Posted on 02/14/2003 1:14:44 PM PST by Starmaker
I know a guy named Wes who plays bass for a rock band in Atlanta. Wes always says that whenever he loses the rhythm during a number, he covers his mistake by making loud, booming noises.
Audiences love when Wes embarks on one of his tears. They think they are witnessing an improvisational genius in the throes of musical passion. However, his bandmates and those with an ear for music played properly know better — Wes has just screwed up again.
It can be fun watching Wes and his bandmates play. A typical performance might go something like this:
Singer: "Ooh, I need your love, babe. You're always on my mind. One thing I can say, babe, love you all the..."
Wes: "Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Audience: "You rock, Wes!!!!!"
Bandmates: "Groan."
Wes' adage could apply equally to what has become the misguided focus of the modern-day civil rights leadership, which also has lost its way.
The leaders of the early civil rights movement put their lives on the line to tackle the biggest problem facing blacks at the time — unequal access and protection under the law. They won that battle and legal barriers like Jim Crow and segregation that had blocked black advancement for decades were torn down.
Today, blacks face a litany of severe, seemingly intractable problems: persistent poverty, high rates of illegitimacy, crime and low academic achievement. Most of those problems are self-inflicted, and in the sense that they are self-inflicted, are much worse than any that were inflicted by the most virulent schemes hatched by the foulest members of the Ku Klux Klan of old.
It would seem that the civil rights leadership should now turn its attention to those problems with the same energy and dedication of their predecessors of the 1950s and '60s.
Alas, it seems that the Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons and Kweisi Mufumes of contemporary times would prefer to pass their time making loud, booming noises.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Take the illegitimacy rate for blacks in America, for example. Today the rate of black children born to unwed mothers fluctuates between 65 to 70 percent. Only 36 percent of black children are raised in two-parent families. That's a huge problem because studies show that children raised without fathers are more likely to grow up in poverty and become involved in crime.
Where is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on this problem? Why aren't its leaders out counseling blacks to delay parenthood until they are married and are better able financially and emotionally to care for children? Why aren't they in the communities teaching teenagers proper values?
I'll tell you why — because they're too busy making loud, booming noises in a variety of trifling nationwide endeavors like its silly attempt to get South Carolina to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of its Statehouse.
Can you believe that?
Since 2001, the NAACP has been expending a great deal of energy and resources boycotting the Palmetto State over the Confederate flag and it promises to do so until the flag is gone. And the Confederate flag isn't even part of the state flag.
I know that symbols can be important, but I bet that not one in ten people could identify their own state's flag even if it contained the Confederate emblem.
That was probably true with most South Carolinians, at least until the NAACP made an issue out of it. So, really, how potent of a symbol can a flag be and what's the big deal anyway? Don't blacks have more important things to worry about?
Not according to the NAACP, which apparently prefers to make loud, booming noises than doing anything meaningful for the black community.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Crime is another major problem in the black community. Here I will let the FBI do the talking: "Overall, when comparing whites, blacks and all persons of other races, blacks had the highest violent crime victimization rates."
In layman's term, blacks are more likely to be victims of murder, assault, battery, rape and robbery. What's worse is that it is predominantly black criminals who are doing all that preying on blacks.
Yet whenever a white police officer shoots a black criminal, flocks of civil rights leaders show up like moths drawn to light. In this case, though, it's the lights of television cameras, the better to make loud, booming noises.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
No group benefits more from when a black criminal is shot dead by a cop than the black community. Lord knows we've got too many of them running loose and I imagine the cops could always use the extra target practice.
Do you think the modern civil rights crowd would be interested in pitching in to lend a hand to authorities in jailing and, when need be, shooting as many black criminals as possible? How about organizing neighborhood crime watches or establishing tip lines?
Of course not. Where's the percentage in that? They instead content themselves with making loud, booming noises about racial profiling.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Education is another area where today's civil rights leadership is falling flat. In America, the one sure pathway to success and a better life is education. Vouchers can rescue many black children from the clutches of failing government schools. Surveys show that the majority of blacks support vouchers. Also, a great many, if not most, civil rights leaders either send or sent their own children to private schools.
But black children have found that traditional path blocked by teachers unions who derive a large part of their backing from mainstream black leaders. Civil rights leaders demonstrate by their own actions that private school would better serve their constituents. So why aren't they out there forcefully lobbying for vouchers.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
They're too busy making loud, booming noises about trivialities such as when Jesse Jackson went to Decatur, Illinois in Nov. 1999 to try and have six expelled black students reinstated to their high school. The students were members of rival street gangs who were involved in a violent bleacher brawl during a football gang.
Let's see, work to improve the educational opportunities for black children or organize loud, angry marches to defend a bunch of black hooligans who are lucky they weren't tossed in prison for their violent antics.
It must be so hard for today's black leaders to choose?
What to do? What to do?
I know — loud, booming noises.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
In every instance when today's civil rights leaders choose loud, booming noises over meaningful action, it's the black community that is worse off for it. But you'd never know that by the wild cheering you hear from the average black person.
All you'll hear from me and other enlightened blacks is a groan because this time it's the black community, not Wes, that has screwed up.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Loud, booming noises.
To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Perry at pdrake4153@cs.com .
Question of the day:
At this point, who would you like to be the Democratic presidential candidate next year?
Howard Dean 1%
Dick Gephardt 4%
John Kerry 2%
Joe Lieberman 2%
Carol Moseley-Braun 8%
Al Sharpton 80%
Surveys are unscientific and for entertainment only.
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