If I had my laptop with me, I’d live-blog this event. See Moral Reconstruction post below. But I’m on the Treo. Blogging this is difficult. One cool thing so far: John M. called my name before I approached him. He remembered meeting me two years ago and knows my work. 
Update (6:20 p.m.): Great event. I’ll update with a summary and photos (I’ll also post photos here) tomorrow and open the post for commenting.
Update II (7/27 @ the crack of dawn): Moral Reconstruction: A Model for Urban Transformation was a refreshing diversion from typical discussions about race, culture, inner cities, poverty, etc. Although participants shared the view that many problems in inner cities are exacerbated by immoral and destructive behavior, each had slighly different ideas about solutions.
Spiritual Solutions
Reverend Jesse L. Peterson, founder of Brotherhood Organization for A New Destiny (BOND), which counsels boys and men and helps them build good moral character, is not popular among black liberals for obvious reasons. Last year he got to the heart of the Katrina problem and blamed the people for not helping themselves. Either “Moral poverty cost blacks in New Orleans” (see his column archives) or one of his other Katrina columns was widely disseminated and discussed. A white Congressman made news and was branded a racist after he e-mailed the piece to various people.
Peterson is the author of SCAM: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America (reviewed here and here).
Reverend Grant Storm (pictured left with Ward Connerly) is a minister and activist in New Orleans who believes, like all Bible-believing Christians, that man is dead in his sins and needs spiritual cleansing. Without addressing spiritual poverty, there’s little point talking about “morality.” Without God, what is morality? Whose morality is it? Storm, Peterson, and I believe that people are responsible for their own behavior but agree that government dependency makes it easier for people to give in to their sin nature.
Storm is white and ministers in a predominantly black community. He’s been called a racist for laying blame at the feet of the people.
Patrick Fagan, a fellow in Family and Cultural Issues at Heritage (research link), believes, as all Bible-believing Christians do, that sex was designed for the marital relationship. Outside this relationship, sex is a sin. The Bible calls it fornication. The problems in the inner city are legion, and sex outside marriage is one of the culprits. It leads to out-of-wedlock pregnancy, fatherlessness, AIDS and other diseases, welfare dependency, unstable communites, etc.
Social science research has shown that children reared in two-parent (a man and a woman married to each other) homes are much better off than children who are not. They are less likely to be poor or engage in premarital sex. They also do better in schools. Boys especially benefit from having a father in the home. I’ve written about this subject many times. See Baby Daddy and Black Marriage.
Government is ill-equipped and unqualified to address moral issues.
Kerr Johnson (pictured right, between McWhorter and Fagan), a married father of five (all by the same woman!), is living proof of how the cycle of pathology can be broken. He came to BOND as an angry, fatherless, trouble-making 15-year-old. Jesse Peterson helped him deal with his anger toward his absent father and taught him to forgive. A boy who once seemed destined to spend most of his life in prison is now a loving and committed father, husband, and Christian.
Non-Spiritual Solutions
John McWhorter (who recently became engaged; so much for the “advice,” readers!) is the author of several books, including Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America. Although John is not really a conservative, he’s called a conservative because he focuses on issues other than white racism. In fact, any black person is deemed “conservative” if his first reaction to a crisis in the black community is to look within instead of without.
[Read his latest, Making Do With Table Scraps.]
As an academic, he’s seen firsthand the self-defeating behavior in the black community and among some of his black students. He wrote about it in Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America.
John is not a Christian, so his approach to “moral reconstruction” is not based on the biblical model. He’s more moderate than black liberals think. He’s not opposed to some form of race preferences and believes in a kind of “leader” model for cultural change. John says we need to reach the people who need to hear the moral reconstruction message through the medium of TV and/or the celebrities they relate to, like popular hip-hop types. He also believes this group could be reached through a charismatic, under-50 black conservative woman with a TV show.
John places more of the blame on government than the people, a point challenged by Storm and Peterson. He talked about black communities at various points in time (1925, 1967, and now) and reflected on changes in family structure, male behavior, community reaction to unacceptable behavior, and how government made it easier for men to neglect their parental duties.
Ward Connerly (pictured below), author of Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences (which I reviewed in 2003), founded a group called the American Civil Rights Institute.
Vilified for his opposition to skin color preferences, Connerly led the charge against race- and sex-based preferences in public hiring and admissions in California. Proposition 209 was approved by 54 percent of California voters.
Connerly is the engine behind an effort to end preferences in Michigan. Despite strong opposition of a few groups, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (announcement) will appear on the November ballot.
The voters, and not the courts, will decide.
Connerly was raised by his grandmother and aunt, and his father figure was his aunt’s husband. He was nurtured and inspired by teachers and other authority figures growing up. Connerly concedes that fatherlessness in inner cities is at epidemic levels and believes we need to cultivate new role models. (He used the phrase “new institutions.”) No one and nothing can take the place of a loving, committed, residential biological father, but since too many black kids don’t have one, we need to seek alternatives.
As a Christian, I am biased. I believe profound and deep-rooted changes like Kerr’s take place only when Christ changes the heart. No government program or community revitalization plan will ever build moral character or inspire people to sacrifice for the good of others.
The panelists discussed many issues, and the audience asked good questions. This summary is my recollection of events, so don’t quote me. Instead, listen to the entire conference by downloading this MP3 file. (Right-click and select “Save As” to download it to your hard drive.)
- Previous post: Moral Reconstruction
- Related report from Rob Redding
