On one very important part of the struggle, the Civil Rights Movement is an unqualified success. Let's face it, if it is even thought that a public figure is racist, it's over. Naturally, there is some leeway there. The only 9e(?)Klansman in the Senate is allowed to say n****r a couple of times on national TV but, for some reason no one understands continues on as The Conscious of the Senate. Meanwhile the nation's First Black President, Bill Clinton, is savaged because he backed his wife in the primaries. His wife, BTW was savaged by the Party That Supports Women because she ran against Barry. Go figure.
Still, even liberals are not immune, ask that Imus feller.Silly Imus, thought he could use the same language blacks do.
Today's civil rights establishment is going backwards, I think. It's hard to see what real good they are doing, it's a shame, too, there is much good left to do. Let's face it, most of the problems facing black Americans has little or nothing to do with white Americans keeping them down.
If today's civil rights establishment wanted to make black Americans lives better than to enrich themselves here are a few places to start:
First look at where living conditions for black Americans happen to be worst. Strange, that is the inner cities where the Democrats have had iron rule for more than three quarters of a century.
Cut themselves loose from the Democrats. The Democrats of today need do nothing for black Americans, they don't have to. Since nine out of ten black Americans who vote pull the D lever anyway the Democrats don't bother, expending their political capitol and effort on other constituent groups. Meanwhile Republicans don't try, why should we? It's not like black Americans would reward us. Suppose it was different? Suppose 40% of black Americans voted Democrat, 40% voted Republican and the other 20% switched, kinda like the rest of America votes?
Instead of one Party doing nothing for them because they don't have to and the other Party because it does no good, both Parties would be fighting for the votes of one eighth of the electorate.
And that's about the end of what politics can do. The rest is up to the community itself. A good first step is to demand that the children of the black communities actually get an education. It is not white kids beating up black children for acting white for using proper English and for doing homework. It is not white racists refusing to hire people who cannot read, write or make change. Can't do the job? You either will not get hired or will not keep the job. No education means living poor for the rest of your life.
Unmarried motherhood. This problem is just not in the black community of course, it's everywhere. There are actually far more white than black children born out of wedlock, it still hurts the black community more as the white community is much larger. The civil rights establishment should join forces with the feminist and educational establishments and present a united front.
Now I don't much care if a thirty year old lawyer making a bazillion bucks a year decides to go with the artificial insemination and no husband, or the Murphy Brown types. The teenagers who decide to get pregnant so "someone will love them" is a different story entirely. If only as part of this constant sex education kids would actually have to spend a few twenty-four hour periods being the "parents" of newborns and infants, things would turn around in a hurry.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not preaching a religion here, merely something practical. Want to end poverty in three simple steps? Step one: Graduate from High School. Step Two: Avoid drugs. Step three: Get and stay married.
That's it. Note that it is graduate High School, not Law School, not a Doctorate, not even a Bachelor's Degree. Not that a higher degree won't help, if it's a degree in something useful. I don't understand why so many folks go into Black Studies or Woman's Studies. I would imagine I'd have to study real hard to be black but the kids I see going into Black Studies seem to have already passed. And I have a wife and daughter, neither of them have ever taken Woman's Studies, both of them are pretty darned good at being women, too. Now I could understand Woman Studies if it were guys going there, we don't exactly know what makes 'em tick.
Truth is, those sets of courses are called Angry Studies. Here is a clue to anyone advising young people...tell them to study Engineering, business or something else that pays. No one is going to pay a young person with a shiny new degree in black studies to stand around being black. No one is going to pay someone to sit at a desk and be a studied chicano. And if a girl graduates with a degree in Woman's Studies, forget that idea about being happily married.
Everyone doesn't need to go to college, as a matter of fact many would do much better going to trade school. Price the per hour cost of a plumber or an electrician. How about that feller that installs hardwood floors and carpets. Or that woman that took the courses to become a skilled secretary or, for that matter, an electrician. As college gets more and more expensive and the course materiel gets ever more frivolous trade schools look better and better. But I digress again. To avoid poverty. Graduate. Stay off drugs. Get and stay married. Now that I've solved the problems, my next post should be lighter.
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