Posted on 08/22/2002 1:41:40 PM PDT by Olydawg
THIS IS the second version of this week's column. I haven't changed subjects - slavery reparations - just my approach.
The first draft talked about the sale of "Kill Whitey" T-shirts at the Washington march last weekend. I also mentioned a shirt that read: "How did we get to America? Heartless Christian Buyer, Ruthless Jewish Seller."
The shirts made it easy to ridicule Louis Farrakhan and his cohorts at the rally. Overall, the first draft was a blistering indictment of the event's organizers.
But it was nothing new. Many others have written that. So I decided to start over.
Truth is, I'm all for reparations. But not those sought by Farrakhan. My thinking is a little different.
I start by agreeing that there is a disparity in the standard of living between whites and blacks in America. Infant mortality and long-term health care. Education. Income. Crime. We've seen the data. Blacks lag behind whites in all quantifiable respects.
Next, I accept the argument that the origin of the disparity lies in the slavery that ended 137 years ago. (I am less accepting of the idea that slavery is the reason that the disparity exists today.)
Then I ask myself if I care. I quickly decide that I do, and will not penalize all blacks for the idiocy and racism of those shirt vendors. Blacks must do likewise regarding whites on the fringe.
Then, I question what we've done so far to redress this disparity. I reflect on the fact that a Republican president is owed credit for abolishing slavery and that many whites gave their lives in a civil war fought largely on this issue. I conclude that we live in the most generous nation ever on the face of this earth, one in which there have been countless efforts to give opportunities for advancement to all, particularly minorities.
This country has never stopped trying to level the playing field. But we have failed. Why is that?
Probably because we have a simplistic solution to a complex problem: We throw money at it.
White liberals can have the credit for that. It's a guilt thing. Writing the check makes them feel justified in their own status. Think public housing. We see squalor and decide that the answer is to spend more than 200G each for new units. But bricks and mortar aren't the problem. Which is also why the answer isn't "millions of acres of land that black people can build" on, as Farrakhan told the crowd.
That is how I frame the problem, and assess our attempts at a solution. So what now?
First, it's time to end the era of the Sharptons, Jacksons, Conyers and Farrakhans. They lack any iota of credibility with whites, which is desperately needed to truly effect change. They are all about self-preservation.
SECOND, we need to end the handout mentality. Giveaways create dependence. The answer is not another check.
Third, our highest priority must be to fix the family. The black family. So much of what ails us is attributable to the lack of strong fathers in African-American households. Fathers free of addiction. Fathers who impregnate only their wives. Fathers who raise their sons to be solid citizens. Fathers who work and pay taxes and stay out of jail.
How do we do that? Through reparations. Not the Farrakhan land giveaway kind. The only way to really repair black America is through unprecedented educational opportunities for black youth. That must be our chief focus on a local, state and national level.
Education creates opportunity. Opportunity leads to employment. Jobs keep men's lives stable by giving them income and expenses - and making sure the income exceeds the expenses is what affords them less time to get into trouble.
That is the formula. And it is a solution that can more easily be sold to white America than 40 acres and a mule.
No doubt a true statement, as far as it goes. However, the real problem is that a great many black youths specifically reject exactly those qualities that would allow them to take advantage of these opportunities as "acting white." Without the qualities of a good work ethic, honesty, determination, perseverance, etc. all the "opportunities"in the world won't get you ahead.
And, frankly, in today's America, if you have these qualities, you don't really need anybody giving you "unprecedented educational opportunities."
Reference: all those Asians who brought the level of work ethic necessary for survival in SE Asia. Applying it here made them rich.
I don't know exactly what is meant by that. What opportunities do they not have that everybody else has? I was born a poor, white child (to quote Steve Martin) and my folks couldn't afford to send me to college. So I joined the Marines and earned tuition money that way. Last time I checked, they were allowing black kids to join the military too. In fact, I served with a lot of fine black men who I am sure have moved on to successful careers by now.
I'm not going to argue that there weren't Christian buyers, and there might even have been Jewish slave-traders (I have no recollection of hearing that there were, however).
But conspicuously absent from this list is the ORIGINATORS of the African slave trade: The Muslim Arabs.
In fact, the slave trade in Britain and (by extension) the United States went on for about two hundred years, but it lasted about a THOUSAND years in the Arab world, from what I can remember.
Hm. Wonder why that fact is never mentioned among the Reparations pimp-set?
OK. Let's start with school vouchers.
I'm all for reparations too. Let's fix an amount that would be equitable. Then, we subtract all of the money allocated to blacks over the last generation for AFDC, housing, food stamps, Medicaid, and the like. Provided there's any money left over (if they don't owe the rest of us a refund), we pay out the remaining reparations in one-way tickets to Africa, where Mr. Farrakhan's dream of land already exists -- in Liberia. For those blacks who hate America so much, and who have failed to take advantage of the opportunities that are here, we'd be doing them a favor to get them out of the country to resettle in Liberia.
In all the areas where there were slaves, today there is a black descendent population. Show me a surviving 'black' population in any of the Arab countries that were receipants of slaves. (Where are they?)
It was mostly pagan and Moslem sellers and today is mostly Moslem buyers, sellers, and middlemen.
Education creates opportunity. Opportunity leads to employment. Jobs keep men's lives stable by giving them income and expenses - and making sure the income exceeds the expenses is what affords them less time to get into trouble.
Sounds pretty on the surface. Now how do you turn this into a practical solution?
First and foremost, please, please, please, please ignore the race warlords - as the writer said, they are more into preserving the status quo; simply put, the status quo keeps money in their pockets so they can enjoy their tailored suits (but Revrum Al, you've got to get rid of that damned jogging suit!), their SUV's and their limitless audiences with the mass media.
Next, school vouchers. I don't care what kind of lies the NEA, the NAACP, and every single urban school board member will try to tell you, school vouchers will force schools to compete. And they will not only compete for the dollars that the vouchers represent, but they will compete for the best teachers, but the best programs they can possibly get. This is why colleges compete for students academically, this is why collegiate sports programs compete for student athletes nationwide. If the model can work in a post-secondary world, there is no logical reason that it cannot work in the public schools.
Next, you have to look at programs like Georgia's HOPE Scholarship program. In that program, if you complete high school with a "B" or better, and you want to go to college, then you can go, period. What that means is that monies are available for you to go to a state school. This is funded by the Georgia Lottery. I've over-simplified the description, but there is no reason that similar programs cannot be enacted across the remainder of the country.
Next thing to look at is vocational education for those who cannot go to college. Those that don't go to college out of high school get some other options. They can attend a trade school, which for fiscal purposes, is treated like a college or university. They can go to the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps or some other service entity that will provide them with on-the-job training. Or they can go into the military. There's no reason that we can't move toward some form of service for those who can't or won't go to some form of post-secondary education. This will ready those persons for life in varying degrees, and provide them with the means to get ahead in life.
I realize this is not a perfect plan; it's far from it. I'll admit it's a mostly seat-of-the-pants, off-the-cuff plan that is coming to me as I type. But with appropriate research and development, this, or a plan like it, can provide a means to an end.
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1) Many, if not most, of the males were eunuchs.
2) The Arab slave trade was not necessarily directed toward Arabia as a market, but up and down the Horn of Africa.
IOW, the Arabs were slave TRADERS. Their only CONSUMPTION in slaves was in terms of male eunuchs.
Note that such a scheme would: (a) eliminate the threat that government might get control over private and religious schools through regulation; (b) not discriminate against homeschooling; (c), by paying flat amounts, do most for poor parents, and motivate them the most; and (d), to the extent that it results in the elimination of the inefficient and grossly expensive government schools, save everybody a lot of money.
This is a BIG one. Most people are never going to be Doctors or engineers. There is nothing wrong with working an automotive assembly line for $25/hour or driving a city bus for $22/hr. These are good jobs with good benifits and allow people to build families with futures.
Exactly. And there's no reason not to treat a program that gets a student his CDL, so he can drive professionally or gets him his apprenticship as a carpenter with the same reserve and allowances as a college education.
That would quickly put an end to this "biased test" crap that we've been saddled with...
I like it!
Like I said, I don't have all the answers with this, but certainly if any school or training program is going to accept funds, there will have to be some appropriate checks and balances in place to prevent things like that from happening again.
I can agree with that. A school in every prison.
Oh, we already have that?
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