Posted on 08/27/2014 8:11:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Recently, Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly clashed over the notion of “white privilege,” debating the root cause of statistical disparities between white and black Americans. The Blaze summarizes:
Among the facts Kelly shared is that black unemployment in Ferguson is three times what it is for whites and that a black child in the U.S. is four times more likely to live in a poor neighborhood than a white child.
While O’Reilly didn’t dismiss these figures, he said that “families, culture and personal responsibility” are the real issues at hand.
…
But Kelly didn’t agree that O’Reilly’s assessment addressed the full picture.
“It’s not just families or culture,” she said. ”Look at that stat about the black children four times as likely to live in poor neighborhoods as white children, and in the St. Louis area there is documented white flight … the whites take off, these become black neighborhoods. The schools they get forgotten and the black population feels forgotten, Bill.”
Whether Kelly intended it or not, she echoed a disturbing premise which carries demeaning paternalistic overtones. Consider, why should an exodus of white people leave blacks destitute? Are we not speaking of adults? Are we blacks not endowed with the same human capacity to conceive of values and pursue happiness? To speak of blacks as “forgotten” is to speak of us like children lost at the mall, wholly incapable of assuming responsibility for ourselves. In this way, “white privilege” seems to mean productive capacity, and those wielding the phrase seem to argue that blacks have none.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Another case of feelings over facts.
I live in a suburb of Springfield MA. I used to live in Springfield. But about twenty five years ago we saw the decay coming to our middle class, Italian/Irish area.
We moved on up. And out.
I know that during the early 1960’s the public school system in Springfield was considered a model for the rest of the country. It had outstanding success in both the college prep and vocational side—one of the first communities to have a dedicated Vo-Tech high school.
Now, the school system spends a significant amount of money on their education. The buildings are fine, updated, and maintained. The students have from from 95% white in the 60’s to less than 45% white this year.
The productivity of the high schools is abysmal. The graduation rates are horrible, the drop out rate overall approaches 30%.
The students in the 60’s-80’s were not getting a better education BECAUSE they were white, or because more money was spent on them. They got a better education because their parents, middle class factory workers focused on education as a way to get their children a better life.
Fathers were involved. Fathers were almost universally veterans (”What service was your dad in” was a universal question kids would ask each other.) Fathers were at home with their mothers.
Divorce happened, and single mothers were around. Pregnant students were very, very rare. I cannot believe that the hormones raging in 1974 were any different than those raging today. But God help them if they came home getting a girl pregnant!
Spanish was a language you took because you thought French was for sissies. And those Puerto Rican kids who spoke Spanish at home, knew England pretty damned quick when they came to school. Their PARENTs made sure that happened. Not the school.
I could name half a dozen kids in my class who spoke English as a second language—the primary languages at home being Italian, Russian, Polish and Spanish. All of their parents FORCED the kids to get A’s in English class.
So, I call BS on “white privilege.” It is a culture that welcomed homogenization. It welcomed newcomers, but assimilation was an aspiration, not something to be afraid of. No one took away the Polish Church Festival, or the Italian festivals that happened all summer. In fact, it was pretty cool to go from one to the other some summer weekends.
What we need to do is encourage assimilation. We need to respect the cultures where people come from, but we also need to include them in our combined culture. And, as a condition of their being a citizen, they should work to adopt our culture and integrate without giving up their history.
Thats worked for generations. I am not sure why its such a big deal now.
Oh, yeah, the other thing: When you had displaced Poles and Italians and Germans coming to your town in 1960—still pretty fresh from WWII, they had been taught at a young age they were not “special” as a result of being born. They understood that any “specialness” they got was from being smart, lucky, and hard working.
Meghan is correct, in that when blacks move in, whites often move out. That causes a continuation of the deteriorating of the neighborhood.
But, why is this inevitable? The author is correct. It is paternalistic to assume that only whites can maintain a decent neighborhood.
The problem is the victim mentality of the majority of blacks in modern America. When one claims to be a victim, that takes away personal responsibility.
I urge everyone to read Thomas Sowell’s book, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”. It says it all.
Sowell claims that there were many free blacks living in New England prior to the Civil War, and they were educated, and had assimilated well within the entire community. After the Civil War, large numbers of blacks from the south entered the urban communities - they were uneducated, and liberals helped them to enter free society. But excessive help and sympathy for their difficulties, caused a never-ending downward spiral of many of these newcomers. They were treated like children rather than as adults.
This is not to deny the other problems befalling their group such as in the south the Jim Crow laws, the KKK, etc. Lots of negative history is also part of the bad outcomes for the black community.
Still, since the Civil Rights era in the 1960’s, opportunities have abounded for those willing to study, work hard, and assimilate into the larger community. Yet, many refuse to do so. And therein is the crux of the matter.
He makes some excellent points here.
I realized what Kelly was several years ago when I heard her talking up special rights for homosexuals.
bkmk
Bill O’Reilly looks like a genius compared to Meggy.
***
And that is saying something!
It's the government's fault. A government that promotes a highly socialistic, collectivistic, statist mixed economy leads to group warfare, corruption, crony capitalism, and favoritism, which to blacks seems like white privilege.
But their ignorance of economics leads to mistaken arbitrary beliefs, which lead to improper value judgments, which lead to unfounded feelings of anger.
Liberal welfare statist government policies have had a destructive effect on black culture leading to an environment of broken families, which lead to inabilities of young blacks to make the rational personal decisions that will enable them to rise out of poverty.
Excellent idea. Or she could give up her job entirely and recommend they hire a black in her place.
Intellectual, spiritual and moral superiority.
Is that so wrong?
Excellent post. I agree 100% with the entirety, especially that she needs to read Thomas Sowell.
That comment by Megyn Kelly about “white flight” being the problem is irritating and disturbing.
In his books, Sowell covers the issue of businesses that leave black urban areas because...surprise surprise, they can’t do business there.
They have to pay for extra physical infrastructure based security, they have to pay for extra human-based security, they have to deal with increased levels of crime, theft, etc. and all of that does not happen for free.
They won’t have good inventory or sales environment.
Someone has to pay for it, and if you pass it on to the customer, it means they are going to shop in a non-crime area for things with lower prices. Granted, they have to drive or take a bus to get there, but they will. Your business will go into a death spiral until you go out of business or move somewhere else.
Or, there will be a BS event like what has taken place in Ferguson, and you will lose your business through vandalism and tribal warfare, and will be lucky to escape penniless with your life and health intact.
At that point you will be branded a racist because you don’t want to support the black community.
When I hear someone talk about “white flight” in the context that is is the fault of the people fleeing and not the culture/mindset/business environment that makes them flee, it really pisses me off.
Any statement like this EXPLICITLY acknowledges the truth of the statement but wants to argue other factors. There are percentage differences between the 'races' but I believe that the well known equation of 1) graduate from High School, 2) Get a job even if it isn't a dream job, 3) Don't have a child out of marriage, and 4) Stay out of legal trouble works even there in Ferguson!
How difficult these steps are DOES DEPEND upon family and culture. If you have a single Mom and all you see about you are lay-abouts with active antagonism towards non-drug self improvement, THAT is this disaster's recipe!
Right...see my post at #51.
Good post, by the way.
As if blacks with the means to do so, don't leave as well.
99+ times out of 100, they mean "shut up".
RE: when blacks move in, whites often move out. That causes a continuation of the deteriorating of the neighborhood.
Here’s the question — WHY SHOULD IT?
Why can’t it be BETTER than when the whites were originally there?
I’ve seen American neighborhoods thrive when Asians move in in Long Island.
“I’d take a wild guess that expenses are going to administration.”
Are you sitting down?
The school system some of my grandkids attend has an “Integration and Inclusion Facilitator”,full time.
What on earth is that?????
.
“White privilege” means you have the privilege of being denied admission to college, refuse a job, get beaten by savages while the attackers get off free, get raped and robbed and be called racist for it.
White Privilege - an imaginary term invented by progressive people of color for the purpose of guilting white people into agreeing with them.
RE: get beaten by savages while the attackers get off free, get raped and robbed and be called racist for it.
What if you dared to fight back by shooting back?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.