.
Kathy: black people’s job is to actually DO something about it. Themselves. For. A. Change. (EITHER) What is this white person to the rescue stuff…(OR)
Joanne: The lack of morality and fathers (EITHER) is the problem in the black community, not poverty. (OR)
Sigh…
Jon: If I were you I wouldn’t try to lump the SDA readers into one group.
I’ll stop when you differentiate yourselves from the pack by vocally criticizing your fellow SDA readers who are “old conservatives still with no heart.”
Or do have no problem with statements like, “Is it that stuff about blacks named N’keesha not getting hired as fast? Hey, here’s a plan: give your kids normal people’s names!!”?
Yeah, so A’dam you going to go look up that paper I told you about in my last comment or are you going to resist being educated yet again?
I’ve got money riding on this, don’t disappoint me!
How about naming your kid A’dam as in “I don’t give a damn about A’dam.
You are textbook loser.
Adam,
Was I right about the teen progressive from Toronto?
I’m 24, and quite frankly I don’t give a flying f__k whether or not someone says N’Keesha is a stupid name. Private industry is free to choose (or should be) who they want to hire, promote etc. I once fired a white kid (ya, I’m already in management) because he was smoking pot on the job, his name was Shadow-Fox Thunderstorm, if I had only followed my prejudice I would have know that he would be a no good hippie, just like his parents.
I ragged on Rob (how we got into this stupid flamewar) because he seemed to think he knew more about the plight of black people from the ghetto than Bill Cosby, a black person from the ghetto of Philly.
Kathy: Sure Adam, me and my white friends will be RIGHT OVER to Jane & Finch to personally help them out…Not…See the Witchita and Tennessee massacres, above.
It’s really a shame you think that way, especially as a Christian. These good people offer volunteering opportunities, in the unlikely event you ever change your mind.
my role is to bitch, moan and shame you into doing something…Yes, from the safety of my computer.
And do you really think you’ve managed to reach even a single person within the black community, and convinced them that you have their interests at heart? Take a good look around this blog, Kathy, for THIS is your audience, your fan base. No doubt they love your work, but make no mistake, you have zero credibility outside this incestuous echo-chamber. At the end of the day, your whole routine serves no greater purpose than as a petty amusement for your peers. So bitch and moan all you like; no one of consequence is listening.
“no one of consequence is listening.”
And with that wimper, A’dam lays down his unregistered handgun and admits, “No one saw you kick my ass”
Bravo Kathy.
Thanks A’dam, I’m ten bucks richer. I bet you’d never do it.
to sum up, unlimited licence bad. morals good.
Funny thing Adam. Reading through, I noticed that everyone of your “retorts” to Kathy et.al., you seem to be VERY against the black man/woman pulling up their boot straps and getting out of the ghettos. Next to Taliban Jack,you appear to be a direct descendant of Mao,Stalin,Mussilini,Pol Pot,etc.
So why do you hate yourself so much that you must denigrate an entire species of mankind,and keep them in a constant state of poverty/filth/welfare/crime just so you can feel good about yourself? Or do you work for the Canadian version of the American Black Criminals have more Legal Rights Union?
Life IS simplistic, Adam. The idea that life is oh so complex is a typical naive lefty idea. It conveniently keeps them from having to take action, because action is simple, gets results and uh oh, puts them out of business as activists/complainers!
iT is indeed a shame I feel that way but I feel that way because black people overwhelmingly kill white people and not the other way around. Oddly enough!
Did you read any of the stats I provided that prove that, or the horrific descriptions of the black on white crimes I provided? Nope.
I’m supposed to live my life like you do, based on Ideals and Hopes, not on facts, statistics and the evidence before my eyes that black people don’t want to be helped by either whites or blacks:
Here’s a comment from the mother of 3 black kids:
“Let me tell you a fact of life living in black community in the downtown east side of the inner city. There are a multitude of programs for youth to keep them off the streets. There are probably more community centers and not-for-profit programs run in this area than in any other part of the city. They are all easily accessible to all youths – even for those whose families are on welfare or have very limited financial means.
“Guess what? The children, on a whole, don’t show up. To participate and take advantage of any of these programs requires a certain amount of discipline to show up every Monday or Wednesday or Friday or Sunday and that is what these children lack because their families are so fractured and their parents have failed in their first duties to their children.”
http://thelastamazon.blogspot.com/2005/08/elephants-are-in-room-and-not-one-is.html
Why do black people need all these special programs anyway? Why don’t they just go to school and learn like the rest of us in the first place?
I come from an alcholic, single parent home and lived most of my childhood below the poverty line. There were no fancy goverment programs for me. I am the only person in my family to finish high school let alone college and the only one who didn’t have a child out of wedlock.
Why? Because I was determined and disciplined and have an above average IQ. If other people are lazy, stupid losers with 90 IQs, that isn’t my problem.
I don’t care if black people listen to me, although it would be nice and certainly do them some good. Their loss if they don’t. Meanwhile all of us get to blow off steam because Canada is run by people like you, and few of us are brave enough to speak the truth except on the internet.
As for being a Christian, Christianity is not a suicide pact. You have a weird idea about what constitutes true Christian charity, typical for a leftist; St Paul said he who doesn’t work doesn’t eat.
People SHOULD give their children normal people’s names instead of fake ebonic ‘african’ ones that saddle them for life with a stereotypical response from sane people before they are even one year old! Did you read the Freakanomics essay on that? It was written by a pretty liberal guy.
Are you twelve? This is the only thing you challenge me on that I’ve posted today? seriously, get back to us when you’ve lived a little. In real life, people judge each other because to do otherwise makes you a moron.
You are so pathetic. There is nothing sadder than a male masochist.
A’dam: “And do you really think you’ve managed to reach even a single person within the black community, and convinced them that you have their interests at heart?”
You really come up with some good knee-slappers. It’s their “interests” that that are causing the problems.
Funny how the leftist’s brain works (or doesn’t work, as may be more apropos). They visit a conservative website that discusses conservative issues in a conservative manner and then, when the conservatives tend to agree with one another (birds of a feather flock together, you know), they say we’re syncophants.
Then, when we TOLERATE the FREE SPEECH of commenters on issues, looking past the surface of what is said to the thrust of the point the commenter is trying to make, they say that we condone what the commenters say. I don’t fully agree with half of what is posted here, but I am smart enough to understand the general point that is being made by each commenter and I TOLERATE them as the exercise their right to FREE SPEECH.
I tend to take exception to those comments that are overtly egregious/unacceptable, as do most others here at SDA. This includes the inanity that dribbles forth from the various leftist trolls that drop by to spew.
A’dam, a typical lefty, does NOT TOLERATE the FREE SPEECH of others and wants to CENSOR their statements. He apparently thinks you should not be permitted to even CIVILLY DISCUSS anything that may appear to be in any way negative about any “visible minority”. When it comes to negative issues about blacks (particularly), we should all pretend that we don’t see or hear anything…we should only see the good that they do and ignore the bad.
Good “progressives” ignore reality and live in a fabricated utopia.
What hasn’t been mentioned is the fact that in TO whenever a little black kid is either killed by the gangs, or caught with the guns…we hear from Mom, but never Dad.
This is exactly what is described above: “illigitimacy lot’s it’s stigma”
Dad’s are not taking responsibility, and the cultural-economic pattern repeats itself.This may be a white problem as well(just to appease poor A’dam) but the prevalence is apparent in the black communities…and the sad cosequences.
For those wanting to pull the ‘racist’ card in this discussion, is it not more cold hearted to ‘pretend’ that their is no difference?
I see a difference. That does not make me racist.
One of the reasons AIDS is spreading so brutally in southern Africa is this “wandering Daddy” family structure. Guys keep women in five or six villages and move between them every couple weeks or months when the mood strikes them. Women of course have more than one man on their visiting list.
This makes an absolutely perfect environment for spreading HIV. Epidemiologically speaking, its even better than a gay bath house in San Francisco.
One need not fall back on race religion or social prejudice when evaluating these cultural constructs, you just have to look at the practical outcomes.
Cultures with majority monogamous marriage structure rule the world for a reason. Its because it works better than the available alternatives. Same goes for democracy, rule of law, capitalism and personal freedom. They work better.
Adam has yet to refute any of the facts, statistics or even anecdotes I’ve posted at this or other threads. All he does is “sigh”.
Big boys don’t sigh.
That’s because he’s a twit, Kathy. ~:D
Good stuff, Doug!
“Let us celebrate the poor.
Posted by: Doug at July 25, 2007 12:40 PM”
Eeyore: I TOLERATE them as the exercise their right to FREE SPEECH…A’dam, a typical lefty, does NOT TOLERATE the FREE SPEECH of others and wants to CENSOR their statements.
Well, bully for you, Eeyore. Now show me where I called for censorship. Do you need reminding that toleration of free speech also includes “tolerating” me calling you on your statements, should I so feel inclined?
…CIVILLY DISCUSS…
Is this what you think goes on here on SDA? Civil discussion? That’s beyond laughable.
Here’s how the model goes: Kate posts some secondary or tertiary source, usually with minimal additional commentary of her own, and then the usual suspects agree with her by regurgitating some variation of the standard conservative script. Scroll through some of the entries if you don’t believe me. There’s certainly plenty of head-nodding, but hardly any actual debate, a precondition for which is the presence of two or more opposing opinions. Kate needs us “trolls” more than she needs you.
MOMMY!
The golden age of Black America was the low immigration era of 1924-1965. A tight labor market led to a major migration of Blacks from the rural South to the urban North. With the flow of cheap immigrant labor severely curtailed after 1924, Blacks finally began moving upward economically and socially in American society.
Mass immigration, legal and illegal, since 1965 has been a major factor in the decline of the Black working-class, a factor that Myron Magnet completely ignores in his lengthy article. Illegal alien workers and the crooked businesses that employ them have driven down the wages and benefits of all American workers, but particularly Blacks.
Some may argue that the average immigrant has a stronger work ethic and better value system than the average Black American. This may very well be true, but the first duty of any nation should be to protect and uplift its own citizens, not import huge masses of foreigners who will work cheaper than the native-born.
Drastically reducing immigration and severely punishing employers of illegals would be the best way to empower and enrich the Black American working-class.
“. There’s certainly plenty of head-nodding, but hardly any actual debate, a precondition for which is the presence of two or more opposing opinions. Kate needs us “trolls” more than she needs you.
Posted by: A’dam at July 25, 2007 5:46 PM ”
This is your problem Adam. We DO NOT need debate. We, and the “poor” need action. A hand-up,NOT a hand-out. If you want to debate,go talk to I’m a Dinner Jacket. He loves your type. A Bigot…a Conservative winning a debate with a Lieberal/Dipper.
A’dam, are you still here? Go find yourself a nice damp bridge to crawl under.
Better yet, run back to your friends at rabble/babble/doofus.com and whinge about what meanies we all are. Bwaha!
Bear with me; I am not actually going off topic.
Some of you might be familiar with Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of Time series of fantasy novels. He has in them certain women who can wield vast psychic or magic powers. There is a magic device that can cause these women to be unable to use their powers save at the behest of their controller. Any attempt to do so causes them to feel unbearable physical and psychological pain. If they try to remove this device – it is in the form of a collar and leash – they feel like they will choke to death, as if they will die from nausea. Under its control, they can be made to betray everything and everyone they love and believe in. They can be made abject, servile creatures with no sense of their own identity.
Robert Jordan calls the device an a’dam.
I would like to think that none of this has any bearing on A’dam’s nomdeblog – but I’m not betting the farm on it.
“Kate needs us “trolls” more than she needs you.”
Who “needs” what, when and where, are always the lefts self-imposed burden to decide for all the rest of us.
Don’t bother to object, or you’ll end up with what 100 million other objecters found out they “needed”, two bullets in the back of their heads.
Kathy: There is nothing sadder than a male masochist.
Who said anything about being male?
few of us are brave enough to speak the truth except on the internet.
And thank god that most SDA commentors lack the courage of their convictions, that they are, by your own admission, sufficiently cowardly that they dare not whisper their true feelings about blacks and other minorities unless they’re shrouded under the safety blanket of anonymous internet blogsites. Interesting how a little bit of mob mentality — for what else SDA except a single-minded virtual mob — can bring out one’s hidden self.
Adam has yet to refute any of the facts, statistics or even anecdotes I’ve posted at this or other threads.
Citing secondary or tertiary sources, which in your case is usually a like-minded blog post or “journals” published by conservative think tanks, that reports one-off studies and non-contextual “statistics” hardly constitutes a compelling argument.
As for some of your specific points, were you aware that the Tennessee police chief has gone on record as saying that there’s no evidence that the Christian/Newsom murders were racially motivated? Did you know it and the Witchita incident were universally condemned — i.e., by blacks commentators as well? Did you realize, in citing your 8%/40& statistic, that you’re confusing rate of arrest with rate of offense? Does it ease your mind to know that, as a white woman, you, Kathy, are statistically far more likely to be assaulted, robbed, raped, and/or murdered by a fellow white perpetrator (in fact, probably someone you know) than by a Random Black Man?
T is indeed a shame I feel that way…I’m supposed to live my life like you do, based on Ideals and Hopes, not on facts, statistics and the evidence before my eyes that black people don’t want to be helped by either whites or blacks…In real life, people judge each other because to do otherwise makes you a moron.
You choose to feel this way, Kathy, and you choose to see the “evidence” you want to see. It’s hardly inevitable — there are plenty of non-blacks in Toronto as elsewhere who decide not to live in fear and small-mindedness, actively put aside their judgments and socially-conditioned prejudices, and instead engage directly, on the ground, with troubled communities in a collective effort to contribute to solutions (again, Pathways to Education is but one of many, many possible examples; Out of the Cold is another). These people have “lived a little” — often, they’ve lived plenty — and they’re hardly “morons.” That they exist, and have been welcomed by the communities that they seek to help, suggests that there’s something about you — your intolerance, your fear — that’s unexamined and at least a little problematic.
Richfischer: Who “needs” what, when and where, are always the lefts self-imposed burden to decide for all the rest of us.
And yet, this entire post has consisted mostly of people telling the black community what they need to do.
Honestly, how can you be so blithely unaware of your own inconsistencies?
Great essay — the type of content that keeps bringing me back to SDA. Thomas Sowell has written some excellent work dealing with similar issues. One of his earlier books, “The Economics and Politics of Race” debunks a lot of the nonsense about discrimination being an impenetrable economic barrier. The example he sites is that of the Chinese in America. Despite facing discrimination at least as bad, and in many cases worse, than that faced by Blacks, the Chinese were able to overcome its economic restrictions and able to achieve standards of living now higher than average in America. Government sponsored social programmes most certainly weren’t responsible for this, nor was direct parent involvement in education either, for as he points out, many of the parents held a very poor command of english and had little direct involvement in their childrens’ schooling beyond insisting that the children “Do what teacher tells you”. They did, however, revere education and educators, by and large had a firm commitment to law and order, even in some cases offering to pay higher taxes for an increased presence of white police to crack down on unruly Chinese youth, nad had very strong family connections with single parenting extremely rare.
Sowell’s more recent work “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” exposes the fallacies which underly the glorification of ghetto culture, ebonics etc, and the destructive effects of liberal thinking and liberal policy on Blacks in America — a great read.
A damn: The left has had the upper hand with the black community as far as “telling them what to do” since the mid-60’s.
The entire point is that what they have been telling them what to has been a complete failure–can’t you get it?
They need to to try something else, that is our point, or are you still stuck on STUPID?
I suggested that, though welfare was part of the answer, the real explanation was larger. It was cultural, not economic. Begun by the elites, vast changes reshaped mainstream attitudes in the 1960s. Sex became fine outside marriage, and illegitimacy lost its stigma. Drugs were cool; social authority and tradition weren’t.
But those other factors are also the result of the welfare policy. Promiscuity and drugs became acceptable because no matter how recklessly or un-traditionally (read: impractically) one behaves, a welfare safety net will be ready to catch you with free health care, free food, free pocket money, free housing, free daycare, free schools, free everything (except self respect). Drugs and sex were always a small part of the culture of both elites and non-elites. It wasn’t until the 1960s that you could get paid to do it.
Culture doesn’t just happen – culture is the human behavioral adaption to environmental and economic circumstances. Ghetto culture was created by and is rewarded and maintained by the welfare state. Ghettos exist for one, all-important reason: because the more degraded and useless people are, the bigger the budgets, headcounts and salaries that can be demanded by their political, bureaucratic and law-enforcement nannies (and cronies).
The idea of wrecking a society in order to get rich off the reconstruction effort is what Catherine Austin Fitts calls The American Tapeworm:
… in 1997 I lead an analysis of US federal expenditures and credit activities in the Philadelphia area for a group of US pension fund leaders. After analysis of the detailed data resulting from $10 billion of government re-engineering and $400 billion of federal credit portfolio strategy managed by my company, the evidence was overwhelming – the federal investment in Philadelphia had a negative return … government budgets were rigging profits and income for companies and people in the area. After each year of government investment, Philadelphia[ns] spent more time doing things that were fundamentally not productive and so had been paid to grow “stupider.” … The primary thing on the rise was the smugness of the leaders of Philadelphia institutions as their success at covert management and personal “personnel benefits” grew ever stronger.
N’awlins is an even more spectacular example.
And Iraq … well … $12B/month of taxpayer money buys you a hell of a lot of ghetto. Nuff said.
Nope, A’dam’s just another lazy ass kid who won’t listen to his/her/its elders and won’t look stuff up.
Am J Epidemiol. 1974 Dec;100(6):499-505 “Accidental firearm fatalities in a metropolitan county (1958-1973)” Rushforth NB, Hirsch CS, Ford AB, Adelson L.
G’head ducky. Read it, then tell me I’m wrong.
A’dam: please answer briefly:
A person is suffering. You offer assistance. Said person does not employ the assistance to reduce the suffering but to enhance it. What do you do?
The frustration and antagonism many people have for the inner city black community is because we see the same social and cultural breakdowns that always, always lead in a descending spiral to the same result. And then comes the same liberal response, which is to create, at vast expense, the bureaucratic answer to the problem their policies caused in the first place! The leftists hate Harris because for a while he derailed their welfare train and its concomitant social industries.
As Melanie Phillips pointed out “The innate weakness of liberalism is we see everything through the prism of the profound liberal delusion that the world is governed by reason and that all people have goodwill.” Reality check, I dont think the Bloods and Crips are interested in your liberal goodwill. In the liberal mind if the black community is failing it is because we haven’t tried hard enough, more money, basketball courts and more programs should solve it. The idea that maybe, just maybe getting rid of all the programs, putting the bad guys in jail, eliminate the welfare golden ring and help the black community become responsible for their individual actions would never enter their pointed heads.
People like Adam tick me off because they never see that we are sick of ever-increasing police, courts, jails and social costs in Toronto primarily being spent on the black community with no appreciable improvement. Adam, take your next vacation to Haiti or Zimbabwe and report back with your solutions, if you come back.
Tell you David, what ticks me off is IMBECILES like Mayor Miller repeating -word for word- the exact same drivel that has been spilling from the lips of idiot mayors in the USA since the 1960’s.
Its like there’s a class they take in how to wreck a city as fast as possible and look good doing it.
In the USA today, approximately one-third of blacks are in the middle class.
This is really remarkable. My doctor (a black guy) and I are both old enough to remember segregation, and now he’s my doctor.
Although the same old voices are still trying to promote the same tired issues, the facts as American participate in them are quite different.
With a third of blacks in the middle class, one might ask why that powerful and affluent group have not moved more forcefully to address the plight of their fellow racial members who still remain unaffluent.
Well, the remarkable truth is that as soon as blacks become middle class they do exactly what many whites do: they quickly remove themselves from blighted areas and move into prosperous neighborhoods where they are easily accepted by their white neighbors (for the main part).
The truth is that what used to be based racial conflict is today a class issue.
Whites in the US who themselves are middle class have an easy acceptance of blacks who enjoy a similar class. The color of skin has become minimized, and the usual caveats of social deportment and consideration for civilized behavior have taken its place.
When you have people like Secretary Powell, Secretary Rice, Senator Obama, along with various CEOs and black high achievers in every field you are simply no longer dealing with a 1960s paradigm of black and white issues.
If there were some way it were actually possible to speed poor blacks into the middle class, the quickest and most efficient way for it to happen would be for affluent blacks to remove their reticence against helping downtrodden members of their own race. They have the money, the political power, the community resources, and the ability to literally change underclass America. At this juncture they show little sign of increasing their level of engagement.
The article reads like yet another typical politically correct spin, excusing the plight of black crime in America and elsewhere for that matter. It predictably turns the criminals into the victims “If blacks committed crime, the system that drove them to it, out of poverty or as an act of protest, was at fault: we shouldn’t blame the victim, as the saying went—meaning the poor criminal, not his prey”.
This is a perfect example of the flawed PC ideology that has created the generational mess black communities find themselves struggling against to begin with. It Stokes the fires of blame for shortcomings within black American culture and will not engrain a philosophy of responsibility to ones self, family, community, and country. The worst antagonists for the American black communities and individuals are the self professed lobbyists for the “black cause” who shackle young black people by having them believe that they are dispossessed kings and queens suffering at the hands of someone else or something else. Look no further than the rappers spin on black life for the reasons to exist “get rich or die trying”! Look no further than the white PC idiots that strangely feel guilty for slavery crimes that they never committed over a hundred years ago. (The same crimes BTW that prevail today throughout regions of Africa as they have continuously for centuries). Today the “system” in America is unfortunately preventing blacks from getting “Bling”? Better go rob a bank or some rich guy. Go 50 cent; tell us all how it is, or translated “How it be my dogs and bitches”!
I obviously don’t have a solution for the problem; maybe a good start would be to have responsible leadership for young blacks. Consider leaders that don’t point fingers and blame others for shortcomings, but instead promote self awareness of humble beginnings and the responsibilities of the individual. Teach the young instead that all races struggle to get ahead (unless born to the wealthy 1%) and that if you find yourself behind, you’re in good company. Pick yourself up and work hard towards a better future on your own merits, sometimes you’ll be up other times down, welcome to humanity.
The one thing I agree with the article is allot of “blame” can be attributed to the “Hippies” not only the for drugs, but the accompanying soft minded mentality that shirked responsibility and reality which subsequently imprisoned Americans pride and trust in their leadership since the 60’s. Look more closely at your leaders and modern heroes now America, you shaped and created them! From there is where you will find your solutions.
Doug: The left has had the upper hand with the black community as far as “telling them what to do” since the mid-60’s. The entire point is that what they have been telling them what to has been a complete failure–can’t you get it? They need to to try something else, that is our point…
The “try something else” proposals here all center on less welfare, more workfare, tougher criminal sanctions, and deeper cultural integration. All these have been tried to varying degrees in the US, and the situation for black communities there — whether measured in terms of urban crime, economic inequality, social segregation, or acute and chronic health indicators at all life stages — is far worse.
Now, why do you assume that I therefore agree entirely with the standard “leftist” (i.e., Keynesian) approach advocated for the past 50 years? Did I not acknowledge the need for all parties to take greater responsibility for their own contributions to the problem — black communities included?
Now, google “community empowerment strategies” for a truly novel “bottom-up” approach to community development, that requires local community members to take personal responsibility but which also addresses deeper systemic issues.
The Phantom: A’dam’s just another lazy ass kid who won’t listen to his/her/its elders and won’t look stuff up.
Phantom, Rushforth et al (1974) is not “all over the web,” only its abstract is:
Accidental firearm fatalities in a metropolitan county (1958–1973). Am J Epidemiol 100:499–505, 1974.—A study of accidental firearm fatalities in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, (Metropolitan Cleveland) from 1958–1973, inclusive, has shown a threefold increase in the rate of such deaths since 1967. They are more frequent in the central city than in the suburbs, show a male preponderance, are more common in nonwhites, have a peak prevalence in the 25–34-year age range and usually happen in the home. Approximately half of the adult victims had been drinking alcoholic beverages when shot. It is hypothesized that the frequency of accidental firearm fatalities is primarily related to the number of guns, particularly handguns, in civilian possession. The data indicate that a loaded firearm in the home is more likely to cause an accidental death than to be used as a lethal weapon against an intruder.
You’re really not worth spending $35 on — bet it’s not the first time a woman’s said that to you, huh? — so either post the full-text or move on.
Tenebris: A person is suffering. You offer assistance. Said person does not employ the assistance to reduce the suffering but to enhance it. What do you do?
I would immediately go onto a conservative blog, assume an anonymous and therefore unaccountable handle, rant about how lazy and irresponsible and violence-prone said person is, possibly debase and devalue his/her entire culture, and then hold responsible for the entire state of affairs everyone and everything except myself, and not once ask whether I personally contribute, in some small but real way, to the problem through, for example, my casual perpetuation of negative stereotypes.
Oh, sorry, you asked what I would do? Well, first, I would make the elementary observation that human behaviour is a combination of personal choice and contextual factors. Then I’d try to figure out whether any such contextual factors played a partial role in said person failing to employ the assistance. If the answer is no, then I would hold that sole person to account. But if the answer is yes, then I would strike a new deal, that if I do my fair share to better ensure that those contextual factors are enabling rather than impeding, then said person will make every effort to employ future assistance to reduce their suffering.
I’m not anonymous Adam. You’re the anonymous one! Tell us your full name if you disdain anonymity so much.
When a culture is debased, it devalues itself. Nothing to do with me. It is self evident. I just report the news.
I wouldn’t be able to “perpetuate stereotypes” if they didn’t exist in the first place.
I know it hurts your feelings to have outsiders talking about your dirty laundry, but it is up to you to wash it, not me.
The US Justice Department is a right wing think tank now? M’kay… People you don’t like are automatically part of right wing think tanks. Well, that’s open minded.
You’re not willing to spend 35 dollars to download an article. Fair enough. But it sounds like just another excuse to avoid challenging your preconceptions.
See the flaw in your argument?
“Well, first, I would make the elementary observation that human behaviour is a combination of personal choice and contextual factors. Then I’d try to figure out whether any such contextual factors played a partial role in said person failing to employ the assistance. If the answer is no, then I would hold that sole person to account.”
Right. And I answered NO! So go away!
“Fair share”? OH bruther.
And you’re telling me that things are “far worse” for US blacks post-welfare reform? Wow. Just… wow. If by worse you mean “people don’t get as much free stuff any more” then, yeah, that was kind of the point.
Again, please provide counterstatistics.
From non-left wing think tanks of course.
Since you don’t like anonymous people’s observations, google Star Parker, Larry Elder and LaShawn Barber and see what they have to say about this topic. Or are they just “uncle toms”?
Oh right, they are “right wingers” so their opinions don’t count. See how you automatically cut yourself off to new ideas because of YOUR own prejudices?
You have a lot of nerve lecturing us when you are the one who won’t go looking for alternative viewpoints. And you still haven’t answered any of my questions about why black people need all these special programs you think are so wonderful, why they don’t take advantage of them anyway, why it is acceptable for children to stay up until 1AM (oh right, it’s your “culture”). etc.
I’m done. You are young and foolish, and I’m old and busy and have money to make.
When you grow up, you’ll look back on this and shake your head at how naive you were. We’ve all been there.
OK I couldn’t resist one more. Yes Adam, I CHOOSE to live my life based on facts, statistics and my personal experiences. Wacky I know. Here are some facts from a black writer for the New York Times — is that more acceptable?
>”Even writers for the New York Times don’t drag this canard out anymore. Last year, a black writer in the Times pointed out how things had changed in New York in the 10 years since he had been out of the country.
>”Not only did he have no trouble getting a cab, but he cited statistics from taxi sting operations that showed a 96 percent compliance rate among cabbies in picking up blacks. (Remarkable, considering that New York cabbies’ compliance rate on daily bathing is less than half that.)
>”As the Times writer noted, even 10 years ago, “most of the drivers who refused to pick me up or take me to my destination during that time were of African descent.”
>”When he asked one cabbie – 10 years ago – why he avoided picking up black customers, the driver displayed a scar across his neck, a souvenir from a black customer who had robbed him. “I have to choose which is worse,” the driver said, “a fine or death.”
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=568
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Kathy: You have a lot of nerve lecturing us when you are the one who won’t go looking for alternative viewpoints.
Let’s examine that claim a little bit, shall we?
My main viewpoint on, and extent of contribution to, this topic is reflected in my work (privately funded, thanks for asking), which involves direct interaction and collaboration with the actual members of these communities, and I seek out alternative viewpoints by, among other things, reading and commenting on conservative blogs (such as SDA).
Your main viewpoint on, and extent of contribution to, this topic appears to be reflected in your maintaining, reading, and commenting on conservative blogs (such as SDA and your own relapsedcatholic), and you seek out alternative viewpoints by…umm…er…hmmmm…
I’ve really appreciated the many fine arguments on this thread, which are not just opinion, but are well reasoned and supported by facts. Then there is a certain person, who appears to have a small, dead brain–one that ignores fact after fact and constructs so-called arguments from the flotsom and jetsam of the dogmas embedded in the previously mentioned, ossified brain. What a waste of band space!
Unfortunately, the public school systems, along with our universities, train our kids to parrot PC garbage rather than think for themselves. Given an idea foreign to the propaganda their heads are stuffed with usually totally throws them for a loop: their tiny, entitled world is knocked off its axis and they become petulant and pugilistic. Add to this fact that they feel altogether entitled to be cretins and we have a really big problem. Change of mind, shame, embarrassment, or remorse at being so foolish? These concepts don’t seem to be in their make-up. As long as our young people are encouraged and allowed to live in virtual reality, like the unwanted and destructive zebra mussels in our lakes, the musings of these pedants seem to be here to stay.
I’m not so sure that people with this kind of thinking ever grow up. And, as public policy is being shaped by such cretins, poor all of us.
hey A’dam why not try something new ,leave them alone cause your help is not helping.
here’s another for you ,imagine you are an employer and have two candidates one white, one black ,for a high paying position both have very good grades. the black candidate come from of course, affirmative action schooling now do you say to yourself wow this guy is good or do you say ,he probably got a free pass by his affirmative action teachers were as you know the white student really had to work for his grades.
affirmative action is reverse racism.
Huh, so A’dam makes her living off of African-American suffering. Whooda thunkit? Oh yeah, everyone here would have, because she only makes excuses, and doesn’t put one single idea forward on how to fix it. Because, of course, advancing an idea may cause a reduction in suffering, which would cause her to be out of a job.
Who’s the real slave master now?
“why it is acceptable for children to stay up until 1AM”.
KS, you’ve repeated this several times.
I’ve seen interviews with several relatives of the dead child in which they explain that he never, ever stayed up that late – except for this one special family occasion. They lament the fact that they broke his strict bedtime rule, and state they will be regretting this forever.
So no, KS, they did not think it was ‘acceptable’ in general for a child to be up so late. Neither did my parents – but I fondly recall the 3 or 4 times in childhood when the bedtime rule was broken.
Unfortunately this dead child, whose death has occasioned you with anothe great pretext to carry on you campaign of ‘truth’, will never have those fond memories.
I, however, will always remember you and your gloating.
Nice freekin pay cheque, A’dam Lottabling.
Do you get bonuses if the black crime rate goes up or down?
“I, however, will always remember you and your gloating.”
discretion
Well there’s a shock!
That’s ALL you or A’dam or any other race-pimpin perpetual victims “need” to remember, Whitey gloated.
See if you can remember way back to last summer in Toronto and guess who said this?
“What you think, we bitches, (BANG, BANG BANG) we bad ass niggaz”
Here’s a hint, discriminating memory boy,
broad daylight, in the back, on a crowded streetcar, no witnesses, good semaritan, yet unsolved,… forgotten.
No, richfisher, KS is gloating, not ‘whitey’.
With sadness, I find myself sceptical about the claims of Ephraim’s family about his being up late just for a special treat. Why?
It’s possible that the explanation’s altogether legitimate. However, problems that seem to be endemic to and epidemic in the black, Jamaican subculture are failing to raise its fatherless children in a reasonable manner so that they behave civilly, and embellishing the truth. E.g., The Jamaican Canadian kids I’ve taught were terminally tired and admitted that they had no bedtimes and stayed up until all hours, even on school nights. Until I banned such behaviour in class, they yawned a lot and often put their heads on their desks: not behaviour conducive to learning. They also seemed prone to “making up stories” to explain not being responsible. And, remember the Jordan Manners case: his mother and aunt said what a good child he was. His teacher–brave man!–and the authorities didn’t agree and it turned out that he was involved in drug dealing: his mom THEN said he made the money babysitting. My experience of such mothers, sadly, has also been that they are often less than reliable.
The story of the little boy who cried wolf is most apt here: it’s possible that Ephraim’s family is telling the truth, but who would know and who would expect it?
Another point: even if he were up late for a special treat, why would a responsible parent allow him to be outside in that area of town at such a late (early) hour? I’d want some good, strong walls between my child and any stray bullets, which tend to fly in Ephraim’s neighbourhood.
What I’ve recounted here happens to be the truth. For those who think it’s cowardly to state truths such as this while using a pseudonym, perhaps he/she should consider what the jackbooted, totalitarian overlords and ladies of our politically correct culture might do to us if they knew our names. There are a number of possibilities: we’d likely be harassed and probably charged, “tried” in a Human Rights (sic) kangaroo court, be forced to pay large legal bills, fined, and possibly even lose our jobs. (Truth has nothing to do with it. The names Scott Brockie and Chris Kempling come to mind.)
Canadians have been cowed into silence on all kinds of crucial issues because the left-wing, politically correct dogmatists who run most of the institutions in this country, have gerrymandered the system—yes, it’s a systemic problem!—in order to be able to cause serious damage to the lives of those who don’t buy their repressive, socialist doctrine. Inquisition, anyone?
To the small brained, dogmatic idiots, who challenge those of us, who haven’t swallowed the “equality” propaganda, to proclaim our ideas loudly in public: 1) read Malcolm Muggeridge’s writings on Stalin’s mass murders—which were denied by the elites (who the lefties on this thread would adulate), and 2) watch the movie “A Man for All Seasons”.
Actually, I once challenged the Equity Policy of my board at a staff meeting: you could have heard a pin drop. After giving an example, well known to the whole staff, I pointed out that the so-called equity policy doesn’t promote equality at all. I said that it actually favours certain, identifiable groups at the expense of others. No one said a word, including the principal, who moved on to the next item on the agenda. But, privately, a number of teachers thanked me for speaking out. “You’re absolutely right,” they said. “We agree with you and are altogether tired of the untruths we’re expected to put up with.”
We live in interesting times, that’s for sure. People should realize that “democracy” is no longer an apt description of this country. A small, privileged elite has used the Charter, among other things, to hijack our democracy. What they want to see are politically correct, lobotomized subjects who will walk lock step to their utopian fantasies. Keeping the ordinary, law-abiding population afraid of the consequences of arbitrary dicta—instead of the rule of law—is a big part of their strategy. So far, they’ve been quite successful.
Most of us at SDA know about this and are appalled. Some others at SDA, however—fools, I’d say—are subversives, who seem to revel in totalitarian tactics, which rob their fellow citizens of their rights and freedoms.
I appreciate your observations, lookout, agree with many of your conclusions, and don’t doubt your truthfulness at all.
I’ve sometimes viewed past interviews of grieving TO family members with the doubt you mention.
In Ephraim’s case, however, the family members I’ve seen struck a chord of truth in me. Obviously I could be mistaken; and yes, KS, may be correct in assuming, on the basis of bedtime, that these were terrible parents from a debased culture, and that the death of their son is a valid occasion for yet another critique of Jamaicans.
My gut tells me, though, that this kid had good parents, and that KS is gloating.