Hey, don’t worry about it. When I’m around certain people, I tend to lapse into “Redneck”. It all depends on where you were brought up.

I have noticed, however, in the last 10 years or so, a distressing tendency not only toward slang in advertising, but horribly poor spelling and grammar. Can’t think of any examples, I just tend to notice when I see it on a huge billboard. It always sets my teeth on edge – and I’m talking about when it’s obviously not done on purpose.

I prefer the term “race baiting poverty pimps”. Think Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

I know, this part of what I said does:

“Which is not to say that despite all of this people can’t still rise individually.”

Also, this ‘holding down’ isn’t total. Its basically like putting a brake on how far you can get, or a hill over which you have to climb just to get to the place that other people are.

By the way, claiming that blacks have higher morals and values than other Americans is itself a form of stereotyping. Blacks exhibit all the characteritics that mark us as human: greed and generosity, courage and cowardice, industry and indolence, nobility and ignominy.

Only the ignorant cannot understand that.

The tide is starting to turn, thanks to people like LaShawn and other people who don’t make excuses; they rise of their own free will. Individuals that don’t need Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson to constantly remind them how much a victim they are.

There is a great deal of guilt in this country over the history of black intolerance and indifference. But people, individuals with faith in God and their own sense of self worth, will and do succeed. One thing I must agree with Michael Moore on (just this one time) was when he said he’d never been cheated by a black man. He’d never been thrown out of a house by a black man ,etc. The point being that black people have higher morals and belief systems than most other Americans. I cringe when someone says “I have a black friend…”. I like to just say I have a friend and it don’t matter two cents what color he is.

That soooounds good, but doesn’t explain how plenty of black individuals arose ahead of the class. That’s not to discredit MLK and the necessity of the movement against apartheid in its time.

The problem is many did not make the leap out of believing that racism is the only thing holding them down — rather like the stupefied frog in the pot slowly coming to a boil. Rather than jumping out and following the free frogs, they content themselves with the envy of “deys actin white”.

To the extent that what holds you down is holding you down as a member of a class, then you can rise as a class. Thats what the civil rights era was about — erasing the things that held people down as a class.

If you make the leap into believing that racism still holds people down, then you believe that they can still rise as a class.

Which is not to say that despite all of this people can’t still rise individually.

That is quite a statement, saying no “black individual is being oppressed.”

The current dogma for the left is that everyone is oppressed by those of us on the right. Dogma aside, I agree with your comments and your sense of forceful purpose. It is refreshing.

No. Actually I was responding to others, not you directly.

It doesn’t bother you that this white elitist snob talks about Section 8 housing in speeches to black crowds, for crying out loud?

Yep. Wrote about it too, or at least that general idea of thinking of all Blacks being down and out.

tongue firmly planted in cheek

Too bad because it’s on point. And if you read around, that ad I mentioned wasn’t liked by all “Black conservatives.”

Nutshell time. If it’s condenscending, it’s condenscending no matter who does it.

LaShawn, I’m consistant on this point: “both sides” are insulting and condenscending to Blacks at times.