Posted on 05/05/2015 6:53:06 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Among the many painful ironies in the current racial turmoil is that communities scattered across the country were disrupted by riots and looting because of the demonstrable lie that Michael Brown was shot in the back by a white policeman in Missouri — but there was not nearly as much turmoil created by the demonstrable fact that a fleeing black man was shot dead by a white policeman in South Carolina.
Totally ignored was the fact that a black policeman in Alabama fatally shot an unarmed white teenager, and was cleared of any charges, at about the same time that a white policeman was cleared of charges in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.
In a world where the truth means so little, and headstrong preconceptions seem to be all that matter, what hope is there for rational words or rational behavior, much less mutual understanding across racial lines?
When the recorded fatal shooting of a fleeing man in South Carolina brought instant condemnation by whites and blacks alike, and by the most conservative as well as the most liberal commentators, that moment of mutual understanding was very fleeting, as if mutual understanding were something to be avoided, as a threat to a vision of “us against them” that was more popular.
That vision is nowhere more clearly expressed than in attempts to automatically depict whatever social problems exist in ghetto communities as being caused by the sins or negligence of whites, whether racism in general or a “legacy of slavery” in particular. Like most emotionally powerful visions, it is seldom, if ever, subjected to the test of evidence.
The “legacy of slavery” argument is not just an excuse for inexcusable behavior in the ghettos. In a larger sense, it is an evasion of responsibility for the disastrous consequences of the prevailing social vision of our times, and the political policies based on that vision, over the past half century.
Anyone who is serious about evidence need only compare black communities as they evolved in the first 100 years after slavery with black communities as they evolved in the first 50 years after the explosive growth of the welfare state, beginning in the 1960s.
You would be hard-pressed to find as many ghetto riots prior to the 1960s as we have seen just in the past year, much less in the 50 years since a wave of such riots swept across the country in 1965.
We are told that such riots are a result of black poverty and white racism. But in fact — for those who still have some respect for facts — black poverty was far worse, and white racism was far worse, prior to 1960. But violent crime within black ghettos was far less.
Murder rates among black males were going down — repeat, down — during the much-lamented 1950s, while it went up after the much celebrated 1960s, reaching levels more than double what they had been before. Most black children were raised in two-parent families prior to the 1960s. But today the great majority of black children are raised in one-parent families.
Such trends are not unique to blacks, nor even to the United States. The welfare state has led to remarkably similar trends among the white underclass in England over the same period. Just read Life at the Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple, a British physician who worked in a hospital in a white slum neighborhood.
You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large.
Non-judgmental subsidies of counterproductive lifestyles are treating people as if they were livestock, to be fed and tended by others in a welfare state — and yet expecting them to develop as human beings have developed when facing the challenges of life themselves.
One key fact that keeps getting ignored is that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits every year since 1994. Behavior matters and facts matter, more than the prevailing social visions or political empires built on those visions.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
I think it is important to make a distinction (as Thomas Sowell does in his book “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”.
When referring to “Black Culture” we should explicitly refer to “Black Redneck Culture” since that accurately describes what we are usually referring to in a negative way.
I think it is important to do for two reasons:
First, it is more focused and specific referring to the negative and undesirable behavior by a portion (not all) of the black population. Specificity is a good thing in this case.
Secondly, doing so makes it clear that one is not attacking “Black Culture”, because that encompasses a wider range of beliefs and behaviors, and thus brings a wider range of undeserving people into a circle of criticism.
I say this because I have been sourcing and quoting Thomas Sowell’s excellent work, but failed to make the important distinction that he so obviously took the care to do by incorporating it into the title of his book. As a result, I have had both veiled and overt charges of racism leveled at me, and even had a FR thread pulled that I worked several hours to construct.
When asked, the moderator politely replied that they didn’t have the resources to monitor “threads like mine” to keep undesirables from posting racists comments, of which there were indeed a few that I asked them to pull. Instead, they pulled the entire thread with that excuse. Let me tell you, I worked hard on that thread to be factual, informative and timely, and not a speck of it was racist, but the way a few freepers interpreted it (including the moderator) it was, or at least invited racism. It was bitterly disappointing to me, since my FR stats show 45K+ posts and a small number of threads started. I thought it was an important subject for discussion.
I believe now that I could have avoided that (As Dr. Sowell did) by explicitly referring to “Black Redneck” behavior, and defining it so that readers would understand the distinction.
What does “IKAGO” mean?
“I Know A Good One”
Ah. Can you explain how this would apply to Dr. Sowell even to make an exception to?
I admit I don’t understand how the concept was used in your post.
Good post.
Do not be discouraged. Keep plugging away. I get tired and disgusted by quite a lot of the one liner smart aleck remarks that seem to dominate the board sometimes. I appreciate those who want to try to go a little deeper. I also appreciate those who strive for ever greater precision and clarity of thought and language.
Thanks. That was what I found discouraging about it...I spent time researching it to make sure I had the facts and figures correct and attributed appropriately, then a couple of posts came in (a few obviously trying to be clever, but transparently so) and the thread was dead in under 15 minutes.
But you are correct...don’t want to give up!
Because I am trying to root out my own hypocrisy or “cover” for pointing out black dysfunction by using the “IKAGO” shield, when the “good ones” are the exception to the rule, even if the “good ones” aren’t the actual criminal or miscreant, they will almost always take the side of the criminal or miscreant merely because he’s black. It’s the same principle with “moderate” Muslims. I no longer will excuse black dysfunction on the basis of “they’re not all like that” because statistically speaking, enough of them are either the actual criminal or an enabler, that the outliers make no difference. But Dr Sowell is so consistent in calling out black dysfunction and making no excuses, that he is one of the few for whom I will make an exception.
The bigger picture is that governing policies cannot be based on the weak reed of the “good ones”. I can think of no group of dysfunctional whites who get such a pass, except sodomites, and they’re no longer considered “dysfunctional” in this stinking society. When’s the last time you saw whites out rioting and defending a white criminal?
I understand now.
I would disagree with your generalization, but I did want to know what it meant.
Not all this population segment acts like the Baltimore “organized community.” Many, at least of my age, are more like Mssrs. Sowell and Williams and Keyes and Carson, and Ms. Rice etc. And allowing that these are better educated, that does not address my several rather ordinary friends who resent and reject the products of the agitators, traitors that the “community organizers” are grooming to lead the coming massive confrontation.
They're too busy getting hung up on the word, "thug" to actually speak the truth. Sowell is too brutally honest for them, and he does so eloquently.
Many have also sold their birthright for a mess of pottage in the cultural realm too. For example, they used to produce true artists such as Duke Ellington and many, many musicals greats. Now they mostly reverence the likes of non-talented but greatly hyped “artists” such as Jay-Z and Kanye West.
Bkmk
Dr Sowell is correct.
I have mentioned here before that I am a triage interviewer at a local food/clothing/etc. bank. We cater to low income people.
It is very rare for me to interview happily married couples of any race. I interview single men and I interview Moms that are not married and have kids.
What a shame.
The Money Quote...
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