Posted on 01/11/2005 6:29:02 PM PST by Huber
Local politician who spoke up on inner city moral decay - coming up live on Hannity and Colmes
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Racist or Realist - Rhino Times, M E Pellin Jan 6, 2005
Bill James has been a county commissioner for the last decade, and for the last decade he has been sending out e-mails laced with politically incorrect, incendiary, and often divisive commentary on what he considers the contributing causes to society’s moral decay. Chief culprits have included a lengthy list of –alities: homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, and infidelity, to name a few.
For years the media and elected officials from both sides of the political aisle have for the most part shrugged off the e-mails as Bill James being Bill James.
But when James, who is white, wrote in an e-mail last week that children within the urban black community live in a moral sewer with parents who lack the desire to act properly, he sparked a firestorm of controversy. It started when County Manager Harry Jones, who is black, released a reply to James’ e-mail in which he rebuked the commissioner, saying his comments, “smack of racism in the highest form and remind me of David Duke, the Prince of the KKK.”
That was followed by days of leaders from the black community, the NAACP, local Republicans, local Democrats, city councilmembers and county commissioners, and the mayor roundly condemning James for his comments. James said he has even received harassing phone calls at home after his comments were widely publicized. Police are investigating the incident.
James has since apologized for not clarifying and qualifying his remarks, and said that he didn’t mean to condemn a whole segment of the city’s black population. Which isn’t to say that he has apologized for bringing up what he says is the most serious issue facing Charlotte: a problem that stems from the soaring illegitimate birth rate in the urban black community that is leading to higher rates of poverty, higher rates of dependency on government social services programs, a higher incarceration rates of blacks in Mecklenburg County’s jails, and a widening student achievement gap at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools between black students and their white counterparts.
James said he deliberately used explosive language in his e-mail to bring attention to the issue, because in the past, “politically-correct, namby-pamby talk has never got it done.”
“”Because illegitimate birth has to do with morality and a breakdown in the family structure, it is by its very nature a sensitive topic that no one wants to touch,” James said. “It’s easier to talk about poverty in general terms than it is to address specifics. For a long time I’ve felt that in our politically correct desire to avoid offending any group, culture, faith, religion, race or belief, we have ignored the reality of what is going on and have allowed damage to be done to tens of thousands of children because we’re not willing to face down and address what I consider to be a substantive problem in the urban black community – a problem that’s not replicated in that depth in the poor Hispanic community, the poor Asian community or the poor white community.”
James said his positions aren’t novel, just new to Charlotte residents, community leaders and elected officials who have been willing to turn a blind eye to what others have seen for decades. In support of his claims he has cited everything from recent comments by Bill Cosby critical of the black community to a 1966 report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan that laid the root of many problems within the black community at the feet of moral decay.
“It’s so blatantly obvious that Charlotte doesn’t want to deal with this issue, but it’s a problem that needs to be discussed to be solved,” James said. “If I have to be the whipping boy and take the heat to start that debate, that’s fine, but it’s a problem I want to see solved.”
James’ critics say that’s a cop out and what they call his sudden concern for problems in the black community is an easy way to explain away a history of offensive and inexcusable rhetoric.
At a press conference last week, Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church Pastor James R. Samuel said that James, “is not only a product of some moral sewer, he is a product of some disease..” He also called James “a redneck accountant.” Several others have called for James to resign.
But some people are starting to ask exactly what that would accomplish, and why some people seem more concerned with bashing the messenger than dealing with the message he delivered. Others wonder why comments comparing James to the Prince of the KKK, the “product of some disease,” and a “redneck accountant,” haven’t received the same attention and criticism that James “moral sewer” comment received.
County Commissioner Jim Puckett said that the way James used the phrase “moral sewer” painted a picture of the black community with too broad of a brush; but he also said that’s nothing unusual for James.
“For as long as I’ve known him, Bill James has discussed the moral breakdown and decay of society in general, when he talks about his concern about the homosexual agenda, when he talks about sin taxes,” Puckett said. “He doesn’t just point and shake his finger at the black community, he does it across the board.”
Puckett said he suspected attention has been focused on James’ one remark because people want to avoid dealing with the underlying problems it addressed.
“Some of the same people who have failed the black community are the same people who are in charge of it, and they’ve been the harshest critics in the last few weeks that have kept the attention focused on James and not the problems he was trying to point out,” Puckett said. “Because if they deal with these problems and get people off the government dole, they don’t re-elected.”
Others say they’re disappointed that it took somebody like James, instead of somebody from the black community, to bring sharp focus to the problems facing the black community,
“We should all be upset at the fact that a white leader would state, ‘I will not sit idly by while another generation of urban black children is lost to drugs, crime, apathy and promiscuity,” the Rev. James Barnett, who is black, wrote in an open letter to leaders in the black community. “I would have given my right hand to have had a well known black leader in this city to state such.”
This year, Barnett’s grassroots group “Stop The Killing Crusade” had its funding eliminated by the city council. The Crusade, Barnett said, is designed to address the problems of violence and moral decay in the urban black community.
It probably didn’t’ help that a few weeks before the council cut The Crusade’s funding, Barnett was arrested for attempting to solicit a prostitute. He said it was part of a plan to expose the problem of prostitution in inner city neighborhoods, and was no reason to cut his program’s funding. Barnett said the council’s actions were more harmful to the black community than James’ words.
“While there are many of you that are upset at what Mr. Bill James has said,” Barnett wrote to black leaders, “no one is ready to address the problems that cause outsiders to look at the black race in such a manner.
“I like many others am upset at the way in which Mr. James spoke out. On the other hand, had he not done so the black community would still be asleep,” Barnett wrote.
He said he is coordinating a meeting with County Commissioner Norman Mitchell, who is black, to meet with James and discuss some of the issues that have been raised.
Speaking of Mitchell, Puckett said the commissioners’ long-standing friendship with James should dispel any notions that James, as many have contended over the course of last week, is a racist.
“I know it sounds like a cliché, but one of his best friends is black, and they’re really good friends,” Puckett said. “If he were truly a racist, then Norman Mitchell would also be considered a part of the moral sewer and Bill James wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him.”
While critics have been quick to denounce James as all talk and no action when it comes to helping solve the problems in the black community, James said he can defend his record.
He said he has voted to approve funding for a slew of inner city parks, funding for an inner city school paid for with certificates of participation, and voted for and backed a $415 million bond referendum to renovate inner city schools. He said he has also voted to approve funding for HIV/AIDS counselors and, most recently, voted to approve the High School Challenge, which gave CMS $6 million to help improve test scores at some of the district’s most at-risk schools.
In fact, James said he even offered several suggestions for caveats that should come attached to the money, like requiring CMS to enforce a dress code for teachers and school uniforms for teachers, an enforced “anti bling-bling” policy, drug sweeps and spot inspections of school lockers and revocation of driving privileges to students that don’t make the grade.
James also said that schools should perform “an assessment of the family situation of each child, including whether they were born out of wedlock, whether they are from a broken home, and whether the parental environment shows that they are ‘working’ (or on government subsidies,” according to an e-mail he sent school officials. James said for the most part his proposals, which he said would help bolster academic performance, were ignored.
“That’s because it’s not the Charlotte way,” James said. “We like to talk a good game. We want to name our streets after Billy Graham, but heaven forbid we actually have God or morality attached to anything. The idea of success is building an arena or a transit system; it certainly isn’t solving the plight of roughly 1,500 illegitimate babies that are born within the urban black community each year and live miserable lives.”
http://charlotte.rhinotimes.com/story.html?id=373
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PING
OH, my Gosh!
Does Bill James get to meet Dick Morris and Oliver North (who were just on Hannity), or is he doing a long distance interview?
That would be so awesome...
At a press conference last week, Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church Pastor James R. Samuel said that James, “is not only a product of some moral sewer, he is a product of some disease..” He also called James “a redneck accountant.” Several others have called for James to resign.
Double standard?
All right. He's coming on NOW!!!!
"You fight the fire where it is the hottest!"
Chastised by Hannity - How humiliating.
I'll comment...I would rather be in Iraq than most inner cities.
James has no tact. He may be right, but alienating potential allies with verbal bombs is counterproductive.
My first live thread. How do you think it went?!?
lol
Yes, but he's OUR tactless conservative. :->
Apparently he needed to mention "black" to make his numbers work. "26% of the population is black in Charlotte, but 68% of inmates are black in Charlotte." This indicates a problem...
Still coulda been a bit more tactful...
Even Hannity took him to task for his remarks.
Add I caught the tail end of it and didn't know a lot of what happened. I just heard the "moral sewer" quote. The article here shed a little more light on things.
Once again Hannity proves he is a shallow excuse for a Conservative commentator; attack, attack and never listen. All you Hannity lovers can have him. I think he really sucks.
Charlotte is a New South metropolis, where Southern manners are absolutely observed in polite society, unless you want to attack a conservative, in which case absolutely any amount of distortion or rudeness is not only excused, but is considered brave and enlightened. James could use a media coach, but he stands by his principles when others would crumble. His reward is being pillaried by the local media, racial agitators and liberal elite. Its a damm shame...
I'm guessing shoddy research by Sean. Its hard not to get sucked in by Northern stereotypes when you live and work in New York.
I hear the desert is lovely this time of year.
Ditto that- the black community is being deluged with rap and crack.
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