The paradox that divides black America

The Observer ^ | Sunday October 9, 2005 | The Observer

[Zack Nguyen]

bump

[HassanBenSobar]

"There is a large settlement of Chinese that was brought here as "indentured servants". "

Not true. The Chinese were basically deported en masse after the railroads were built and they legally blocked from immigrating at all for decades. Chinese immigration didn't really start until the 50s and afterward. And mainlanders were pretty much out of the picture til the late seventies/early eighties.

[alrea]

The main problem with black America is the lack of local role models, national role models and identity.

what about sports figures? that is identity. the problem with anyONE struggling today is lack of virtue. the opportunity is out there.

[kipita]

what about sports figures?

With the experiences of growing-up as a black American male in New Orleans, my take is that identity with sports is a problem. I remember thinking the only way to become successful is via sports (and now Rap). I came to FR as a Democrat (and left America frustrated) and thought I'd piss a few people off before being banned (as I had been 3 times on Dkos for speaking the thruth). I converted to conservatism within one month. I was wrong. One of my first post (so crude and raw I can barely read it) was about sports.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1241441/posts

[Popman]

refusal to control our borders is economic dynamics?

Cheap labor is not economic dynamics???

Those illegal doctors, lawyers and other professionals are just pouring over the border like locust.< / sarcasm >

O.K. if you say so.

[Chode]

yup, the sports/rap trap is one of the worst... simply because of the extremely limited number of player jobs in America and rappers REALLY have to be special anymore be be heard above the noise.

[randita]

I think you misunderstood my point.

Actually, I did understand your point. My question "What's wrong with that?" was rhetorical. You done good.

[alrea]

Thanks. I agree, but still think sports stars can be role models for action and virtue. I think children can see they will not make the next level in sports while still understanding they have learned great habits.

[ladyjane]

Many inner city blacks have been robbed of any sense of personal responsibility and social worth.

Really? They've been robbed? by whom?

All the excuses in the world,e.g., robbed of personal responsibility, driven into welfare, ain't got no role models, do not absolve the current generation from their responsibility to themselves.

Waves of immigrants have shown themselves able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps within one generation. Blacks themselves, many of them, have shown themselves capable of pulling themselves out of poverty.The excuse of 'being robbed' is tiresome and irrelevant.

[kipita]

Thanks. I agree, but still think sports stars can be role models for action and virtue. I think children can see they will not make the next level in sports while still understanding they have learned great habits.

In an ideal sense, I'm in total agreement. I think it was Aristotle who said, “A pure athlete is not the ideal citizen as he(she) is too manly and rough. A pure intellectual is not the ideal citizen as he(she) is too soft and weak. However, an intellectual athlete IS the ideal citizen”.

[cgbg]

What's left behind are urban and rural concentrations of essentially third-world people, who are no more amenable to sociopolitical interventions than their brothers and sisters in the rest of the third world. And nobody has any idea what to do about it

I disagree. We know what to do about it but the liberals (and most conservatives) won't let us do it.

Here is my "End the Ghettos In Ten Years" Plan.

(1) Legalize drugs. That ends the street drug business.

(2)Legalize prostitution as well. Test them, license them, and let them be.

(3) No local, state or federal taxes of any kind in designated "ghetto zones" for ten years. You live there, you work there, no taxes.

(4) End mandatory public school attendance. The schools are prisons in these areas. Kids should only be in school if their parents and/or they want them there.

(5) Criminalize teenage pregnancy without a husband. If you have a child with no husband and you are under twenty one you go to jail until you are twenty one and society takes the kid. The kids are put up for adoption in two parent households.

Add to the list as you please. There is a lot that can be done--if we start thinking out of the box.

[Clemenza]

Latinos have a high rate of intermarriage, particularly from the third generation on. That complicates things a bit.

[Clemenza]

I don't know,but dems know for a fact that hispanics overwhelmingly vote democrat.

Uh, 1. Hispanic is not a "race" and 2. The Hispanic vote is 35-40% Republican, at least in Presidential elections. Hispanic Evangelicals voted for Bush by a margin of over 50%. Compare that to the blacks who voted under 10% for Bush last time.

[durasell]

If you really want to mess with his head, tell him that his assumptions are based on everyone staying within their racial or ethnic boundries in terms of marriage and children, which looks to be far from the case.

[King Prout]

self-perpetuating joblessness, poor education and a culture that worships crime.

BINGO

add in the effect of cradle-to-grave dependency upon public subsidy, general disdain for self-control, and from almost all sources an endless stream of the soft bigotry of low expectations, and, well... ya gits what ya pays for: a subset of the population which is mired in the lowest behaviors and resultant conditions of humanity.