Investor's Business Daily earned runner-up in Olbermann's "Worst Person" for "blatantly untrue, wildly racist" Obama editorial
Keith Olbermann named "the editorial writers at Investor's Business Daily" the "[r]unners-up" in his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for "publishing a blatantly untrue, wildly racist editorial today about [Sen.] Barack Obama."
On the January 16 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named "the editorial writers at Investor's Business Daily" the "[r]unners-up" in his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for "publishing a blatantly untrue, wildly racist editorial today about [Sen.] Barack Obama [D-IL]." The January 16 Investor's Business Daily editorial falsely claimed that the "Black Value System" espoused by Obama's church "encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing black-only businesses and backing black leaders," repeated widely debunked smears that Obama is a Muslim, and asked, "Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?" Olbermann asserted that the editorial looked like "a hurriedly rewritten version of this hate email making the rounds" and noted that "it use[d] the word 'Muslim' nine times."
From the January 16 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:
OLBERMANN: Runners-up, the editorial writers at Investor's Business Daily. Apparently intent on making The Wall Street Journal look like the Weather Underground Review, publishing a blatantly untrue, wildly racist editorial today about Barack Obama that looks like a hurriedly rewritten version of this hate email making the rounds. Claims when he joined the Trinity United Church of Christ, he pledged to uphold the Black Value System, which it says is a system that demands blacks, quote, "group together and separate from the larger American society." Actually, the Black Value System asks church members to "allocate regularly a portion of personal resources for strengthening and supporting black institutions." It also attacked Obama's concern about strife in Kenya, never noting his grandmother still lives there. And, by the way, it uses the word "Muslim" nine times.
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I thought it was a great example of a mainstream conservative publication expressing the non-racist, non-xenophobic views the conservatives claim to love so much.
Yeah, I love how they throw Muslim into the equation so often in an article about his Christian Church. Regardless of the inconsistency and blatant bias there, WTF IS WRONG WITH BEING A MUSLIM?
Bigots.
Better to be a Muslim than a atheist or Scientologist. The U.S. is full of bigots.
FOX News poll from Dec 2007"
Likelihood of voting for a presidential candidate if the candidate is:
More Likely Less Likely Net Doesn't Matter A Protestant 26% 6 +20 64 Roman Catholic 21% 10 +11 66 Jewish 16% 10 +6 70 A Member of the Christian Coalition 19% 24 -5 47 A Mormon 9% 32 -23 54 A Muslim 5% 45 -40 42 An Athiest 5% 50 -45 40 A Scientologist 4% 53 -49 35
Those guys sure do love to tell a good joke though, don't they?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/17/racist-obama-jokes-leaves_n_81938.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4226082201739577043
This ad was run during the Maryland senate race in 2006.
It was placed by the National Black Republican Association.
In order to draw your own conclusions, you really need to read the TUCC's Black Value System document.
http://www.tucc.org/scholarship_pdf/black%20value%20system.pdf
I applaud their attempt to encourage people to raise their standards, acquire good education, support black ventures, etc. But the document is very very victim oriented, encouraging the victims to band together to protect themselves against their "captors".
I'm not aware that influences outside of a troubled neighborhood are forcing the people in the neighborhood to use or sell drugs, to participate in gangs, to kill each other, to seek welfare instead of jobs, to seek public housing instead of their own homes, to trash the neighborhood and drive property values down, to have so many fatherless families and teen pregnancies, ...
I wonder why Obama would attach himself to this.
What would the society who excluded them have them do?
We still don't have equality but the worst of the racist days are over. At some point people have to take their own destiny into their own hands and work through the remaining issues, combat them, instead of continually claiming that they are being victimized.
See my other post below. How many of the wrongs are committed by the victims themselves ?
Which is exactly what it sounds like the founders of this church were trying to do.
Now they're being blamed for not doing it in a way the society that excluded them in the first place approves of.
We still don't have equality but the worst of the racist days are over.
Just because black people aren't being sprayed with waterholes and beaten unabashedly by the cops in public like they were in the 60s DOES NOT mean that racism is far from over! Racism is more covert now than it was back in the 60s, such as:
● racial bias in real estate and home lending that reflects and empowers the refusal of whites to live next door to blacks
● a largely policy-enforced shortage of affordable housing in predominantly white opportunity-rich communities
● the proliferation of expensive, publicly funded suburban and ex-urban roads and developments that encourage the removal of economic activity and social resources ever further away the disproportionately black inner city
● the funding of schools largely on the basis of local property wealth
● excessive use of high-stakes standardized and related zero-tolerance practices in predominantly black public schools
● the hyper-segregation of black children into high-poverty schools
● racial discrimination in hiring and union-managed apprentice-training admissions
● the racially disparate “War on Drugs” and the related campaign of mass black imprisonment and felony-marking
● the aggressive pursuit of welfare caseload reduction without concomitant efforts to increase economic opportunity in poor black communities
● the disproportionate investment of local public economic development funding dollars to communities that need assistance the least and the diversion of those funds away from communities that need those funds the most
● the widespread mainstream determination to blame poor blacks for their own plight and to ignore the deep and special historical and related ongoing societal obstacles to equality faced by African-Americans.
This list goes on.
Great post. The problems aren't obviously external as in the past. The root problems involve economic disparity, as most of the points you list show.
Whether Black, Brown, Yellow, or White, it’s green that's behind most problems in society.
I agree with you that there is income disparity. But even poverty-level income does not cause a person to throw trash in his/her own neighborhood, or drink excessively, or have sex as a teen and get pregnant, or be absent from school, or any of a number of other behaviors that contribute to overall decline of the individuals and the community. Some of the problems are caused from WITHIN. They cannot be fixed if the people are constantly thinking that someone else is creating them. The victim feels powerless and shuts down.
Every situation is different and you don't know the cause and effect of those situations. You tend to view and judge everything from a Maury Povich perspective and I thinks that's very dangerous. I often agree with you regarding religion and your take on Obama, but I think you're not well-informed on issues such as poverty and the results that colonialism had on blacks. You can't compare black upper mobility to that of other immigrants that come here because our history is completely different. Those other immigrants do not carry the same negative baggage and scars as African-Americans; they often aren't considered intellectually and biologically inferior to whites like African-Americans. This belief that blacks are the lowest common denominator—lower than any ethnic group—is ingrained into America’s DNA. It’s going to take centuries to overcome such disparities. This is why I say that racism is systemic. Someone as smart as yourself should know better than to jump to conclusions, give anecdotes, and say everything that's wrong with "Black America" is the fault of their own. Perhaps because these people were written off for so many years and isolated in such poor areas they self-destruct. Sure, there are some whose behavior is morally reprehensible, I don't think anyone is disputing that; however, their "behavior" did not permanently kept them as an under-class. Just think about this: African-Americans have been in this country since the 1600s and we're still considered the poorest of the poor. Now either you take the conservative viewpoint and say the reason why blacks remain an underclass because of their savage behavior, or perhaps they're an underclass because we live in perhaps the most unjustly countries in terms of wealth distribution. Perhaps you need to read how the NEW DEAL did LITTLE for the plight of African-Americans. Perhaps you need to read how most of the problems that face poor blacks today are the result of colonialism and its creation of Whiteness and White Privilege. So please don't start your premise off as if blacks been given an easy ride here in America and their current failures is based on their "victimhood."
As far as the other things you listed, that could be the result of self-destructing from INTERNALIZED RACISM. Being THE permanent underclass for many centuries in this country is not easy to live with; being ostracized from the mainstream and degraded because of your race and culture is not easy; having little to no resources to tap into your inner humanity is not easy. You cannot dumb-down the black experience in comic book terms and view that experience from the prism of a few snapshots you took during a stroll in disenfranchised black neighborhoods. Your drive-by analysis of the black experience lacks nuance and personal experience with the people and neighborhoods you so flippantly dismissed. Then you say that the worst of the racist past is over: it’s only over to those who view this as a moment of history that hasn’t left scars on its victims. It’s only over to those who think that the past does not dictate the present in new forms that’s more covert than overt. Denial has always been America’s best medicine when facing things about itself that contradicts its belief in its democracy. Stephen Steinberg nailed it perfectly, "Part of the reason that racism is so difficult to combat is that people deny the obvious. Racists do so, well, for obvious reasons. Whites in general are loath to confront racism because it calls into question their faith in American democracy and the goodness of the American people. Blacks, too, often prefer to look the other way because they feel diminished or tainted by race talk, and because, especially these days, they are made to feel that they must shed the image of “victim.” Evasion and denial run across the political spectrum as well. Conservatives engage in denial because acknowledging racism leads to remedial social policies to which they are ideologically opposed. Liberals engage in denial because race talk stokes their guilt, and challenges their sanctimonious claims of racial innocence."
James Baldwin puts it more beautifully: “In our image of the Negro breathes the past we deny, not dead but living yet and powerful, the beast in our jungle of statistics. It is this which defeats us, which continues to defeat us, which lends to interracial cocktail parties their rattling, genteel, nervously smiling air; in any drawing room at such a gathering the beast may spring, filling the air with flying things and an unenlightened wailing. Whenever the problem touches there is confusion, there is danger. Wherever the Negro face appears a tension is created, the tension of a silence filled with things unutterable. It is a sentimental error, therefore, to believe that the past is dead; it means nothing to say that it is all forgotten, that the Negro himself has forgotten it. It is not a question of memory. Oedipus did not remember the thongs that bound his feet; nevertheless the marks they left testified to that doom toward which his feet were leading him. The man does not remember the hand that struck him, the darkness that frightened him, as a child; nevertheless, the hand and the darkness remain with him, indivisible from himself forever, part of the passion that drives him wherever he thinks to take flight.”
Mag, we can't win for losing.
Black folks rely on the government for everything, don't take personal responsibility for ourselves or our family or our neighborhood. But when a church, with white members as you've said, tries to take responsibility and create standards for it's members to try to achieve, they are racists or something else. Seems to me like some simply want to find fault with black folks, and in this case Obama.
Oh stop !! Go back and rre-ead my posts, and do it carefully this time instead of just glossing over them.
I did not say that blacks "rely on the government for everything" nor did I say or imply the other things you mentioned.
I was very clear that I acknowledge that racism still exists, and I in no way minimized its effects. I was very clear that I applaud the efforts of the Trinity church for its efforts to encourage its congregation to rise up.
However, I fault them for encouraging the congregation to be victims. Not all of the problems of the poor communities are caused by "captors" (a Trinity church term).
However, I fault them for encouraging the congregation to be victims. Not all of the problems of the poor communities are caused by "captors" (a Trinity church term).
Where does Trinity say that all the problems of the poor communities are caused by "captors"? I think what Trinity does brilliantly is encourage "personal responsibility" (the Right's favorite catchphrase) while also exposing outside forces of systemic racism. I see nothing wrong with that since I believe that's a healthy way to defeat racism in this country.
Though I'm no fan of religion (as a gay black man I had personal issues with Christianity as a child), the black church is one of those cultural institutions that have done a lot of good for many blacks. When the mainstream rejected blacks and considered them inferior, the church was the only place to build their self-esteem and to realize that being born black is not a curse. You must take into consideration that black people were taught to be ashamed of being black and the church was the only thing they had to give them livelihood. I think that's what Trinity is doing with many misunderstood blacks living in poor conditions. Recognizing racism in our society and coming together to fight it is not encouraging "victimhood."
I could be wrong but you sound like a feminist from the Camille Paglia school. She chastises women for speaking out against sexism because doing so is “playing the victim.” It’s no surprise that she’s admired by a lot of right wing pundits and journalists.
Where does Trinity say that all the problems of the poor communities are caused by "captors"?
The explicit statement about "captors" is just one of several ways the document portrays blacks as victims. Here are other examples ...
The God of our weary years
the uncertainty of externals
withstand warping by our racist competitive society
continued survival
inadquecies of the formal education process
the majority of Blacks have been denied such learning
perpetually submitting to exploitation by others
fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another
psychological entrapment
the snare
deprived of their birthright, the leadership, resourcefulness...
Continual focus on how blacks are oppressed. There are some positives in the document, but there is no blame on the blacks who are causing problems that are unrelated to racism.
I do see the same problem with women, btw. There are women who will blame every thing gone wrong on sexism. If there were a women's church that had an analogous document, encouraging women to focus on how they have been and are oppressed, I think the end result would be to encourage women to blame others for problems they cause themselves, and to look at all of their failures as the result of sexism and misogyny when some of those failures are their own fault.
I think what Trinity does brilliantly is encourage "personal responsibility" (the Right's favorite catchphrase) while also exposing outside forces of systemic racism. I see nothing wrong with that since I believe that's a healthy way to defeat racism in this country.
I agree with you. But I very strongly feel like encouraging people to take on the role of victim is counterproductive.
Though I'm no fan of religion
Me either. :-)
the black church is one of those cultural institutions that have done a lot of good for many blacks. When the mainstream rejected blacks and considered them inferior, the church was the only place to build their self-esteem and to realize that being born black is not a curse. You must take into consideration that black people were taught to be ashamed of being black and the church was the only thing they had to give them livelihood. I think that's what Trinity is doing with many misunderstood blacks living in poor conditions. Recognizing racism in our society and coming together to fight it is not encouraging "victimhood."
Maybe the church isn't working ! Maybe what the churches are doing is not sufficient. I wonder about all people who believe in gods ... when you are told repeatedly that a god will provide for you and care for you and love you, but the reality that you see is very grim, poverty, fatherless families, drug abuse, gangs, violence, trashed neighborhoods ... it has to make them wonder if this god or this church can truly help them. For an hour or two once a week they might get some relief from their troubles, their moods might be bolstered, for a few hours afterward, but eventually it's back to the grim reality.
I could be wrong but you sound like a feminist from the Camille Paglia school. She chastises women for speaking out against sexism because doing so is “playing the victim.” It’s no surprise that she’s admired by a lot of right wing pundits and journalists.
To be honest with you, I don't know Paglia's works well enough to know how I feel about her. If she is indeed dismissive of all complaints about sexism then I'm by no means in agreement with her. Clearly our country has a sexist past and sexism still exists. But I believe it's critical to not focus on being a victim, and it's critical to not confuse problems unrelated to sexism with problems that are related to sexism. Just because I didn't get a job that a man also applied for doesn't mean the employer is sexist.
I want to tell you that I REALLY appreciate that you took the time to respond to my post in the manner that you did. And I will say that you must get the double whammy, being black and gay. Each group, gays, women, blacks, have experienced discrimination in a different way. Blacks have without a doubt suffered the most, I put the mistreatment of blacks in the U.S in the Holocaust category. Gays have experienced hatred and violence that women have not, but unlike most blacks and women you can hide your sexual prefernce. Women are typically dismissed and devalued, we're not smart enough, tough enough, technical enough, we exist to please and serve men, we are not as important as men, etc.
Not all black kids deal, or join gangs, or go on welfare. (Guys can't, you know.) The problem is that it's enough that some do.
You can have 95% law abiding industrious citizens--98%--but 2% heavily armed violent drug dealers is enough to shatter that community--if they don't have the power to fight it. 2% can shoot enough people so that it'll make a commercial street too dangerous to patronize. 2% can turn the living, bustling core of a community into blocks of gaping storefronts that eventually succumb to fire or demolition. And how are these working-class people going to get new buildings built? Small business loans?
In a white suburban community, you're going to have mostly good kids--and a few screwups and sociopaths. but in those communities you have all sorts of power structures where you can neutralize them, fix them up, or remove them. But in a 'troubled community'? Where it's very obvious that the elders, the carriers of culture, have no power whatsoever? When police treat a respected religious leader no different from a gang-banger? When they know full well that the only thing backing up their moral authority is a God who doesn't exist.
You can grow up in a 'troubled community' and be smart, and talented, and moral, and strong. . And youcan have many friends who are the same.And you can know that none of that matters as long as a couple of others shoot up the neighbohood and nobody can stop them.
Barack Obama's church is trying to build up those resources within the community, so that the good people have some power to back up the forrce of morality, justice, decency, and, yes, hope. But you're offended by their 'victimhood'. It can't be the fult of white people! What, then? The moral failings of everyone in the black community?
It takes more than proper mortal choices. It takes power and authority to stand up to the ravagers. And when black people want to develop that power so that the good people stand a chance, white people start to envision the Black psnthers, separatism, and start getting angry.
How much can be attributed to the "ravagers" or "captors" ? I think the victim mentaility holds people back. It makes them blame all of their problems on someone else. I have seen some horrendous neighborhoods here in Chicago, some that only have 3 or 4 houses remaining on an entire block, the rest have been razed or torched. I see trash all over ! Who is throwing that trash all over the place ? I see people buying liquor and drinking it coming out of the store ... at 10am ! Who is forcing them to be alcoholic ? I see junior high and high school aged girls fat with babies inside of them. Who forced them to have sex ? Many of these problems are caused by people WITHIN the community, not from those who are external, "captors" and "ravagers".
Why is it that there are lifelong residents of public housing ? Public housing was intended to be temporary, to help people to get on their feet by alleviating the burden of housing expense until they could get their finances together.
Why do I see so many examples of immigrants coming over from other countries, escaping conditions far worse than we have in the U.S., these people come over with nothing, many can't even speak the language, and yet they are working, they are paying their own way, many progress and start their own businesses and become successful, they buy homes, they pay taxes, they don't complain that they are being victimized.
At some point you need to take responsibility for your own life. I totally agree that blacks have had a horrible past here in the U.S. and we still don't have equalti, but at some point they have to realize that things are equal enough for them to pull themselves up.
But the document is very very victim oriented, encouraging the victims to band together to protect themselves against their "captors".
Funny, this does not sound like “victim oriented”: We are called out to be "a chosen people" that pays no attention to socio-economic or educational backgrounds. We are made up of the highly educated and the uneducated. Our congregation is a combination of the haves and the have-nots; the economically disadvantaged, the under-class, the unemployed and the employable. The fortunate who are among us combine forces with the less fortunate to become agents of change for God who is not pleased with America’s economic mal-distribution!
We still don't have equality but the worst of the racist days are over.
Says one who has NEVER lived life in the shoes of an African American man or woman. Are thing better than the days of the “white only” signs? Yes Is having an actual sign telling you you’re not wanted better than the subtle racism of today. No racism is racism whether you have a sign that says you’re not wanted or the more subtle “we don’t have any openings or we don’t have any apartments for rent”.
Why is it that there are lifelong residents of public housing ?
One could ask the same question of those who live in the rural Appalachians and they are not black. There are approximately 22 million people living in an area that has traditionally experienced higher poverty rates, lower education levels, and limited access to health care as compared to the nation as a whole. Furthermore, 108 of the 404 counties are categorized as distressed or severely distressed. But funny we don't ask why there are lifelong residents of rural Appalachians or why they don't "pull themselves up". Why is that?
At some point you need to take responsibility for your own life. I totally agree that blacks have had a horrible past here in the U.S. and we still don't have equalti, but at some point they have to realize that things are equal enough for them to pull themselves up.
2.4 million Number of black military veterans in the United States in 2005. More military veterans are black than any other minority group. 80%
Among blacks age 25 and older, the proportion that had at least a high school diploma in 2005. In states such as Colorado, the proportion was even higher—90%. 17% Percentage of blacks age 25 and older who had a bachelor’s degree or more in 2005. In many states, the rate was higher. Twenty-six percent of blacks this age in Colorado, for instance, had this level of education. 1.1 million Among blacks age 25 and older, the number who had an advanced degree in 2005 (e.g., master’s, Ph.D., M.D. or J.D.). Ten years earlier—in 1995—only 677,000 blacks had this level of education. 2.3 million Number of black college students in fall 2004. This was an increase of roughly 1 million from 15 years earlier. 24.9%
Poverty rate in 2005 for those reporting black as their only race. This rate was down from 31.3% in 1985.
God that was wonderfully stated. To speak of personal responsibility is taboo. You can be labeled as a mean conservative.
I don't consider you a racist nor a mean conservative but I DO consider you uninformed.
Pearl, I love you so much! I've been trying to post a message to Atheist for an hour now and Media Matters won't let me. They continue to say that I have profanity in the post when there's none. But thank you for that post! James Baldwin said long years ago that America always had a problem understanding those who or misunderstood and disenfranchised. HE said this in the 1960s, and it’s true then as it’s true today. Anyway, I'll try again later and respond to Atheist. When I read such gross stereotypes of black people like that coming from a liberal, I find that to be more frightening than reading it from the typical conservative.
Preston you know I love you too!.
I must say that I had to take a moment and walk away before I could respond to Atheist. Reading her post left me sad. Sad that it's the year 2008 and some white folks are just as ignorant of black folks today as they were back in the 40's and 50's. How can you on the one hand say that racism is much better than before but then proceeds to lay out stereotype after stereotype as truth?. This coming from a liberal is truly frightening.
This is truly amazing. First you gloss over my posts and make all sorts of prejudiced assumptions, and then based on those assumptions you tell me I'm ignorant and you feel sorry for me.
READ MY POSTS AGAIN, CAREFULLY. If you don't want to take the time to read them carefully then please do not respond to them.
I am not uninformed, Pearlene.
Your post does not refute my statements. You simply provide detailed information for points that I made generic statements.
"Captors". Do you think blacks still have "captors" ? Do you think these "captors" are the ones trashing the neighborhoods and making the young girls pregnant and stopping the kids from going to school ? Do you think that the "captors" are forcing the kids to join gangs or otherwise express violence against each other ? Are the "captors" forcing people to use drugs or drink alcohol ?
Just how many of the problems can be attribute to the "captors" ? That was the point of my posts. Read them again.
And all of the statistics you gave on the enormous success of blacks, they do not compare to the same measures among whites. Although it is good that Black folks are doing better, tis a sign for optimism.
And i would ask those people to pull themselves up,
I would too ! The argument applies to all oppressed or disadvantaged groups, but I focused on blacks because this is what the MMFA article regards, Obama's connection with a church that focuses on blacks, even if the congregation isn't entirely black.
I resent that we cannot openly discuss these problems without being condemned as racists. You must think that only blacks can be critical of blacks, and because of the prevalence of PC, most whites are now afraid to criticize blacks. I resfuse to comply.
I assure you if we were talking about women I would be just as critical. I'm a woman, btw. I don't like to see women playing the victim any more than I would like to see other groups do it.
Atheist to “assume” is the worst mistake anyone can make. It stops all possibilities. Did you post that response because you read my post to Finarfin? I want you to understand why replied to Finarfin the way I did. He wishes, as he said in a former post for the days when the white man ruled the country. I have no place in my life for anyone who longs for the days when the white man ruled and will not spend what time I have left on people like Finarfin. He does not understand that we are ALL humans, we bleed, we suffer, we triumph and we fail not because of our race but because we are human. We have more in common than we have differences but and until we are willing to communicate, educate and understand each other we will continue the endless cycle of thinking that the color of ones skin makes them superior to others.
I have said that I DON'T think you‘re a racist and I'm sorry if my response implied that I thought you were. We can discuss any and everything otherwise I would not bother to reply to your post.
Your criticism of black folks is based on stereotypes. Your description is one of people who live in public housing, never wanting to change, drink liquor at 10am, don't pick their trash and have teenage unprotected sex applies to poor people, NOT just black poor people. When LBJ launched the War on Poverty 42 years ago, he did not stand in a black public housing unit, he stood on the porch in Appalachia mountains. What you described as a "black" problem exists in every race in our society. Why, the answers are too many to describe but it is NOT simply a problems that only relates to black folks. From your statement it sounded like YOU think it does. There are simply poor people, some who don’t want to change and some who don’t know how to change and some who when trying to change can’t seem to catch a break. Poverty is not limited to ANY race of people. My objection with your statement is you seem to think is does.
You are welcome to be as critical of black people as you choose and I feel just as welcome to disagree with you.
I'm not aware that influences outside of a troubled neighborhood are forcing the people in the neighborhood to use or sell drugs, to participate in gangs, to kill each other, to seek welfare instead of jobs, to seek public housing instead of their own homes, to trash the neighborhood and drive property values down, to have so many fatherless families and teen pregnancies, ...
That list of Right Wing talking points about poor blacks was sophistic. When I first read your message I was completely outraged. Outraged that a self-described LIBERAL would peddle the “victimhood” ideologue that the Right has pushed successfully into the consciousness of mainstream America since the Reagan Revolution. I then wrote a long response with links to counter your rant. But then I asked myself, “Why bother?” Why bother when you start your premise that blacks are lazy savages who prefer to wallow in their "victimhood," live on welfare, gleefully participate in gang violence, have babies out of wedlock, trash their neighborhoods, etc., rather than take “personal responsibility” for their own actions? This is just history repeating itself, though. Blaming the poor for their failures is all part of the Gilded Age Politics: Conservatism Triumphant. It was revamped in the 1980s when Reagan took office. And putting a black face on the poor was a masterstroke by the Reagan Administration. It was all part of his plan to cut social funds for the poor by citing "welfare queens" and disparaging The Black Family.
I shouldn’t be surprised to read some liberals using the same rants as conservatives regarding poor blacks. Why? Because many liberals have bought the conservative logic that the problems with poor blacks isn't economic disparities -- it's their laziness and savage behavior. In fact, black conservatives make the same rants as yourself and are awarded handsomely by think-tanks like Heritage and Hoover. In fact, if folks want to make a lot of money, write a book dissing blacks, as a group, and peddle it to the I-shall-be-like-the-Most High-conservatives. You will have an instant best seller in that you'll justify their illusions of some colorblind utopia and assuage their responsibility to do something for the poor. I am convinced that the concept of blackness, throughout American history, is just that: a concept. Imagine racializing "white crime" and saying white males are "culturally" prone to serial killing, drunk driving, child molestation or poor at sports. Imagine, after that, building a whole set of perspectives and anecdotal, pseudo-intellectual selling points around those concepts, sitting down with an agent, and writing a whole book on how bad whites are. Then imagine a whole media, large constituency, a government, including the judiciary, legislative and executive branches supporting you. (This technique has worked wonders for Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, Larry Elder and John McWhorter.) These are the ingredients for success in an America full of narcissistic, disingenuous, money-hungry propagandists. Don't bother arguing about such books or with such people -- it is futile. The success is Reaganism was to demonize poor minorities with the public agreeing with him wholeheartedly through his propaganda tactics. It seemed to succeed wonderfully.
To generalize a certain segment of a population with this condescension is sad. What's even more repulsive and disturbing is that the biggest critics are those so isolated from such neighborhoods and people, rather than understand the conditions, such critics base their one-dimensional depictions of blacks on the crudest stereotypes, and then have the gall to offer tough-love sermons on how blacks should stop being a "victim."
Oh my god I wish you and Pearlene would read my posts more carefully ! I explicitly described specific problems and asked if these are due to racism or the influence of "captors" ! I would like you and Pearlene to address my specific points instead of twisting my words, misquoting me, and generalizing my point of view into overall racism.
It's unfair of you to demote a thoughtful, reasoned, and educated dialogue into base racism. Just because I disagree with you, just because I challenge some PC conventions, doesn't mean I'm a racist. I'm actually far from it. Being female, especially one in a traditionally male field of work, I've experienced my share of blatant discrimination and harassment. Because I know what I've experienced is a fraction of what a typical black experiences, assure you I am most sympathetic. But I also understand that it's easy to fall into the trap of blaming some problems on others when they are actually your own problems. I've done it myself. It's easy for me to claim that I'm not being treated fairly or someone is being condescending toward me because I'm a woman, it's hard for me to take a good objective look at myself and see shortcomings or faults that are mine alone, not caused by anyone else, and then work to make myself better.