Holder’s Shame

Commentary ^ | February 19, 2009 | Linda Chavez

[Scanian]

By all means we need a little moral courage when it comes to discussing race — and Eric Holder was in a perfect position to begin that discussion. But instead, he simply trotted out the well-worn shibboleths about intolerance and racial division. He might have taken another course.

The elephant in the room in discussions of race isn’t white prejudice; it’s the breakdown of the black family and all the attendant social pathologies that emanate from it. When 7-out-of-10 black babies are born to single women and more than half of black children spend most of their childhood without a father at home, there are consequences: lower academic performance, more juvenile delinquency and adult crime, more dependence on government assistance, and a greater likelihood to repeat the cycle again by having more children born out of wedlock to the next generation. Yet virtually no one in the black community in any position of authority and responsibility is willing to talk about this issue.

President Obama, whose own African father abandoned him, has talked about it fleetingly, choosing instead to focus mostly on the virtues of the single mom and grandparents who raised him. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he has a few lines about “the casualness toward sex and child rearing that renders black children more vulnerable — and for which there is simply no excuse.” But he has never made ending black illegitimacy or restoring the importance of marriage in the black community part of his policy agenda. So it’s no surprise his appointees avoid the subject as well.

It’s too bad. Instead of lecturing us on cowardice, Eric Holder could have talked about the relationship between family breakdown and crime.

[353FMG]

It’s all a softening up of the people prior to discussing reparation payment for Afro Americans.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

When 7-out-of-10 black babies are born to single women and more than half of black children spend most of their childhood without a father at home, there are consequences: lower academic performance, more juvenile delinquency and adult crime, more dependence on government assistance, and a greater likelihood to repeat the cycle again by having more children born out of wedlock to the next generation.

It's worse even than that - for the last several decades, about 58% of all black births were to black mothers with IQs in the lower 50% of the black IQ bell curve distribution.

I.e. the [genetic aspect of the] problem is getting worse [and it's quite possible that the worsening is even accelerating].

[Jim Scott]

Linda Chavez nails it and the sad realities she lists in her column should be brought up, without apology, whenever we get the 'White racism oppresses Blacks' routine from folks like Eric Holder, a very successful, well-connected Black man who now deems it his job to lecture Americans about race, as if we haven't been talking about race for almost 50 years, now.

Black family disintegration has been going on for decades and yet, other than an occasion tongue-clucking from Black 'leaders' and leftist Whites and some unappreciated attempts by Bill Cosby to raise the issue, Blacks don't want to talk about it. Who are the 'cowards', now, Mr. Holder?

[tflabo]

There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs—partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs… There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who do not want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public. -Booker T. Washington

[mc5cents]

Yet virtually no one in the black community in any position of authority and responsibility is willing to talk about this issue.

Bill Cosby has spoken out about that very subject. But he is a voice in the wilderness it seems.

[chessplayer]

“The elephant in the room in discussions of race isn’t white prejudice; it’s the breakdown of the black family and all the attendant social pathologies that emanate from it.”

But if a white person says that, they are labeled a racist and all discussion stops. And if a black person says it, they are called an Uncle Tom, and all discussion stops.

[mc5cents]

as if we haven't been talking about race for almost 50 years, now.

50 years? Does the Civil War ring a bell with you?

[Right Wing Assault]

Sometimes in a dispute, one side is much more at fault than the other.

[blaveda]

I remember how eloquently he spoke about Tawana Brawley!

[blaveda]

I remember how eloquently he spoke about Tawana Brawley!

[muir_redwoods]

I'll tell you who's a coward. A coward is someone who calls me a coward and chooses not to face me when he does it.

Bring it, Eric. We'll see who the coward is

[Jim Scott]

In the mid-19th century, Americans argued about the legal and moral aspects of slavery. The issue morphed into a bitter disagreement about states rights and eventually, a bloody war between the states.

Once the war ended, 'race' was hardly an issue because Blacks were routinely considered second-class citizens and the laws codified this status. Few Blacks went against that presumption and when they did, nothing really came of it, except jail and/or death for the Black protesters.

The real 'dialogue' about race in America began with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and the emergence of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a charismatic Black leader willing to confront racism and the longstanding second-class status of Blacks in a county that was predominately White. The rest is history. Modern history.

[Rapscallion]

HOLDER IS THE COWARD! AS ATTORNEY GENERAL HE IS IN A PERFECT POSITION TO ADDRESS AND DEAL WITH THE REPEATED CRIMINALITY OF MALES LIKE HIM. IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IT, CHECK THE STATISTICS ON REPEAT OFFENDERS. THAT GROUP DOES NOT LIKE IT BROUGHT UP. THE CHILDREN THOSE MEN SPAWN AND THEN ABANDON BEAR THE LIFE-LONG EFFECTS OF ABSENT FATHERS. BY REFUSING TO FACE UP TO THE REAL CRIMES, HE IS REALLY THE COWARD.

[haroldeveryman]

Booker T. Washington stole my post.

The “breakdown of the black family and all the attendant social pathologies”, and the huge rate of childbirth to black unwed mothers got going in earnest in the 1970’s when the governmnent was subsidizing single motherhood with welfare checks.

The reason that “virtually no one in the black community in any position of authority and responsibility is willing to talk about this issue” is because “black leaders” make a living administering this crap and therefore have a vested interest in perpetuating black social dysfunction.