Message for people who shamelessly invoke the old “legacy of slavery” excuse and view the government as some sort of savior (emphases added):
“In 1940, when blacks were politically impotent, their poverty rate was 87 percent. By 1960, before blacks achieved much political power, it fell to 47 percent. During that interval, in various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled. Before 1960, there were no anti-poverty programs or affirmative action programs that can explain an economic advance that exceeded any other 20-year interval, though there were Truman and Eisenhower administration attacks on some of the gross forms of racial discrimination. A significant chunk of black progress occurred simply through migration from rural areas in the South to big Northern cities. Between 1960 and 1980, black poverty fell roughly 17 percent and continued falling to today’s 24 percent. The decline in black poverty between 1960 and 1980 might have simply been a continuation of a trend starting much earlier and cannot be attributed solely to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, President Johnson’s War on Poverty, or Richard Nixon’s affirmative action.
“Most of the major problems that many black people face are not amendable to political solutions and government anti-poverty programs. Let’s look at some. In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 15 percent. Today, only 35 percent of black children are born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 70 percent. Today’s breakdown of the black family is unprecedented. It began in the 1960s with the War on Poverty and the harebrained ideas of the welfare state. In the mid-1960s, Daniel Moynihan sounded the alarm about the breakdown in the black family in his book ‘The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.’ At that time black illegitimacy was 26 percent. Moynihan said, ‘(A)t the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of the Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family.’ He added, ‘The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.’ Moynihan’s observations were greeted with charges of racism and blaming the victim. By the way, the welfare state is an equal opportunity family destroyer. Today’s illegitimacy rate among whites, at nearly 30 percent, is higher than it was among blacks in the 1960s when Moynihan sounded the alarm. In Sweden, the mother of the welfare state, illegitimacy is 54 percent.”
– Walter Williams, Politics and Blacks
I try to avoid lazy blogging – posting a huge excerpt of an article and adding a sentence or two of my own opinion – but today I’ll be lazy because Shelby Steele’s recent article is a must-read, and long-time readers are familiar with my view on Republicans “reaching out” to blacks. I vote for Republicans based on shared values, and I will never understand why that’s not a good-enough way to attract anybody, regardless of race. However, I don’t think the GOP will ever attract a significant number of minorities (which is not a bad thing, by the way). Why? Here’s my theory.
Steele offers his theory in “Why the GOP Can’t Win With Minorities.” He writes:
“[C]onservatism sees moral authority more in a discipline of principles than in activism. It sees ideas of the good like ‘diversity’ as mere pretext for the social engineering that always leads to unintended and oppressive consequences. Conservatism would enforce the principles that ensure individual freedom, and then allow ‘the good’ to happen by ‘invisible hand.’
…
“What drew me to conservatism years ago was the fact that it gave discipline a slightly higher status than virtue. This meant it could not be subverted by passing notions of the good. It could be above moral vanity. And so it made no special promises to me as a minority. It neglected me in every way except as a human being who wanted freedom. Until my encounter with conservatism I had only known the racial determinism of segregation on the one hand and of white liberalism on the other — two varieties of white supremacy in which I could only be dependent and inferior.
“The appeal of conservatism is the mutuality it asserts between individual and political freedom, its beautiful idea of a free man in a free society. And it offers minorities the one thing they can never get from liberalism: human rather than racial dignity. I always secretly loved Malcolm X more than Martin Luther King Jr. because Malcolm wanted a fuller human dignity for blacks — one independent of white moral wrestling. In a liberalism that wants to redeem the nation of its past, minorities can only be ciphers in white struggles of conscience.
“Liberalism’s glamour follows from its promise of a new American innocence. But the appeal of conservatism is relief from this supercilious idea. Innocence is not possible for America. This nation did what it did. And conservatism’s appeal is that it does not bank on the recovery of lost innocence. It seeks the discipline of ordinary people rather than the virtuousness of extraordinary people. The challenge for conservatives today is simply self-acceptance, and even a little pride in the way we flail away at problems with an invisible hand.”
Four chapters into my novel (!), which I’ll blog more about once I’m finished the 75,000-word draft, I thought I’d take a break and point you to a column by the fabulous Star Parker (love her!).
All Star Parker’s op-eds are worth reading, especially the latest, alternatively titled, “We’re All Inner-City Blacks Now.”
Blacks are not given enough credit for being trendsetters in America.
Blacks started playing the blues, jazz, and R&B, then the rest of America started playing them.
Blacks discovered the politics of victimhood, then the rest of America started catching on.
Black women got into having babies without marriage. Then white women started getting into it (the incidence of white out-of-wedlock births today — almost 30 percent — is higher than the black rate in the 1960s).
Blacks bought into dependency and the welfare state. Now the rest of America has bought in.
Blacks for years elected politicians championing public policy that destroyed their own communities. Now the rest of America has installed a new political leadership with the perfect formula — run roughshod over private ownership, disdain traditional values, substitute political power for personal responsibility — for destroying our country.
…
As the black family collapsed, predictable social pathologies escalated. Crime, drugs, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, fatherless children, abortion and disdain for education.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Her point is that Big Government makes things worse. Visit Star Parker’s web site, CURE.
By the way, if you haven’t read her personal story, Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats: From Welfare Cheat to Conservative Messenger, and the wonderful Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can Do About It, you’re missing out.
Support conservative authors!
I must return to my fictional world. The characters assure me their story is worth telling, so I must listen. Ciao!
One of the reasons I’m wary of talking to mainstream media reporters and doing taped interviews for mainstream news shows is bias.
As a conservative and, let’s face it, a black conservative at that, I know there’s a fairly large gulf between my views and those of the reporters, producers, and most of the audience. I don’t trust those news organizations to be fair and accurately portray what I say.
Actor and conservative columnist Joseph C. Phillips, whom I consider a friend, appeared on CNN’s “Black in America,” a show (series?) I didn’t see because I don’t watch TV. (Remind me to share my “off TV” story sometime.) I can’t comment on the show’s content, but I believe Joseph when he says CNN gave his liberal counterpart much more time to make his point, while giving Joseph a mere sound bite that put him in a less than favorable light.
[click to continue…]
