Let's keep this discussion on a high level, please. Thank you.
Miscellaneous ping
bump.
Rosa Park's generation would have taken responsibility for themselves, their family and their neighbors.
Wanna bet?
Here's the problem with this analysis. White people, with all their supposed advantages, were stuck in the flood, too.
The flood had nothing to do with race. There is no shame in being a victim of a flood.
Good article.
Interesting article, but I don't think that black people's feeling of inferiority and helplessness was a product of slavery. I grew up in the 1950's and my black friends - even though Jim Crow laws still existed - certainly did not feel inferior, and those who lived in places where there was no institutionalized racism felt that they were going to go places and do things.
The "Great Society" essentially put an end to this. Blacks could no longer be individuals, some of whom would do well and some of whom would not, but had to be a group, defined by the government as helpless, needy and an object of constant care and concern. It may have been well meant, but it was poison nonetheless.
Being regarded as nothing but one more member of a dysfunctional, needy client group is enough to undermine anyone's resolve. The remarkable thing is that some individual blacks have done as well as they have.
Steele has taken a big step.
the problems we are having as a national people shall continue to prove intractible so long as:
1. for various reasons, people are not allowed to (carefully, specifically) note that there are indeed empirically verifiable problems, and...
2. the discussion is dominated by racism (old fashioned, plus reverse-racism, plus "the soft bigotry of low expectations"), tired old excuses for extortion, doggerel-spouting mo-tards, race-baiting politics, and PC social theory.
These problems are matters of culture, not genetics.
These problems are matters of culture, not material wealth or poverty.
These problems are a matter of culture, not history.
You're not from around here, are you.
< |;)~
Very good article--thanks for posting it.
To summarize Shelby Steele's thoughts--treating people first and foremost as INDIVIDUALS rather than members of ethnic, racial, national group is the key to the individual and social well being. We cannot choose our ethnicity, race, or national origin, but we all can choose responsibility for our lives and we all can choose not blame the rest of the world if we fail.
"We Have to Exterminate White People" -Dr. Kamau Kambon of Howard University
They are the result of their own lack of effort.
Another great quote by Steele from the article:
"President Johnson's famous Howard University speech, which launched the Great Society in 1965, outlined this balance of power by explicitly spelling out white responsibility without a single reference to black responsibility. In the 40 years since that speech no American president has dared correct this oversight."
The harm that the Great Society has wielded on people in general and blacks in particular cannot be understated.
<< Let's keep this discussion on a high level, please. >>
The cost of the positive disencentive to taking responsiblity for oneself, also known as the "Great Society," is up around Ten Trillion Dollars.
That high enough for you?
And God alone knows how many more Billions of creative and innovative and productive and industrious Americans' confiscated Dollars in white and black hands have been cynically blown on turning Louisianna's black and white indolent into effectively-hopeless and helpless state and city dependants.
On buying their votes.
How's this for a high level...
I was recently charged with being a racist by my coworker because my coworker(who happens to be black) overheard my desktop radio at very low volume levels I might add)and got offended becuase I happened to be listening to Sean Hannity on WABC AM radio. Sean was talking about the "Millions More" march and had on various black leaders as guests. My coworker, made the charge with my boss, went to HR even blew up and made a scene in the office at me in front of all of my coworkers, gossiped about it to the rest of the office and even harrassed me in our breakroom. All becuase she blamed her offense at me as if I control her actions and emotions.
Dispite the treachery I was recieving, I did the right thing, kept my mouth shut, documented the entire transgression and didn't speak a word of it to anyone except my boss.
After all was said and done, she wasn't reprimanded either verbally or written becuase she was black and had the race card in her pocket. Had the roles been reversed, as a white male, you betcha I would have been fired.
The only satisfaction I recieved was knowing that her own actions and words, despite how illogical and irrational, are perpetuating the culture of 'low expectations' so prevalent in the black community. The saddest part is that she is completely oblivious to the fact that her own actions were racist and bigoted, that she is the only one accountable for her own actions and words (not me), and that it is her own personal issue and perogative over what offends her (not mine).
Liberals indeed have a some sort of mental disorder, race and skin color aside.
This line he wrote is pushing it. Really a bit of crap.
It's in no way shape or form my fault regarding what happened to anyone in New Orleans. Whether they be black or white. It was a huge natural disaster. I have absolutely no guilt about it nor have I given much thought to the complexion of the people hurt. Only that they were Americans and needed some help. And I helped.
With that said it's indeed an absurd, asinine, insane and stupid idea to build a city in a large hole surrounded by water. So why do it again?
If the subject is poor black folk in New Orleans and the conversation is about their plight in life if finger pointing is demanded I can only say that the "work ethic" I see in many people was lacking. Lacking not because these people are black but because they were stuck in a corner. The old "don't give a man a fish teach him how to fish" adage applies. But instead the politicians in Louisiana didn't construct a system that promoted business growth in poor communities they just pretty much sat there until election time.
We have very successful people of all colors and we have people without much of all colors. Generally, all those folks have the opportunity to succeed in this country if they want to. They just have to have the desire. I'm not stopping them from doing what they want to. Are you?
If we need to do something that helps poor folks let's give them a way to make their own money. Let's pass the Fair Tax Plan and let business explode. As it is now the tax system is racist from what I can see.
Steele's bio from the Hoover page:
Shelby Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who specializes in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. He was appointed a Hoover fellow in 1994.I have also read A Dream Deferred which is very profound.Steele's most recent book is A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America. In A Dream Deferred, Steele argues that too much of what has been done since the Great Society in the name of black rights has far more to do with the moral redemption or self-satisfaction of whites than with any real improvement in the lives of blacks.
Steele received the National Book Critic's Circle Award in 1990 in the general nonfiction category for his book The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America. He also has written extensively for major publications including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He also is a contributing editor at Harper's magazine.
He also is a member of the National Association of Scholars, the national board of the American Academy for Liberal Education, the University Accreditation Association, and the national board at the Center for the New American Community at the Manhattan Institute.
He has written widely on race in American society and the consequences of contemporary social programs on race relations. He has also spoken before hundreds of groups and appeared on national current affairs news programs including Nightline and 60 Minutes.
In 1991, his work on the documentary Seven Days in Bensonhurst was recognized with an Emmy Award, the Writer's Guild Award for television documentary writing, and the San Francisco Film Festival Award for television documentary writing. In 2004, Steele was awarded the National Humanities Medal.
Steele holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah, an M.A. in sociology from Southern Illinois University, and a B.A. in political science from Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.