by Jack
Eric Holder says (white) America is too cowardly to have a frank discussion about racism. If there is a reluctance then it’s because the discussion has been limited to what white people did to oppress the black community. That’s like saying, lets have a frank discussion why you are always wrong. Too many black leaders such as Barrack Obama, Eric Holder, Jesse Jackson, Spike Lee, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, have deemed it necessary and acceptable to hold the white community responsible, but the discussion always stops short when it comes to black responsibility.
How can we have a balanced discussion if the discussion is limited to what white people did to black people? That’s like asking, lets have a discussion why you’re always wrong. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s fair to look at our wrongs and we have for decades, but it’s far from the whole story today why we have too many poor and incarcerated coming from the African-American community.
It’s hard to sort out the truth sometimes, especially in this area, because our racism is steeped in politics. It’s been a bonanza for the democratic party that so often plays the race card. But, political agenda’s are notorious for using selective facts in order to craft a desired picture or to divide and conquer. Political agendas don’t serve our purpose on this one. By the way, Dinesh D’Souza did a fantastic job of presenting both sides in his movie, America, to the extent I think it ought to be required viewing in public schools.
Now for our discussion. Let’s start with the most basic, most non-selective facts, absent any agenda that we can. In 2012, 35 percent of blacks lived in poverty, compared to 13 percent of whites. In 1970, those rates were 33.6 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Poverty in the black community is higher, and has been consistently. African-Americans make up about 13.6 percent of the United States’ population, but they account for 40.2 percent of those imprisoned. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Clearly, this is a problem. And a great society like ours ought to be capable of solving it, don’t you think?
12 Common Assumptions Involving African Americans, Crime and Poverty, feel free to check off which ones you believe or not:
1. There are more African American people in prison because they are disproportionately arrested by racist police who are profiling.
2. White jurors are more likely to send a black person to prison and give a white person probation.
3. The system favors those with money, since many black people are poor they can’t buy their way out of trouble like white people do and this contributes to their higher incarceration rates.
4. Living in poor neighborhoods exposes children to crime and they are more likely to commit a crime because of this peer influence.
5. Poverty makes people do desperate things. When you’re hungry you are more likely to steal a loaf of bread.
6. Drugs are more common in poor neighborhoods because users are trying to escape their depressing reality. Being under the influence makes a person more likely to comment crime, and don’t forget to include alcohol in this too.
7. Poor neighborhoods often have poor schools, thus poor people, and especially African American poor, are denied the right to a good education. This only continues the cycle of poverty and crime.
8. African American children are more likely to grow up without a father because he has been the victim of racial profiling or he was forced to leave his family in order to find work elsewhere of so few job opportunities. This absence of a strong male role model often leads children into crime and this continues into their adult lives.
9. The war on drugs has focused on poor African American communities and this has resulted in disproportionately high arrests for people of color.
10. Once convicted African Americans almost always receive harsher sentences than whites for the same crime. This keeps African Americans in prison longer and thus overrepresented in the prison population.
11. African Americans are less likely to be hired because of white racist attitudes. Therefore they are denied equal opportunity to succeed. Whites tend to stereotype that African Americans are less reliable, less intelligent, more likely to steal or they work slow, and this unfairly keeps them under-employed or on welfare.
12. The African American experience regarding poverty and prisons is unique to the United States because of slavery and bigotry, remove those foundations and the problems go with it.
There is varying degrees of truth in all of the above. Of course they range widely in overall truth. And that’s why we DO need an open discussion and gain consensus so we can finally put a laser-like focus on exactly where the problems are and then craft policy to fix it. So, the first step is to have that FRANK discussion that Mr. Holder says we are too afraid to have. However, this must be without him or anyone else setting the parameters for discussion.
So, let’s talk about white transgression and let’s also talk about African American transgression, they have plenty of accountability to answer for too. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
As I see it, one of the biggest obstacles for racial progress in our time is the powerful influence of the black culture that says you don’t talk white, you don’t act white, you don’t dress white, you don’t need education and you don’t leave the hood. If you do – you are a sellout! You’re an Uncle Tom if you try to met into society and you will have the scorn of your black peers if you dare violate this unwritten code, celebrities excluded (a double standard?). This part is was best addressed by leaders like those I’ve mentioned previously, but they never went there because accountability is criticism and the black community is hyper-sensitive about any form of criticism and they equate it with just more white bigotry.
Those leaders know they will get slammed down as traitors for even hinting that black racist attitudes are responsible for a lot of their problems. African Americans do not want to hear they have more responsibility for their poverty and incarceration than white racists. That’s a big hurdle to overcome, but until their leaders have the courage to address it we’ll always be falling short of a satisfactory outcome. Mr. Holder must remember that when he calls America cowards and points the finger at whites for not discussing racism, he has three fingers pointing right back at himself.
The good part of this is, for the last 150 years racial attitudes have been improving in America especially among the white population until even in the deep South bigotry is on the run! We’ve made amazing progress! But, unfortunately it’s not uniform progress within our great melting pot. We still have other ethnicities and races such as Asian and Hispanic that are lagging behind in the prejudice department. Case in point, some of the worst racism to be found is our neighbor to the south, Mexico. It’s rampant against blacks, although they are improving thanks to pressure from the USA and as cultural ignorance gives way to better education. But, these attitudes find their way across the border and this has been setting back some of the progress we’ve made. Another reason for controlled immigration.
There is no way I can go through the 12 points noted above without writing a veritable thesis. Instead what I’ve done is to put them out for discussion and leave it up to you. Feel free to ad in your own points for discussion if you like. After all this is an open, frank discussion that Eric Holder wanted us to have, so lets have it. Be honest and let the chips fall where they may.
The clown AG is the real coward. He makes suspect statements like these, does NOT address the single-parent problem in the black community, and then runs and hides.
Holder and Obumble have had great opportunities to be leaders on this problem, but BOTH would rather blame others instead of leading.
However did those two rise to such heights in an America that denies opportunity and equality to blacks, J. Soden đ ???
I wonder what proportion of black people have achieved great success compared to the proportion of white people that have? Since I was a kid a lot more black people have started businesses, work and live alongside their white counterparts, and have gone on to great fame and fortunes. Why do we never talk about their achievement or the positive progress we’ve made?
Wouldn’t it be smart for blacks to emulate those who are successful rather than playing into the victims game and waiting around for handouts from democrats and rino’s (including those who are black)?
A lot of whites never get to be Michael Jordon or Oprah Winfrey but they do aspire to be small independent business owners…how do they do it? Wouldn’t it be smart if more blacks found out?
As far as attitudes go we were doing better in the seventies and early eighties and nineties than we are doing now. Class envy and politics built on pitting one group against another has caused deterioration, IMHO.
I’m still thinking about that list. I see some truth in it but also a lot of assumptions and attitudes that may not be valid. What if blacks are hired less because they don’t apply or because they really do have less skill and training? Does deciding white bigotry is the cause help those people or would better schools and training be a better help to them?
I agree with whatever black person(s) it was who recently said at some point the black people have to look to and help themselves and solve their own unique problems. (I know they can do it and have faith that they will!)
For me the discussion should begin with education based on facts and not driven by current political agendas. All discussions should begin with the truth and not lies. The truth has no agenda which is a good place to begin.
Fact, one of the first if not THE first slave owner was black man.
From Wikipedia.
Black slaveholders:
“Some slaveholders were black or had some black ancestry. An African former indentured servant arrived to Virginia in 1621, Anthony Johnson, became one of the earliest documented slave owners in the mainland American colonies when he won a civil suit for ownership of John Casor.[149] In 1830 there were 3,775 such slaveholders in the South who owned 12,760 slaves,[150] with 80% of them located in Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. There were economic differences between free blacks of the Upper South and Deep South, with the latter fewer in number, but wealthier and typically of mixed race. Half of the black slaveholders lived in cities rather than the countryside, with most in New Orleans and Charleston. Especially New Orleans had a large, relatively wealthy free black population (gens de couleur) composed of people of mixed race, who had become a third class between whites and enslaved blacks under French and Spanish rule. Relatively few slaveholders were âsubstantial planters.â Of those who were, most were of mixed race, often endowed by white fathers with some property and social capital.[151] For example, Andrew Durnford of New Orleans was listed as owning 77 slaves.[150] According to Rachel Kranz: âDurnford was known as a stern master who worked his slaves hard and punished them often in his efforts to make his Louisiana sugar plantation a success.â[152] The historians John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger wrote:
A large majority of profit-oriented free black slaveholders resided in the Lower South. For the most part, they were persons of mixed racial origin, often women who cohabited or were mistresses of white men, or mulatto men…. Provided land and slaves by whites, they owned farms and plantations, worked their hands in the rice, cotton, and sugar fields, and like their white contemporaries were troubled with runaways.[153]
The historian Ira Berlin wrote:
In slave societies, nearly everyoneâfree and slaveâaspired to enter the slaveholding class, and upon occasion some former slaves rose into slaveholdersâ ranks. Their acceptance was grudging, as they carried the stigma of bondage in their lineage and, in the case of American slavery, color in their skin.[154]
African American history and culture scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote: “…the percentage of free black slave owners as the total number of free black heads of families was quite high in several states, namely 43 percent in South Carolina, 40 percent in Louisiana, 26 percent in Mississippi, 25 percent in Alabama and 20 percent in Georgia.”[155]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_slave_owners#Black_slaveholders
Anthony Johnson (colonist):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist)
America’s first slave owner was a black man.
According to colonial records, the first slave owner in the United States was a black man.
Prior to 1655 there were no legal slaves in the colonies, only indentured servants. All masters were required to free their servants after their time was up. Seven years was the limit that an indentured servant could be held. Upon their release they were granted 50 acres of land. This included any Negro purchased from slave traders. Negros were also granted 50 acres upon their release.
Anthony Johnson was a Negro from modern-day Angola. He was brought to the US to work on a tobacco farm in 1619. In 1622 he was almost killed when Powhatan Indians attacked the farm. 52 out of 57 people on the farm perished in the attack. He married a female black servant while working on the farm.
When Anthony was released he was legally recognized as a âfree Negroâ and ran a successful farm. In 1651 he held 250 acres and five black indentured servants. In 1654, it was time for Anthony to release John Casor, a black indentured servant. Instead Anthony told Casor he was extending his time. Casor left and became employed by the free white man Robert Parker.
Anthony Johnson sued Robert Parker in the Northampton Court in 1654. In 1655, the court ruled that Anthony Johnson could hold John Casor indefinitely. The court gave judicial sanction for blacks to own slave of their own race. Thus Casor became the first permanent slave and Johnson the first slave owner.
Whites still could not legally hold a black servant as an indefinite slave until 1670. In that year, the colonial assembly passed legislation permitting free whites, blacks, and Indians the right to own blacks as slaves.
By 1699, the number of free blacks prompted fears of a âNegro insurrection.â Virginia Colonial ordered the repatriation of freed blacks back to Africa. Many blacks sold themselves to white masters so they would not have to go to Africa. This was the first effort to gently repatriate free blacks back to Africa. The modern nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia both originated as colonies of repatriated former black slaves.
However, black slave owners continued to thrive in the United States.
By 1830 there were 3,775 black families living in the South who owned black slaves. By 1860 there were about 3,000 slaves owned by black households in the city of New Orleans alone.
Sources:
John Casor
Anthony Johnson
http://topconservativenews.com/2012/03/americas-first-slave-owner-was-a-black-man/
Blacks moved north after the civil war to escape the oppression of the Democrats in control of the southern state’s legislation. The first blacks to serve in the Congress were all Republicans until 1935.
From Wikipedia.
African Americans in the United States Congress:
The first African Americans to serve in the United States Congress were Republicans during the Reconstruction Era. After slaves were emancipated and granted citizenship rights, freedmen gained political representation in the Southern United States for the first time. The Compromise of 1877 initiated the period that followed, known as Redemption among white Southerners. White Democrats regained political power in state legislatures across the South and worked to restore white supremacy. Democrat state legislatures reduced voting by blacks by passing more restrictive electoral and voter registration rules, amending constitutions to the same ends from 1890â1910, and passing Jim Crow laws to establish racial segregation and restrict labor rights, movement and organizing by blacks. The Democratic Party essentially dominated the “Solid South” until the 1950s. As a result of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the U.S. Congress passed laws to end segregation and protect civil rights and voting rights.
During two waves of massive migration within the United States in the first half of the 20th century, more than 6 million African Americans moved from the South to Northeastern and Midwestern industrial cities. Some were elected to national political office from their new locations. During the Great Depression, many black voters switched allegiances from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, in support of the New Deal economic, social network, and work policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. This trend continued in the 1960s. At the same time, there was a different movement among whites in the South, who began to vote for Republican candidates for national and then state offices.
A total of 139 African Americans have served in the United States Congress, mostly in the United States House of Representatives. This includes five non-voting members of the House of Representatives who have represented the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. An additional House candidate, John Willis Menard, was elected in 1868 but was not seated due to an election dispute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_the_United_States_Congress
HISTORY: THE FIRST BLACKS IN CONGRESS WERE ALL REPUBLICANS (photos, bios):
“Republicans â the racists? In 1868, Republicans elected the first black person to represent them in Congress. There were no black Democrats in Congress until 1935. For almost seven decades Republicans were the ONLY ONES electing blacks to Congress. Here are the historical facts:”
http://factreal.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/history-the-first-blacks-in-congress-were-all-republicans-photos-bios/
There is no denying it was wrong to own another human being and to have them indentured for life. But, it first needs to be recognized that while it was wrong for whites to have slaves it was also wrong for blacks to have slaves too. This part of our history is not well known and rarely taught in our schools if ever.
I would bet most blacks would be shocked to learn the first slave was owned by a black man and the first congressional representatives were Republicans and not Democrats.
Wow. Powerful and revealing statement Jack. I will have to mull it over.
We need an AJ who will enforce our laws he swore to uphold.
The IRS Scandal and the Politicization of Justice:
“If you want a good illustration of how Attorney General Eric Holder has politicized the Justice Department and its prosecutorial decision-making, all you have to do is look at what Justice has not done in just one part of the IRS scandal. Despite its agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by the National Organization for Marriage against the IRS for the illegal disclosure of confidential tax information, it has not prosecuted any of the individuals or organizations who illegally disclosed and published that information.
There is no question that the IRS violated federal law when it disclosed NOMâs confidential donor information. That is why DOJ agreed to settle the case and pay NOM a large sum of money. But under the applicable law, 26 U.S.C. §7213, everyone involved in the disclosure â and the publication â also may have criminally violated the law, from the IRS employee to Matthew Meisel to the HRC and the Huffington Post. That is because it is a felony punishable by up to five years in jail to not only willfully disclose confidential tax returns, but âto print or publish in any mannerâ such returns.
A long-time employee of Justice told us something about the Civil Rights Division that really applies to the entire Justice Department. That employee said that Holder has âracialized and radicalizedâ DOJ to the âpoint of corruption.â He has âembedded politically leftist extremists in the career ranks who have an agenda that does not comport with equal protection or the rule of law; who believe that the ends justify the means; and who behave unprofessionally and unethically.â
Donât expect justice to be served, the law enforced, or the interests of good government to be followed in the IRS scandal or the inexcusable actions that were taken against NOM by the Obama administration and its political friends. That wonât happen under this attorney general.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/28/The-IRS-Scandal-and-the-Politicization-of-Justice
Excellent comments all. I’m thinking there are about 4 or 5 things people can do, regardless of their color, that will get them to a self sustaining place in life. If they make bad choices on any of these basic things then their chances diminish exponentially.
You don’t steal stuff or hurt people. You don’t drop out of school. You don’t do drugs or drink to an excess. If you can just do these things, your chances are excellent that when it’s time to look for work you will find it. And after you get a job, if you will just show up on time and make a sincere effort to do the best job you can you will climb the ladder and have more money. With more experience, training and education your chances of continually progressing get better and better. It’s that simple.
Off topic, but soooo funny and so worth watching.
Why Hollywood Actors, Journalists & Profs are Libs: Stand-Up Comicâs Reason is Funny âCuz Itâs True:
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/162408-stand-comic-hollywood-actors-journalists-college-profs-stupidest-human-beings-ever/
Now that’s funny! Thanks Peggy. Chris you should watch this video, I think you will like it.
Great video Peggy. He reminds me a bit of Bob Hope, style wise.
You know all those people were a lot smarter when they had appreciation and respect for those who do things.