Baltimore and the Betrayal of Black Dignity

Frontpage Magazine ^ | May 5, 2015 | Bruce Thornton

[OK Sun]

Baltimore is the latest American city to become a stage for the farce that is our national racial discourse. The swift, politicized indictment of 6 police officers for the death of Freddie Gray––which brought down, for now, the curtain on this performance by abandoning all the canons of procedural justice–– is a fitting end to this sorry spectacle.

The winners of this shameful display are obvious, as they always are after these riots. Local thieves, gangsters, and thugs; bourgeois white “anarchists” out on a lark; junior-high posers indulging adult-sanctioned destruction; well-heeled black politicians fanning the flames and leveraging the violence for career advancement; race-baiting vultures like Al Sharpton, and the sensationalist national media all benefitted. Most important, the false narrative of a national conspiracy of racist cops itching to murder innocent black men was yet again perpetuated by race hustlers and their progressive enablers.

The losers are the local black businessmen, the law-abiding black residents, the blacks trapped in ghetto hellholes, and the principle of social order as the necessary foundation for individual autonomy and advancement. Worst of all, black Americans have been betrayed by yet another spectacle that reinforces every racist stereotype blacks fought against during the decades of Jim Crow.

Legal segregation was based on the same rationale as slavery––the false assumption that all blacks were by nature incapable of achieving the level of civilization necessary for political freedom and personal autonomy. They were unsuited for freedom and autonomy because they lacked enough rational capacity to exercise impulse control and avoid the destructive behaviors that characterize barbarism, particularly sex and violence. As Aristotle, an important ancient source for this idea, put it, “He who participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not to have, such a principle, is a slave by nature.”...

[OK Sun]

H/T to Bayou Renaissance Man, via Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers blog.

[Shimmer1]

Black dignity??? Give me a break. The only black dignity that is shown anywhere, is the dread: acting white. THEN they have dignity.

[GOPJ]

Bruce Thornton’s doing what Greenfield use to do - waaaay too much information in one piece. Every other paragraph here could be it’s own article... the whole piece could easily be a book. Slow down Thornton...

[OK Sun]

Black dignity??? Give me a break.

I encourage you to read Washington's Autobiography, Up From Slavery.

[trebb]

Interesting article - I took the liberty of finding one statement to modify by a single word:

Segregationists Democrats understood what blacks were doing, which is why they targeted black dignity, and attacked blacks who acted “uppity”––which included not just defiance, but speaking English properly, using a sophisticated vocabulary, displaying knowledge, and generally comporting themselves in a civilized and virtuous fashion, all of which made blacks dignified. If segregationists did not challenge that dignity, then the foundational idea of their racism was bankrupt. Blacks could be civilized, more so than many whites, and thus they deserved the political freedom and personal autonomy that defined American civilization.

[Lionheartusa1]

Four shootings in Baltimore city yesterday Thur. May 8th . The police aren’t the problem ,, the mayor , city council and the police dept. are however

[Cowboy Bob]

How can anyone living off the government (I.e., taxpayer money) have any dignity?

[BlackAdderess]

The “business as usual attitude” as displayed by the Mayor and minions is the problem, the solution is to get rid of the minions and make it safe for good cops to enforce the law rather than devoting their careers to tiptoeing around a political minefield. That was the thing that got my attention in what that State’s Attorney said, and coming from five generations of cops, I’m betting she has heard some stories (I’m also betting she is toast).

[zzwhale]

black trademark = al sharpton, eric holder, borat obumbler, loretta lynch = THE black chip.....woe is me... we used to be slaves dont you know
THE GOAL IS A NATIONAL POLICE FORCE
can you imagine the INJUSTICE that these people would dole out with a national police force...

MOSBY IS IN DIRECT COMMUNICATION WITH THE WHITE HOUSE AND DOING THEIR BIDDING
LORETTA LYNCH IS FOLLOWING THE NATIONAL POLICE FORCE GAME PLAN
AL SHARPTON IS A FRAUD BUT THE CRACKHEAD BATHOUSEBOY HAS SELECTED HIM AS HIS EMISSARY
obama is DELIBERATELY FANNING THE FLAMES OF RACISM BASED ON HIS HATE FOR WHITES AND HIS HATE FOR AMERICA.....
its only because he is half-black that he hasn’t been impeached.... HE IS THE BIGGEST FAILURE AMERICA HAS EVER SEEN OCCUPYING THE WHITE HOUSE... A NATIONAL DISGRACE

Obama should have reached out to BEN CARSON but wouldn’t because he doesn’t fit into the agenda and would act independently and actually solve the problem.......

[bert]

Black dignity? Ha

I saw the black whiner in their delusion spewing “this is not us” when it clearly was

there is no black dignity in Baltimore

[gibsosa]

bfl

[pepsionice]

It would be curious to have someone set up a death timeline for the top twenty urban areas of the US....hour by hour....to show the continued death cycle, and do it for a week over cities like Chicago, Baltimore, DC, Detroit, St Louis, etc. Put the guy’s name up....his circumstances....type of gun, and let the public grasp that there is more to the story than what the news media portrays.

[Lionheartusa1]

,,,,,,, can you say politically incorrect ??? The last thing that will ever happen is that this race will ever take any blame for all the problems they have direct control over . Since the GREAT SOCIETY of LBJ the blacks have received well over 20 trillion tax dollars in tax aid and here’s where we are today . It’s all about white privilege now . We seem to have the privilege of raising our children in a real family setting ,, mom , dad then children . Today 70% of black children don’t know who their father is . If black lives matter then why are they aborting so many of them as well as killing each other on the streets of our cities . It makes no sense to me . Today the black culture is influenced by rappers , drug dealers , pimps and whores and they celebrate it . If a black figure condemns this behavior they are labeled unfavorably . I truly believe we are certain to have a racial war soon because no one of influence will talk about the REAL problems in the black community for fear of being labeled RACIST .