Book Review

Sub(urban) Renewal

Stop pointing fingers at inner cities, says Star Parker to Middle America, and start looking in the mirror. In White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay, the self-admitted former welfare queen and president/founder of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) makes clear that moral decay permeates all classes.

Parker investigates the causes of America’s rampant moral breakdown, touches on major themes of the cultural war (sex education in taxpayer-supported schools, the normalization of homosexuality, radical feminism, child killing, etc.), and cites statistics and sources to support her main argument. A “radicalized progressive liberalism,” Parker contends, “has usurped the authority of our founding fathers.” Promising much and delivering little, this form of liberalism has undermined the Judeo-Christian ethic that made America strong.

Liberalism, for all its good intentions, has also usurped the authority of fathers, especially in low-income neighborhoods. While liberal politicians and media blamed the government for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for example, they failed to consider (or at least admit publicly) that high illegitimacy rates in New Orleans played a big role. “Many of these ‘families’ had no father or husband to lead them out, provide them with the necessary shelter and food, or protect them from the appalling conditions that followed,” Parker writes.

No armchair commentator lecturing from an ivory tower, Star Parker has lived in the trenches and knows firsthand what it’s like to be dependent on government and independent of God. After escaping the government plantation, Parker became an entrepreneur, speaker, and author. Her provocative book titles only hint at the no-nonsense, politically incorrect wisdom inside.

Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats: From Welfare Cheat to Conservative Messenger is a semi-autobiographical account of Parker’s former life cheating the system and living in ungodliness. She takes on so-called black leaders for their complicity in keeping the plantation running.

In Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can Do About It, Parker admonishes Big Government and its system of dependency. “Uncle Sam has developed a sophisticated poverty plantation, operated by a federal government, overseen by bureaucrats, protected by the media elite, and financed by taxpayers,” she wrote.

In White Ghetto, Parker is true to form and isn’t shy about her faith or what ails the nation, sidestepping convoluted explanations and excuses for problems in America’s ghettos. I share her belief that black America’s biggest crisis is immorality, not racism. While higher rates of crime, illegitimacy, AIDS, abortion, drug abuse, etc., disproportionately affect inner city neighborhoods, such pathologies are reflected across the nation. Parker writes:

[B]lack social problems are symptomatic of a national problem. Irresponsible sexual behavior has no racial boundaries…Middle America is skilled at condemning faceless gang members whose arbitrary bullets cut short random lives. But we are blind to our own corruption. We criticize the welfare mother for not paying her own way while racking up thousands in debt on our Visa. Rather than addressing teenage sex through abstinence programs, we allow the public education system to cart our children off to abortion mills and alternative lifestyle seminars. We demand the government be held responsible for the effects of natural disasters instead of turning to God and ourselves. Our button-down shirts, eco-friendly cars, and café lattes disguise morals no better than those of the drug dealers in the Bronx.

Parker doesn’t let anyone off the hook. In a section called “Faith In The Ghetto,” she asserts that while we blame Hollywood and Supreme Court rulings on society’s “moral mudbath,” Hollywood and judges aren’t solely to blame. Producers, writers, and even politicians are driven by the market. “In other words, it is us,” Parker writes.

Despite many alarming statistics on America’s moral decay, Parker still believes there is hope through so-called values voters. She briefly reviews the outcome of the 2004 election and the role moral values played in George W. Bush’s reelection, and writes:

Skeptics contend that the election of Bush and the Republican Congress was not over moral issues…But how can that theory be correct when Bush openly shared his views on abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, and stem-cell research throughout the campaign?

Parker attributes Republican victories in 2004 to “radical liberal policies” of the last 30 years. Middle America fought back at the polls, and the voting power of this “Moderate Middle” is growing.

Parker’s 238-page book broadly covers many topics, and I found myself wanting more detailed, fleshed-out arguments and personal stories. Parker is most effective when sharing personal stories. At a recent book forum for White Ghetto, she talked about her early days as a speaker. She thought she was merely sharing her Christian faith and discussing biblical solutions to poverty, but other blacks labeled her a “black conservative.” In the book she shares this anecdote:

[M]y organization once sent out a press release saying that reforming Social Security with personal retirement accounts would be good for blacks. I received a one-sentence e-mail from the editor of a black newspaper calling me an Uncle Tom….It is generally assumed in the African American community that a black Republican is successful because he or she has sold out to the establishment. Again, truth is not important. Only the image that falls in line with a liberal worldview.

Parker boldly ventures into territory I’ve found difficult to navigate: Christ-professing people who vote for abortion- and homosexual marriage-supporting politicians. Most surprising (and confusing) is that generally, blacks consider themselves quite religious, regardless of party affiliation. A Pew Research Center survey showed that a higher rate of black respondents than white respondents said religion played a “very important” role in their lives. “If intensity measures religiosity,” writes Parker, “then African Americans are the most religious of all Americans…Yet churchgoing blacks continue to overwhelmingly support welfare-state politics and politicians.”

It is not enough to profess faith; one must live it every day, even at the polls. Although the 2004 election was seen as a victory for moral values, another election is looming. This one may be a loss. “It is up to us to engage in the cultural war and complete the task at hand,” Parker writes. Freedom and morality built this country; only freedom and morality will sustain it.

What happens if we don’t fight? Parker says “we’d better get used to life in the ghetto.”

Originally published April 26, 2006, on Townhall.com

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