I just have a good tan is all.
Posted on 06/09/2005 6:53:57 AM PDT by Millee
Former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm recently wrote an essay in Academic Questions, published by the National Association of Scholars.
"Let me offer you, metaphorically," he wrote, "two magic wands that have sweeping powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The other wand you could wave across the ghettoes and barrios of America and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect for learning, and ambition.
"But, alas, you can't wave both wands. Only one."
What a beautiful intellectual construct, I thought, to discuss what ails black America, which has been discriminated against but has fared worse than Jews, Japanese, etc. - all of whom faced discrimination. The "infusion of values" option is imminently doable, without resorting to magic.
Black America suffers from apathy and indifference; its inability to learn from its own history and the ways of other groups is puzzling. In the past, many escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad, showing great courage and an indomitable spirit.
When blacks lived side by side regardless of social class, the whole community thrived, despite white America's racism. Black history is a glorious chapter in the book of human endurance. With the "freedom" of the 1960s and '70s, black attitudes towards culture changed, minimizing the role of education and instead glorifying sports.
Jews' religion, education, traditions and culture gave their lives direction to bear hardships. The blacks' Bible sustained them through slavery's privations. Jews and blacks have some similarities in their historical narrative; that of despised minorities in a troubled land. But unlike Jews, blacks have lost focus of who they are and what they want.
Some mollify blacks by labeling them "victims," blaming slavery and white America but never exhorting blacks to change their own fortunes.
The simple belief that the future has anything in store for America's black youth is absent. A man without hope is a walking dead man. We must implant into youth's minds that they're somebody; that America is their land, too; and that they have a reason to fight for it and themselves.
This is the reality: Racism is a cancer in America's body, a chronic condition that blacks must learn to live with. It leaves blacks on their own; only they can change their history, their fate.
A part of white America doesn't care. Another, which includes Dick Lamm, is engaged and cares more than many black elites for whom black poverty is merely a canvas against whose background their good fortune is highlighted.
As Bill Cosby has said, only black parents, elders, black churches, writers, millionaire NFL and NBA stars can rescue kids from jails; educate the uneducated; counsel girls against premarital pregnancies; and teach young men responsibility - sexual and parental - mostly by example. They must create businesses in America's ghettos, to employ and empower black youth.
The church must prove its relevance by filling the vacuum of black leadership. We must recapture the spirit of community. We need a million Bill Cosbys, in every town in America, to preach the great lessons of self reliance, education, patience, chastity.
Above all, the black community must learn self- criticism and how to accept well-intentioned, constructive counsel given without malice.
That's my blueprint for the new black America. What's yours?
Bravo
Black on black crime is the biggest problem. So called "whitey" and wealthy blacks will not invest capital in a risky part of town where no one is safe. When most businesses are barred and locked up at sundown, how can they succeed?
Bill Lamm has the courage to speak out. Finally, someone other than President Bush is offering sensible solutions to the multiple problems that ail black people.
By the way, you forgot the welfare line as an important black institution. It keeps little black kids from starving while there teenage mothers hang at nightclubs and their fathers disappear from the house for months and days at a time.
oh, and there's also the crack den.
no offense to any black person. just the truth.
Common sense.
Black families were just the first to feel this plague. I feel that we are seeing it spread though the rest of America.
Families, what families? With both mom and dad trying to make ends meet, if they are still together, the kids are on their own. As the parents attempt to overcome the costs of survival, the bar (housing, food, utilities) keeps raising higher.
We are all slaves to the master, money. The more we work for it, the less it's worth.
The answer need not be spoken.
because the Hispanics don't have their "leaders" on national TV and in their churches telling them they have no hope of advancement thru gainful employment
mega-BUMP!
Some of what you said is true, some not true. Bottom line, I agree that the answer lies in ownership of ones future.
I'm sure you ar not talking about every black? So those would not take offense. Only the hit dogs will hollar.
HOW true.....maybe THAT'S how people want to CURE the border problem? Tell Hispanics's work doesn't work...NAH...I don't think that's going to work....THEY KNOW THE TRUTH....and it is the conundrum the Dems are stuck with....CAPITALISM WORKS....but, I'm sure the liberals are trying to figure out how....
"That's my blueprint for the new black America. What's yours?"
My blueprint for Black America is pretty simple. Take the Al Sharptons of inner city America and string them up by their thumbs and don't be afraid to call them what they are. They are sellouts to the Democrat party because that is where their money comes from. The only job Sharpton has ever held involves provoking racial tension within communities and getting funding to keep that hatred alive. Because that is votes.
We fear being called racists, even though we are guided by principle. I am white and my 12 year old daughters role model is Condi Rice. The 12 year old in the inner city who would say this would be vilified as an Uncle Tom.
This is the problem. The inner city politicians need to be removed and replaced by the Cosby's of the world. This change has to be radical and someone has to step up, be willing to be the new standard bearer and be strong enough to deal with the hatred. He or she has to show the black community that there is a better way.
The Hispanics are already doing this. That is why they are now buying homes in record numbers and owning businesses. Why their childrens grades are up, why their divorce rate and birth out of wedlock rate is going down.
I just have a good tan is all.
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