April 2007

Update II (4/20): Last Friday, I participated on a panel organized and sponsored by the Booker T. Washington Society. Ron Court and Reggie Jones started the organization last year to commemorate the 150th birthday of Booker T. Washington, former slave, educator, public speaker, and writer.

The Booker T. Washington Society is committed to educating students about Washington and providing high school students with $1000 college scholarships. The Society also treats scholarship recipients to a few days in the Washington D.C., area to see historic sites and attend workshops, where they hear from black entrepreneurs and others. Last year, the panel I participated on focused on economics. This year, the group was smaller and the panel discussion was more intimate.

More importantly, all the panelists — me, Rev. Jesse Peterson, and Reggie Jones — are Christians. Court, who was moderating, is a Christian, too. Rather than beginning the discussion with Hurricane Katrina (the students were from New Orleans), each of us shared our personal testimonies and our ascent from the abyss, so to speak. Two of us currently own businesses, and one used to own a business. Jesse Peterson, who built a janitorial service from nothing, sold it and started an organization called Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND). The motto is “Rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man.”

Peterson operates a home for mostly black boys, where they must work to earn their keep and learn how to be responsible, decent men. Most of the boys, like many black children in this country, are not being raised by their fathers. Often vilified by ignorant blacks who can’t tolerate another black person who doesn’t blame whites for problems, Peterson truly cares about blacks, unlike so-called leaders in the professional civil rights industry.

Back to faith. The focus of the panel discussion was personal stories of faith and how that faith gave us the courage to clean up our lives and reach for our dreams. Afterward, I was pleasantly surprised that so many people thanked me for sharing my testimony. Unless otherwise indicated, I always assume most people in a group are not Christians. My assumption was wrong this time.

The group, which included students, a few teachers and parents, wanted suggestions on what to do about rising crime rates in New Orleans and how to reach black boys growing up without fathers. Peterson gave some “tough love” advice about helping boys to confront and forgive their absent fathers, to stop considering themselves victims of white racism, and to take responsibility for their children and for themselves as men. He also said they should stop listening to civil rights charlatans, who are in the business of keeping blacks angry.

Again, last year’s discussion centered around economic issues. This year, it was faith based. Economics won’t save these lost boys. Only Christ can do that, and it was a wonderful experience being surrounded by people who feel exactly the way I do.

Read about the changed life of a man who lived in Peterson’s group home as a teen.
———————————————————————————————————————–
Don Imus

To all the people who keep e-mailing me about Don Imus, STOP. To those who intend to, DON’T.

Here’s my obligatory statement: I’m embarrassed by the way some blacks have reacted to Imus’s remarks and thoroughly disgusted by their white enablers. As a multiracial society, America is rife with double standards. There’s one standard of acceptable behavior for whites, and another, much lower standard of acceptable behavior for blacks (of all socioeconomic classes). It’s shameful. Everybody knows it, but few will publicly admit it.

If black Americans in 2007 are this delicate and overreact to the slightest insults with this much unrighteous indignation, it’s pretty safe to say black people are not made the way they used to be, of stronger stuff, able to withstand truly demeaning and criminal treatment at the hands of true oppressors. It’s sad to know that the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of people who faced actual oppression are so much weaker, much less discerning, and much more undignified.

People like Jason Whitlock and John McWhorter and Michelle Malkin have expressed my own sentiments about the matter very well. I won’t be posting anything else about this subject, and there will be no discussions on this blog about it. If I decide to cover it in an op-ed, I’ll link to it. Moving on…

[Update 2:47 p.m.: This dumb Imus discussion has gone on for what...over a week? I've stayed out of it until this morning, adding my obligatory statement to the fray in the hopes that people will leave me alone about it...and Slate picks up the statement. "Power of the blogs," I guess.]

[click to continue…]