The whole question of race is a dicey one. Pity the poor fool who wades into those troubled waters. Well, here goes.
Whenever I start thinking about all the damage that’s been done to America by the social engineering Socialists, I have to remind myself that some of my best friends are left-wingers. That doesn’t do much for my blood pressure, but at least it serves to remind me that they’re not all as self-righteous as George Soros, as fatuous as Michael Moore, as smarmy as Jimmy Carter, as shrill as Nancy Pelosi, as hypocritical as John Murtha, Ted Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, or as deceptive as Barack Obama, the fellow with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate who has managed to convince millions of people who should know better that he’s a card-carrying centrist.
I didn’t include Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton among the usual suspects because it’s probably not fair to even call these two cheap race hustlers Democrats. In truth, they’re nothing but a couple of con men who’d probably be peddling the Brooklyn Bridge to foreign tourists if this black leader gig hadn’t panned out so well.
The whole question of race is a dicey one. Pity the poor fool who wades into those troubled waters. Well, here goes. If a black person tells the truth — namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted — he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom. If a white person tells the truth — namely, that with a 70% illegitimacy rate, no amount of government hand-outs will do anything but provide the cancer victim with a very expensive Band-Aid — he’s condemned as a racist.
When blacks say they wish to have a dialogue with whites, it only means that they want a forum at which to bash whites, while their victims provide a Greek chorus of mea culpas, provide the coffee and Danish, and drop a little something in the collection plate on their way out.
There is such a thing as white prejudice. No doubt about it. But it has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with character, culture and values. What blacks refuse to acknowledge is that whites are intolerant of crime and the creeps who commit it, be they black thugs or white trash. The latter are those lowlifes who form Aryan gangs; tattoo themselves with skulls and swastikas; and produce, distribute and use methamphetamines. I don’t know a single white person who isn’t ashamed to be of the same race as these vicious cretins.
But if a person such as Bill Cosby says he’s ashamed of the promiscuity, drug use and illiteracy, that plague the black underclass, he’s called names. The real shame should be that millions of black kids are fatherless; that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud; that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets; whose language skills are embarrassingly abysmal; and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library.
Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate niggers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration.
Actually, what most whites are is cowardly. When we see black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are,” and we pretend that theirs is a different, but equally fine culture as our own, we’re no better than those enablers who give money to drug addicts or booze to alcoholics.
When we finally stop patronizing loafers, louts and criminals, stop encouraging people who were born 120 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 20 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, to pretend that their sloth and ignorance are the fault of whites, only then will blacks come one step closer to having that colorblind society they claim they want.
You make several good points. But, I feel compelled to mention what you failed to mention, which is that white racism doesn't just extend to "black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are.”
We like to pretend that "intelligent" whites can tell the difference between a gangster rapper let's say, and a Barack Obama. But the truth is, many cannot. Even when encountering intelligent people of color who speak American English as it is taught in schools, who dress conservatively, who share values with mainstream America, the honest to God truth is that many whites will disregard the differences, still assume the worst, and treat these people of color as second class citizens. That's the reality in this country, whether we like to acknowledge it or not.
That's a fantasy perpetuated by minorities so they can continue to pretend that racism is alive and well and thriving as opposed to rare and on it's death bed.
People who dress professionally, talk proper English, and who don't come across as a threat will not be treated the same as some punk walking around looking like a gang member…anywhere.
Just because the self-professed leadership of the black community seems to knock down the Cosby types in favor of the Mumias, doesn't mean the rest of us do. And it's time that the black community got that through their heads.
All I can say to the above poster is: I guess you've never attended or seen footage of the Democratic National Convention. For "whites" (that phrase being a racist term in and of itself since it categorizes thousands of different and diverse cultures and races spanning several continents by their skin color) being so overtly and intrinsically racist, it's amazing how all you ever hear in any public outlet is ridiculous self-loathing and pandering by anyone with skin a shade lighter than "hispanic". Equally amazing is that this majority of intrinsically hateful "whites", wielding all of the power and resources, are the one's responsible for the dissolution of slavery and passage of the several Civil Rights Acts and affirmative action initiatives, which are now nothing more than government sanctioned reverse-racism programs to facilitate the group reparations owed by every "white" person to every "person of color", regardless of whether or not their ancestors were even in this country at the time.
Burt,
Good piece. All I can say is I hope that isn't your primary personal email address you have listed…
Amen, Brother Prelutsky! As the saying goes, the hardest thing to do is to state the obvious. Or maybe that's the second hardest thing, with acting upon a statement of the obvious in the #1 slot.
"People who dress professionally, talk proper English, and who don’t come across as a threat will not be treated the same as some punk walking around looking like a gang member…anywhere."
You are obviously NOT speaking from any personal experience. How could you possibly know unless you've walked a mile in a minority person's shoes? No, my friend, while I never make the common mistake of saying that ALL white people treat educated minorities with disrespect, it is a common enough reality. It's amazing that so many "conservatives" like to pretend that racial hatred just doesn't exist. It is YOUR idea that is in fact fantasy. Pure fantasy.
"How could you possibly know unless you’ve walked a mile in a minority person’s shoes?"
First of all, let me turn the question around and ask what qualifies you to speak in generalizations about "white" or "conservative" people? Second, tell me, concerned minority, because I've always wanted to know. How many Hungarian/Irish Americans are there? Because I think that's probably a fairly rare mix. I wouldn't be surprised if I was in a minority myself with that kind of heritage. Now lets see how the privileged Irish and Hungarians in my lineage have been treated… Well, there was that warm reception that Irish people received when they got off the boats at New York Harbor to signs in shop windows that read "No dogs or Irish", and the ethnic violence between the more established groups. Or then there was that little flap in WWII when thousands of Hungarians were thrown into death camps and either worked until they died, or experimented upon in sick research trials that would make Kunta Kinte's stomach turn. Yes, a truly privileged class I'm descended from. Unlike today's "minorities", however, I don't dwell on that and use it as an excuse to be an institutional victim.
But since nobody else is qualified to speak on behalf of a "minority", or "the persecuted", let me tell you a little story about "cultural diversity" that I DO know from first hand experience. This past summer, I was strolling down the Las Vegas strip one night getting some photographs. As I was walking through the typical crowd, I was shoulder-checked by a black guy walking the opposite direction. He was in typical hip-hop garb, including a du-rag, oversized jersey, chains, and pants around the mid-point of his butt. As he shouldered past me, he turned his head towards me and said "Watch yourself". You know what? He was a punk with a bad attitude and a chip on his shoulder. No excuses, no ifs or buts. Now put yourself in my position. Lets say that a white guy with his head shaved shouldered you around and told you to "watch yourself". You would feel the exact same way, for the exact same reason. Now do you think my attitude toward a black man in a suit who strolled past me like everybody else that evening would be the same as my attitude toward to the the guy who was acting like a punk? Would your attitude towards a white guy in a suit be different than your attitude toward the skinhead? The fact of the matter is that "white" people are so desperately afraid of being branded the dreaded "R" word (I mean racist, no republican) that black punks like the one I encountered get a pass. White punks don't get excuses made for them. The KKK is a defunct organization with a reputation as shameful as Hitler in the "white" community today. The Black Panthers and Nation of Islam are celebrated "civil rights" pioneers in popular media. That's a double standard. Michael Richards was put through the ringer by his fellow "white" people for saying "nigger", but not a single mention was made in any coverage of the event of the black hecklers who responded by calling him a "white boy cracker-ass mother f***er". And I can't recall a single instance in the popular media where Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton have been held responsible by the the black community for spewing racist vitriol about Jews and "whites", respectively. One racist group of hate mongers is not any better than another because they hate on behalf of a different group. THAT my friend is "pure fantasy".
Amen, Pat, amen. I hate double standards
While polite demeanor, proper English, and good attire are not guarantees of success, the lack thereof is a guarantee of failure.
Why?
As a supervisor, I pondered why professional dress was important, because we had no dress code. After all, Albert Einstein dressed a little strangely; why judge by external appearances?
I had an employee once who dressed like this: old sneakers, jeans, white shirt, red bow tie, a beard, a butch haircut, and a beret. The clown was a bloomin’ dandelion. I concluded that if you didn’t care what I thought of you, you just didn’t care about me. You can’t even survive in a competitive society, much less succeed, if you are constantly sending a message of defiance; and fortunately we seemed to be reaching the asymptotic limits of the Victim Industrial Complex.
Written to liberal commentator Tom Head 4/7/2007
Dear Tom,
Unbelievable that a person of our day and age would still have his Head completely mired in the muck when it comes to racism. You talk glibly of institutional racism and hidden racism by white people. Ok, let’s talk about this. How about what I see every time I turn on the TV or watch a movie?
The nerd, the wimp, the dummy, the crook, the slime ball, the lowlife, etc. are always cast as white males. This is of course by default when it comes to white or female writers and downright racism on the part of black writers.
Blacks are always shown as the judge, the philosopher, the savior, the intellectual, the advisor, the muscle man, the sex symbol, etc.
Now let’s look at black comedy shows, shall we? We have 30-60 minutes of open forum for black writers to spew unbridled verbal hate towards white people, white neighborhoods, white institutions, etc. Nothing is too nasty.
Why don’t you watch some of these shows, copy the script, change out every “white” for “black” and then see if you think the script might be racist.
How about racist assaults? The U. S. Justice Department has said that 85% of all racial attacks have been made upon whites – by blacks. That’s right. That comes from the Department of Justice! Now consider that black population is only one fifth the size of the white population. Now what does the percentage look like? About 95%? Oh, and let’s not forget that it is almost impossible to get anyone to listen to a white guy complaining about a racist assault from a black guy and even harder to get a conviction (because, as we know, blacks are not racists and that white motivation is always racist). Now we see that virtually every racial attack in this country is by a black person against a white person. Of course, you see nothing at all do you? All you do is rant about imaginary white people attacking blacks.
Oh, yes. That reminds me of the case at Washington State University. White racists were supposedly writing hate letters to the school paper. It then came to light that these letters were actually being written by the “Diversity” Dept. of Washington State University. What was their motivation? Well, they said there was no hate going on so they decided to stir something up to “raise awareness” or some other flimsy excuse. Of course, they were not fired and there was little outcry!
Does Duke University say anything to you? What about all the black people who were yelling for them to be sent to jail, guilty or not, because they were white?
How about the “Rev” Farrakhan? No hater there. The “Rev” Al Sharpton? No way! (how did they get to be men of God anyway?)
How about the racial killing of a young white man in Seattle during the Mardi Gras there? The guy who killed him wasn’t even brave enough to give him a chance – he snuck up and hit him in the back of the head with brass knuckles – I guess his closed fist wasn’t enough. What was the young white man’s crime? Well, he rushed to the aid of a young woman who was being attacked by – a group of black women. Turns out they were friends of the killer. Of course the prosecutor, Norm Mailing, did not file racism or conspiracy charges. No conspiracy here. Nope! No racism! Huh?
I have been told that this racist murderer is now free after only serving a couple of years – and is now the hit of the black party circuit! Kind of reminds you of OJ doesn’t it?
And you dare open your filthy mouth about racism?
Concerned Minorities still do not seem to want to face up to the facts and want to again cry and whine about :"misunderstanding" and "having to walk in black shoes". The truth is in the number of assaults on whites by blacks as detailed by The US Department of Justice. Again, for those who don't already know, 85% of all racial attacks are made on people with white skin by people with black skin. I have personally felt the blows of a blck man's fist when my only crime was riding on a city bus – or perhaps some Concerned Minorities out there would say that it was my fantasy.
Proper English or dress have nothing whatever to do with black racism. Being beaten, robbed, verbally abused and threatened do, when it comes down to it. Economics is another smoke screen. Some would try to say that attacks are economic and not racist. When I was assaulted, there were two black men in suits on the bus standing next to me. They were not touched and in fact turned their backs on me and pretended nothing was happening – perhaps that was their Christian way of "turning the other cheek".
No, black racism is black racism and while many will choose to ignore it, none can say it does not exist. I'm sure some Concerned Minorities will still pooh, pooh the reality, but then why not? Surely it is for their own gain and enrichment. They love to keep the hate alive because they aren't the ones who have to suffer. Perhaps with a little more work and the existance of websites and writers like Burt Prelutsky we may still have hope.