You searched for:

out-of-wedlock

Black poverty is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of single-mother homes

by La Shawn on March 11, 2009

in BC Wisdom

Pimps, Whores, and Welfare BratsFour 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!

The Thing Is Done!

by La Shawn on January 21, 2009

in Liberals - Obama

President Barack Obama***Scroll down for updates***

The thing is done. Barack Hussein Obama is America’s 44rd president and first biracial president. I almost – almost – envy black people excited about Obama. They really do have a pep in their step.

Yesterday truly was an historic moment for the United States. For better or for worse, Obama’s got four years to do his thing. In my world, values trump skin color, and I can’t get excited about the reign of someone whose system of belief is so different from my own, even if he’s half-black.

During the campaign, Obama said one of the first things he’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act into law. Since he thinks women have a right to commit infanticide, I believe him. Then again, he’ll be so busy dealing with friends and foes trying to cash in favors, he might forget.

Readers have asked for my opinion on the following portion of Rev. Joseph Lowery’s prayer:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest,
and in the joy of a new beginning,
we ask you to help us work for that day
when black will not be asked to get in back,
when brown can stick around,
when yellow will be mellow,
when the red man can get ahead, man;
and when white will embrace what is right.
That all those who do justice and love mercy
say Amen

I know white people are so weary of being made to feel responsible for everything wrong in the “black community,” from out-of-wedlock pregnancies, to the inability of people with bad credit to get home loans or, depending on which way the wind blows, their ability to get sub-prime loans, to the academic achievement gap, and on and on. Personally speaking, that is, I, myself, would rather be left alone. I don’t blame anyone else for my lot in life. It falls squarely on me. At least, that’s the way I choose to see it and how I conduct my life.

I understand how frustrating it can be that even in prayer, someone’s implying that you’re embracing what is wrong, that your efforts have been insufficient, that you must do more for people who are blessed to live in the greatest country in the world. Opportunities abound, but some people don’t want to do what it takes to seize them. Complaining and blaming are so much easier.

Somewhere along the way, equality of opportunity morphed into a desire for equality of outcome. But thanks to the true diversity of individuals – not just the skin deep-only kind – that won’t happen. Individuals will always have varying levels of talent, motivation, curiosity, drive…equality of outcome can only be produced by rigging the game and subsidizing the players.

Obama will be like any other president: going back on his promises, disappointing the base, etc. People who see him as some kind of great biracial hope who’ll bring together all the colors of the rainbow are deluded. He’s just a man. He has no magic powers. He doesn’t have the power to make rogue nations that hate us suddenly fall in love with us, for example. What he probably will end up doing is appeasing these nations. They will always hate the United States and live to see its destruction; an ally in the White House will make their efforts to destroy us easier.

Whoa! Pardon the digression. Back to Lowery. Keep in mind that he’s an 87-year-old black man who lived through Jim Crow. As co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Lowery was on the front lines of the civil rights movement. If anyone knows how this country once treated blacks, it’s Lowery. Make allowances for a man who witnessed something yesterday he didn’t believe he’d ever live to see.

Despite my difference of opinion with people like Lowery, I am grateful to him and to others for making the road easier and less steep for me.

(Photo credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing)

Update: Fabulous Carlotta Morrow writes, via Facebook:

“I agree with you about Lowrey. He offended many whites, but I just believe it came out the wrong way. Many of us oldies remember the phrases “black get back, white is right, and so on…” I took it to mean that those phrases have been wiped out but for those like you and me, we believe those phrases were wiped out long ago. Many were offended because it sounds like he’s still living in the past…as if Obama’s election meant nothing! The offense is understandable and Lowery needs to clarify if nothing else.”

Chastity in the City

by La Shawn on April 25, 2008

in Faith

Greetings! Yes, I still breathe. Just taking a blog break. I wanted to update the entry below, originally published on April 7, 2008. Steve at Hog on Ice wrote a response to my post called Abstinence and the Suburbs. While I don’t agree with everything he writes, his point of view is worth noting.

He mentions my “self-imposed celibacy.” To clarify, I am not celibate, which, although defined as abstention, is vowing not to marry. I have not vowed such a thing. I wish to marry, but I will remain abstinent until I do. The distinction is important for people struggling with this issue. Giving up premarital sex is not synonymous with giving up on or avoiding marriage.

Anyway, I’m en route to the left coast. See you next week, and rest easy!
———————————————————————————-

Dawn EdenI’m sure there are lots of chaste women living in cities all across America, but “Chastity in the City” doesn’t sell in Hollywood.

By chaste, I mean voluntarily abstaining from sex until marriage and from extramarital sex while married. Journalist, blogger, and author Dawn Eden says chastity is much more than being sexually abstinent or faithful. Check out her interview with John Hawkins of Right Wing News.

Buy a copy of Dawn’s book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On.

Is it worth buying? Read my review.

I’m considering writing a similar book about my road to sexual abstinence, among other things. I became abstinent shortly before becoming a Christian (I was going through a “Look at me. Aren’t I a good person?” phase), but it took on a spiritual meaning once I surrendered to Christ.

There is a crisis, to understate the matter, in the black community. About 75 percent (more in some cities) of black babies in the U.S. are born out-of-wedlock. That women should keep their legs closed until marriage is considered a naïve notion at best and a sexist/oppressive one at worst. Subversive is what it is.

Some people are offended by the expression “keep your legs closed.” Is it vulgar? Perhaps, but so is having babies with several different men without being married to any of them. What about the man’s responsibility? He shares it, for sure, but the book I have in mind will be geared toward young women, black women in particular, who either don’t know what God requires of them and those who know and don’t care, and somewhere along the way lost respect for themselves and forgot who they are in Christ.

I’ve written reams on illegitimacy and its impact on children. No point reinventing the microchip. Look up terms like “out-of-wedlock” and “fatherless.”

Education, the Global Economy, and You

by La Shawn on February 7, 2007

in Cultural Decline, Education, Illegal Aliens, Technology

globeAs baby boomers retire, the American workforce will become dumber and dumber…

…according to a new report from the Educational Testing Service.

Specifically, three factors are converging in a “perfect storm” that is turning the American labor force into a highly illiterate one, profoundly impacting our ability to compete: 1) the educational and skills gap between the races, 2) a global economy that rewards the educated and highly skilled; and 3) the influx of non-English speaking hispanic illegal aliens into the workforce.

Download the PDF version of “America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future.” The report also includes a brief history of the U.S. economy and the role education has played. I suggest you read it and draw your own conclusions because this post provides only a snapshot of its findings, interspersed with my highly biased commentary. This post by no means includes all arguments and points mentioned in the report or arguments relevant to education, jobs skills, poverty, the economy, or whatever else you can think of.

This Christian Science Monitor story summarizes the report.

Educational and Skills Gap

According to the report, blacks and hispanics “lag considerably” behind whites and Asians in educational achievement. The high school graduation rate for blacks is 50 percent, hispanics 53 percent, whites 75 percent, and Asians 77 percent. Although the U.S. ranks near the top in per-pupil spending, it ranks in the middle among international achievement.

[click to continue…]

{ 52 comments }

Baby Killing as a Civil Right

by La Shawn on January 22, 2007

in Child Killing, Liberals, Lunacy

babyUpdate III (1/23 @ 4:43 p.m.): I spent the day with a client, a lawyer who does pro bono work on right to life cases. She represents patients whose doctors are about to pull the plug, and she’s in D.C. to speak at an event sponsored by National Right to Life (NRLC).

Bobby Schindler (Terri Schiavo’s brother) is also a guest speaker. We stopped by the NRLC office this afternoon and met Terri’s sister Suzanne Carr, who’s in town for the event. Suzanne and Bobby travel the country talking about pro-life issues and helping families deal with the same problem they faced with Terri.

I need to get more involved with the right to life movement. There are so many people out there doing so much good work, but you don’t hear much about it. For instance, if your family member is in the hospital facing withdrawal of treatment, National Right to Life can put you in touch with lawyers in your state to help extend plug-pulling deadlines so you can transfer your loved one to a different facility.

Check out blogger Barbara Curtis’s photos from yesterday’s March for Life rally. More rally pics at Human Events.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Ramesh Ponnuru, author of The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, spoke at the Family Research Council’s March for Life conference. I heard only the last part of his presentation (good sense of humor, given the seriousness of the subject matter) and didn’t get to meet him.

[click to continue…]

{ 167 comments }

Conservative Cowardice

by La Shawn on September 8, 2006

in Conservatives

menUpdate II (9/10): Commenters who call anyone a racist in this comment thread — Derbyshire, other commenters, etc. — will be deleted. If you don’t see your comment, that’s why. Second offense, banned. Long time readers know I don’t allow it. It’s a conversation killer used to intimidate and an easy way to avoid challenging an argument. If you don’t know how to fomulate and articulate one, learn or leave.
——————————————————————-

Before I sign off for the weekend, I wanted to point you to an article by NRO contributor John Derbyshire, who’s probably too conservative for NRO.

In a lengthy essay titled “Race and Conservatism,” Derbyshire says that conservatives are cowards when it comes to discussing race.

After the Civil Rights movement, people who cared about racial equality thought, idealistically, that after barriers were lifted, blacks would “swiftly distribute themselves across America’s class, income, and status structure in the same proportions as their white fellow-citizens,” Derbyshire writes. That hasn’t happened and likely will never happen.

I don’t believe proportional distribution or representation is possible, given that black crime and out-of-wedlock birth rates are through the roof. These things have a negative impact on group, though not necessarily individual, advancement.

[click to continue…]

{ 33 comments }

McWhorter, Connerly, and Company

by La Shawn on July 26, 2006

in BC Wisdom, Conservatives, Faith, Pictures, Race Preferences

John McWhorterIf 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).

Ward Connerly and Grant StormReverend 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.

[click to continue…]

{ 33 comments }

New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi, on Lockdown

by La Shawn on June 22, 2006

in Lunacy

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s police force can’t police, so he called in state troopers and the National Guard. The spate of crime in the Big Easy has been in majority-black communities. Nagin waxed sentimentally about bringing back a “chocolate” New Orleans earlier this year. I doubt this is what he had in mind, though. Let the good times roll…

Today we learn that the police in Jackson, Mississippi, can’t police, either. Mayor Frank Melton declared a state of emergency and seeks to impose earlier curfews on minors. Jackson, by the way, is an overwhelmingly black city, so don’t cramp your brains trying to figure out who’s committing crimes.

To hear some people tell it, enslaved forefathers, Jim Crow (that their great-grandparents lived through), “institutional racism,” dirty looks from bigots, and too few federal dollars for government schools are the reasons why black youth are out of control, along with the out-of-wedlock birth rate.

No fathers at home to head families physically and spiritually, instill discipline, teach children to be honorable men and women, and to convey the importance of decent living has nothing to do with it, I suppose. :?

Update (6/23): Read about the biological importance of biological fathers. It seems that God knew what he was doing after all when he decreed the marital union and units of biologically related people.

Baby Daddy

by La Shawn on April 26, 2006

in Cultural Decline, Faith, Pop Culture

cake topperShortly after I sent Townhall.com’s editor my review of Star Parker’s White Ghetto, I read an op-ed called First comes baby, then comes marriage?, by Maryann Reid. As if the dire statistics in Parker’s book hadn’t depressed me enough, the op-ed disheartened me even more.

Black liberals have serious personal problems with me and my blogging. I write too much about negative things going on in the black community and too little that’s positive, they say.

My typical response was, “Start your own blog and write about positive things,” or “Stop reading my blog if it upsets you so much.” I’d already explained here and there why I blog the way I do, but I decided to confront the question head on.

A post called Do You Hate Black People may give the most straightforward answer to why I focus on certain topics.

Some have argued that as a high-profile and “educated” black blogger, I should do something to uplift blacks instead of always condemning them. I approach the controversy from a totally different perspective. I’m not condemning anyone; my sin is airing dirty laundry in front of a mostly white readership. There are plenty of black bloggers, writers, politicians, educators, etc., writing and talking about positive things going on in the black community. But too many for my taste gloss over what ails us.

Too many avoid the harsh truth. “Racism” is a cop-out and too absurdly childish for serious discussion. That’s why I skip it. You’ll never hear me say or write that racism doesn’t exist; I choose to focus on what we bring on ourselves.

[click to continue…]

{ 49 comments }

Liberal Columnist: Blacks Must Deal With Murder Rate

by La Shawn on January 10, 2006

in Liberals

According to Tuskegee Institute data, 3,445 black Americans were lynched in this country between 1882 and 1968. As horrific as that Jim Crow “justice” was, it pales compared with the black-on-black carnage now taking place.

Finally, someone other than a “sell out” black conservative is pointing fingers at the right people instead of blaming “white racism” on the fact that blacks kill other blacks at an alarming rate.

Dewayne Wickham is a black liberal columnist who’ll no doubt receive a Titanic-size load of hate mail about his latest column. He writes:

A distinguished group of black Americans will assemble in Washington next month to put finishing touches on a blueprint for uplifting their race. Called “The Covenant with Black America,” this plan is the product of a brain trust of black leaders — people committed to fixing what’s broken in black America.

wickhamThe 254-page document, a copy of which I obtained in advance of its scheduled late February release, is an action plan to make black people healthier, improve the education of black children, reduce the high black incarceration rate and help black Americans acquire wealth and become economically self-sufficient.

As important as all of this is, it doesn’t go far enough. (Source)

chart We’re all familiar with the Bureau of Justice Statistics numbers. The rates for blacks as victims and perpetrators are disproportionately high relative to our percentage of the populations.

Look at the chart of the right. Most of those black victims were victimized by black criminals, not white. Want to get really controversial? Guess what percentage of white victims was also victimized by blacks. For the answer, keep scrolling.

Although numbers can be manipulated, they don’t lie. If some want to argue that whites commit more crimes overall, go ahead. The fact remains that the black crime rate is disproportionately and scandalously high. Instead of being outraged by this, certain black liberals are outraged by the messenger’s nerve (guts?) to utter the message.

I searched for “Covenant with Black America” and found this. From the about section:

As we witnessed in the 2004 presidential election, Americans are deeply divided between race, class, gender, political ideology and moral values. A divide so extreme, that in order to bridge it, we must speak openly, freely, without judgment and work together.

(The site links to Tavis Smiley, who led last year’s unintentionally funny State of the Black Union.)

All well and good, but I hope people are ready to be honest even if it hurts. I’ll try to use my Pajamas Media credentials to get an advanced copy of that 254-page report and read what they propose. I’m most interested in what they have to say about the 70 percent (and climbing) out-of-wedlock birth rate.

Related post: Murdering Rapist Thug Brian Nichols Caught in Atlanta

{ 26 comments }

Justice Sunday III

by La Shawn on January 8, 2006

in Faith, Pictures

12:38 p.m.: Former Philadelphia Eagle Herbert Lusk is preaching against child murder, something the church is definitely supposed to do. They all need to shout it from the proverbial rooftops. But some Christians, unbelievably, support a woman’s “right” to have her unborn baby slaughtered in the womb.

Rev. Lusk said someone broke into the church last night shouting “Separation of church and state!” Several protest groups are in the city to demonstrate against Justice Sunday, so the person was likely part of one of those groups. I plan to talk to the reverend to get the scoop.

dinner with Justice Sunday bloggersThe picture on the right was taken at dinner last night. Starting from the left: Ed Morrissey and his wife, Charmaine Yoest and her husband Jack, Stacy Harp, “RightWingSparkle,” and me.

Stacy Harp is live-blogging, too.

2:17 p.m.: We’re sitting in Blogger’s Row, a special section in the press conference reserved for bloggers. The MSM have to scrounge for seats. Kind of cool. :)

2:53 p.m.: Stacy went outside with recorder and camera to interview one of the handful of protestors. Me? Not interested. Those people are crazy. :?

Me and Stacy HarpThe press conference will start soon, but the exciting stuff won’t happen unto tonight. Senator Rick Santorum, Alveda King (met her at Blacks for Life), James Dobson and Jerry Falwell are scheduled to speak. Stacy and I will try to get a joint interview with Rev. Lusk to find out details about the ranting leftist who broke into the church.

Let the games begin! Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, Rev. Lusk, Colin Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, Michael Geer, president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute.

I’m boldly pro-life, regardless of the political tide, but it’s a nice change being among other pro-lifers. :)

3:34 p.m.: Lusk makes sure everybody knows he’s not focused on black, white, left, or right. Good point. In theory. But protection of unborn life is something leftists don’t wholeheartedly support. Am I wrong? Prove it.

Main criticism: Too much “African American” thrown around. Just as Jesse Jackson’s use of the term mainstreamed it, I want my criticism of it to go mainstream.

Perkins is talking about the one issue that has brought together black and white evangelicals: opposition to homosexual marriage. Lusk says he’s looking forward to reaching across racial lines to fellow Christians. In my humble opinion, let the godless have their racial turf wars. Christians have better things to do.

About the church break in. Lusk says it was more of a service break in. During last night’s service, someone interrupted and started babbling about separation of church and state. Lusk joked that they “laid hands” on him and things calmed down. He says he doesn’t know what group the man represented. I want more details. :?

6:00 p.m.: Stacy, RightWingSparkle, Ed and I went outside to “interview” a group of three young, hopelessly naive, young leftist men in Jesus, protect me from your followers t-shirts holding “If you want a theocracy, go to Iraq!” signs. We concealed our political affiliation, especially me, because we wanted them to speak freely, and freely they spoke. :?

They believe that Christian judges would impose their “values” on the court. RightWingSparkle engaged them in conversation, and I’m sure she asked what they thought about the values of non-Christian judges. I’ll link to her blog.

We were joined by two homosexuals who wanted to get married but can’t because of George Bush. One told us about volunteering with the church to help kids learn to work with computers, and he saw a picture of Bush in Rev. Lusk’s office. “I mean, how can a black man have a picture of Bush in his office?”

protestors In atypical fashion, I held my tongue. After all, I’m there asking questions as a journalist, not an outspoken black conservative. For some reason the conversation shifted. He said he’d be just as upset to see a pic of Hillary Clinton on a pastor’s wall. Separation of church, and all that. Whatever. Same old separation of church and state fallacy.

On the right is a photo Stacy snapped when she went out alone to talk to the protestors. They lit torches, which is why you see smoke.

See the other bloggers: Charmaine Yoest, Ed Morrissey, Stacy Harp, and RightWingSparkle.

7:23 p.m.: The black preacher is preaching against out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Stop the presses! He’s speaking of God’s intent for the family. Lusk is talking about the rate of black abortion. People call him names for being a black conservative Christian. “We” are against abortion and homosexual marriage, he says. He’s mentioning discrimination against the people of God.

kingThe small photo on the right is of Alveda King and Rev. Herbert Lusk. My picture of Senator Rick Santorum didn’t come out right. :(

Dr. James Dobson is on the podium now. Don’t forget the blogging at the FRC blog.

Jerry Falwell has the floor. I don’t know why people seem to hate Jerry Falwell so much. A Christian man still pastoring a church who is concerned about the extreme secularization of society is all right with me. I hope Christians in America get off their butts (pardon the language) and start calling immoral and decadent things by their proper names. We need outspoken Christian bloggers, too.

Pray, then take action!

protest Another protest picture. Classy bunch of folks, aren’t they?

I must say, the speakers are preaching tonight. I’d like to get some of my white brothers’ and sisters’ impressions of this black church. As some of you may know, the worship styles of predominantly white and black churches are somewhat different (understatement), but we’re all appealing to the same Savior. ;)

8:25 p.m.: The evening is almost over. I was scheduled to go to the Capitol tomorrow morning and live-blog Judge Alito’s hearing and a Republican Committee conference, but I think not. I’m going home to reflect on what I’ve seen and heard tonight. Typos will be fixed tomorrow. Goodnight! :)

{ 41 comments }

How Not To Be Poor

by La Shawn on May 11, 2005

in BC Wisdom

How much does racial discrimination explain? So far as black poverty is concerned, I’d say little or nothing, which is not to say that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. But let’s pose a few questions. Is it racial discrimination that stops black students from studying and completing high school? Is it racial discrimination that’s responsible for the 68 percent illegitimacy rate among blacks?

“How not to be poor” is classic Walter Williams. When I first started writing my little column, I wrote about the same things and got plenty of hate mail for the trouble. What should be common sense is often viewed as “self-hatred” by black liberals. I argued that blacks’ biggest problem was their own behavior, which is true for any other human being.

I’d get e-mails with questions like this one, usually from black women who called themselves taking me to task: “You mean to tell me you don’t think racism still exists?”

[click to continue…]

{ 59 comments }

Cowboy Capitalism

by La Shawn on February 25, 2005

in Conservatives

Myron Magnet often writes about America’s underclass and failure of the 1960s-era War on Poverty. The underclass is loosely defined as the permanently poor in urban areas marked by such pathologies as generational underemployment, crime, drug use, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, grandmothers, mothers and daughters on welfare, etc. (Also see War on Poverty Revisited, by Thomas Sowell.) Where they live is referred to as “the Ghetto.”

As Magnet describes in the Opinion Journal:

[T]he sense of victimization and of entitlement to government support that the War on Poverty fostered created a corrosive self-pity and resentment among the children of its beneficiaries, and their children’s children. The self-pity led to drink and drugs; the resentment to crime and violence; and both together to a perpetuation of irresponsibility, dysfunction, and failure over the generations.

In the so-called War on Poverty, blacks have fared far worse than the rest. Because of existing institutionalized racism at the time, government handouts became a way for whites to relieve guilt. As a consequence, government-dependent blacks developed a sense of entitlement, which continues in 2005.

[click to continue…]

{ 80 comments }

Traditional Values Cause AIDS?

by La Shawn on December 21, 2004

in BC Wisdom

SPIf you believe the mainstream media (MSM), they do. The inference I get from MSM is that traditional values are repressive and stifling. People prefer to live life as if there were no consequences to behavior.

For instance, if someone is poor and unmarried and gets pregnant for the fifth or sixth time, unless they were raped, it is definitely their fault and should be their sole responsibility. But not in paternalistic, welfare-state America. When consequences inevitably smack people in the face, we’re all hit by flying debris.

It doesn’t take a particularly insightful person to see that the lack of traditional values is the problem when it comes to most of society’s ills. Star Parker tackles this and other issues in her latest column, writing about the alarming statistics of AIDS among black Americans. Lack of traditional values, in a sense, causes AIDS. Those are my words, not Parker’s. Controversial? Probably. But I believe it.

AIDS is now the No. 1 cause of death among African-Americans between the ages of 25 and 44.

Joseph Lowery, the former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, once said, “When America gets a cold, black America gets pneumonia.”

The “cold” that America has in this case is the ongoing politicization of our society and the breakdown of the traditional values that have been the glue that has held together the American family and our society. The symptoms of this “cold” are obvious: skyrocketing divorce rates and illegitimacy rates, declining test scores that result from a politicized and bureaucratized public-school system and politicization of our legal system that reflects the detachment of law from its moral foundations.

Whether we are talking about breakdown in family, education or law, the symptoms of this cold are more intense and protracted in the black community than in other communities. But it’s important to retain perspective that black social problems are symptomatic of a national problem. Irresponsible sexual behavior has no racial boundaries. The rate of out-of-wedlock births among whites today exceeds the rate among blacks 40 years ago.

[click to continue…]

{ 30 comments }

Walter Williams On Customs, Traditions And Moral Values

by La Shawn on December 3, 2004

in BC Wisdom, Faith

Walter Williams (tall one on the right) succinctly explains what I spend post after post trying to express. When I’m passionate about an issue, I tend to forget that you, the reader, may not get the point of a post or why I believe a particular subject is important. Sometimes I don’t articulate my views well — I use too many words or not enough or unclear examples to illustrate my point, etc.

That’s why I’m linking to Williams’s latest column. The last two paragraphs in particular sum up what I’ve been trying to explain to liberals when I assert that conservatism is better for our country. He writes:

Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth, and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works and what doesn’t.

Customs, traditions and moral values have been discarded without an appreciation for the role they played in creating a civilized society, and now, we’re paying the price. What’s worse is that instead of a return to what worked, many of us fail to make the connection and insist “there ought to be a law.” As such, it points to another failure of the so-called “great generation” — the failure to transmit to their children what their parents transmitted to them.

Liberals and others who believe that truth is relative fail to grasp what he means. Civilized society is civilized precisely because the majority of people follow a set of rules, some written (laws), others not (customs, traditions).

[click to continue…]

{ 66 comments }

← Previous Results