Playing the Black Card

L. Todd Wood: Whose Fault Is It?

This essay was published today at ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT.

L. Todd Wood, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, flew special operations helicopters supporting SEAL Team 6, Delta Force and others. After leaving the military, he pursued his other passion, finance, spending 18 years on Wall Street trading emerging market debt, and later, writing. The first of his many thrillers is “Currency.” Todd is a contributor to Fox Business, Newsmax TV, Moscow Times, the New York Post, the National Review, Zero Hedge and others. For more information about L. Todd Wood, visit LToddWood.com

By L. Todd Wood – – Tuesday, September 26, 2017
ANALYSIS/OPINION: 

I know of no white person alive today in the United States who has ever legally owned a black slave, or any slave for that matter. Almost 700,000 mostly white men died 160 years ago to end slavery. Jim Crow ended generations ago. Yet black America, for the most part, is still locked in inner-city gang violence and economic hardship. Why? 

Is it because America is racist? Is it because of some overhanging white privilege supremacy? Is it because of the Illuminati?

No, unfortunately, it is because of black culture and LBJ’s War On Poverty in January 1964, and the adoption of the Progressive Democratic Party’s BIG government dependency. 

We have just had eight years of the first black president. Black athletes, and entertainers, routinely earn multi-million dollar incomes. I can easily name several black billionaires without even trying too hard. A large percentage of black America is very successful. But, it is not enough. Too many black youth are being left behind.

And it is no one but black America’s fault.
No one can solve this problem but black America. No one can throw enough money at it. We’ve been doing that since 1964, to the tune of $22,000,000,000,000 (that’s trillion with a T). Black America needs to look in the mirror and stop blaming others, especially white people.

I am obviously white and conservative, and I served in the military, which, during my time, was as color blind as you could be. I can also honestly say I don’t give a damn what color your skin is, neither do any of my friends. I do care about your actions. 

Blacks are around 15 percent of the population. Depending on what study you look at, they commit around 40 percent to 50 percent of violent crimes in America (mostly against each other). Of course, there is going to be a problem with police. And, of course, there are some bad policemen. However, those bad apples do not kill black people statistically anymore than they kill white people. Even Harvard University research said that recently. If you were a cop, and you had to work in a neighborhood infested with crime and murder, wouldn’t you act differently than in a neighborhood where there was little to no crime? The most effective thing black America could do to improve its relationship with police is to significantly reduce violent crime where they live. Yes, that means change the culture of where you live and your community. 

I for one am tired of being blamed. I am tired of dealing with people who only want something from others I don’t oppress anyone. I don’t hold anyone down. I’m tired of getting on the D.C. metro and seeing white people being harassed by roaming gangs of black youth with their pants around their knees. Yes, you want a white person uncomfortable? That makes me uncomfortable. It’s our nation’s capital and it’s embarrassing. 

Blacks have nothing but opportunity in America. Try finding the same opportunity anywhere else in the world. If you are born in America, you’ve won life’s economic lottery. Take advantage of it. 

The problem is this generation has been taught an agenda of social justice and cultural Marxism by our public education system. They’ve been taught to be a victim, and it’s still going on. All you have to do is watch the young black, female student at Yale screaming at the college president to understand that. Blacks in America don’t even know how good they got it. 

Don’t kneel when my anthem is played. Too many people died for that flag. You are free to protest but not then. I am free to not watch, or pay to watch you play if you do that. The NFL should make it a rule that you stand for the national anthem. There is no free speech to disobey a private employer on private property. This would solve the problem immediately.

The NFL has deeply offended most of America. They will pay an economic and reputational price, as they should.

We have a real cultural problem in this country, the result of the Progressive Democratic-Socialist- Communist-Leftist multicultural agenda. Multi-ethnicity is perfect and should be encouraged. Having more than one American culture is destroying the country. But then again, that is exactly what the Progressive Democratic Party Leftists want and encourage.

Calling Good People "Racist" Isn't New: the Case of Ty Cobb

From Prager U.

Are The Police Racist?

The Unfortunate Legacy of President Barack Obama

Jason Riley: An Alternative Black History Month

(photo from Wikipedia)

Jason Riley, a senior fellow at The Manhattan Institute, and a WSJ contributor, wrote an Opinion piece, published in today's Journal, in which he posits: Black History Month's sunset might seem long overdue, but the celebration is too useful politically for that to happen anytime soon.  You won't be hearing about the rising black middle class or intact two-parent families of the 1950s.

Here's the full editorial:

An Alternative Black History Month

You won’t be hearing about the rising black middle class or intact two-parent families of the 1950s.

By JASON L. RILEY

Feb. 9, 2016 7:20 p.m. ET

Black History Month, which began as Negro History Week some 90 Februarys ago, was meant to be temporary. Its founder, historian Carter G. Woodson, envisioned a time when black history would be incorporated with American history and no longer require separate recognition. Woodson’s optimism was warranted.

Americans today are led by a black president in the fourth year of his second term. Martin Luther King’s birthday is a national holiday. The likeness of Harriet Tubman or Rosa Parks might soon grace U.S. currency, if the majority of people surveyed prevails. And it has been decades since school curricula excluded black perspectives and accomplishments. Black History Month’s sunset might seem long overdue, but the celebration is too useful politically for that to happen anytime soon.

Woodson died in 1950, a few years before the civil-rights movement found its stride. In the post-1960s era, black leaders turned that movement into a lucrative industry, and Black History Month helps keep them relevant. February is not simply about highlighting the achievements of people like voting-rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer or the Buffalo Soldiers who served in the Spanish-American War.

It is also about using racial identity to advance groupthink and to discourage black individuality. It is about presenting the history of blacks as the history of their victimization by whites up to the present day—which explains racial disparities in areas ranging from school achievement and household income to rates of unemployment, incarceration and single-parent homes.

The irony is that black history in the first half of the 20th century is a history of tremendous progress despite overwhelming odds. During a period of legal discrimination and violent hostility to their advancement, blacks managed to make unprecedented gains that have never been repeated. Black poverty fell to 47% from 87% between 1940 and 1960—before the implementation of Great Society programs that receive so much credit for poverty reduction. The percentage of black white-collar workers quadrupled between 1940 and 1970—before the implementation of affirmative-action policies that supposedly produced today’s black middle class.

In New York City, the earnings of black workers tripled between 1940 and 1950, and over the next decade the city saw a 55% increase in the number of black lawyers, a 56% increase in the number of black doctors and a 125% increase in the number of black teachers, according to political scientist Michael Javen Fortner’s new book, “Black Silent Majority.” The number of black nurses, accountants and engineers grew at an even faster clip over the same period. “There are signs that the Negro has begun to develop a large, strong middle class,” wrote Time magazine in 1953.

You don’t hear much about this black history during Black History Month (or any other month, for that matter) because it undercuts the dominant narrative pushed by the political left and accepted uncritically by the media. The Rev. Al Sharpton and the NAACP have no use for empirical evidence of significant black socioeconomic gains during the Jim Crow era, because they have spent decades insisting that blacks can’t advance until racism has been eliminated. If racism is no longer a significant barrier to black upward mobility and doesn’t explain today’s racial disparities, then blacks may have no use for Mr. Sharpton and the NAACP. The main priority of civil-rights leaders today is self-preservation.

Many factors could plausibly explain black progress in the first part of the 20th century. The post-World War II economy was booming, and blacks were steadily increasing their years of education, which increased their levels of compensation. Mass migration from the South meant that more blacks had access to the higher-paying jobs in the North.

The black family was also more stable during this period. Every census from 1890 to 1940 shows the black marriage rate slightly higher than the white rate. In 1925 five out of six black children in New York City lived with both parents. Nationally, two out of three black children were being raised in two-parent homes as recently as the early 1960s. Today, more than 70% are not.

Black nuclear families used to be the norm. Now they are the exception. Jim Crow did less damage to the black family than well-intentioned Great Society programs that discouraged work and marriage and promised more government checks for having more children. But that black history is also kept largely under wraps by those who have a vested interest in blaming the decimation of the black family on slavery and discrimination.

Much of what ought to be studied, duplicated and celebrated in black history is often played down or willfully ignored. And so long as the media allow civil-rights activists and liberal politicians with their own agendas to speak for all blacks, that won’t change.

Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor, is the author of “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” (Encounter Books, 2014).

Bishop E.W. Jackson: The Truth about Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood

The following is from CNSNews.com:

(CNSNews.com) - At a press conference outside the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday, Bishop E.W. Jackson said that if Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had her way Civil Rights Movement leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks "would never have been born."

The press conference brought together a group of black pastors and pro-life leaders who are demanding that the portrait gallery, which is a part of the federally funded Smithsonian Institution, remove a bust of Margaret Sanger.

The bust is featured in the gallery’s “The Struggle for Justice” exhibit, which focuses on historical equal rights achievements in America. Depictions of King and Parks are featured in the exhibit nearby Sanger’s bust.

“So even though, for PR purposes, she went from talking about eugenics to talking about birth control, her commitment to stopping the growth of the populations of those that she considered to be unfit or defective or unworthy continued,” Jackson said. “She said this: ‘We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.'

“Planned Parenthood is nothing more than a euphemism for Planned Death for the people that Margaret Sanger thought should not exist,” said Jackson.

“To think that her bust sits alongside MLK and Rosa Parks!” he said. “If Margaret Sanger had her way MLK and Rosa Parks would have never been born.”

Jackson is the president of   STAND (Staying True to America’s National Destiny).

On Thursday, after the press conference, he delivered a petition signed by 14,000 calling for the Smithsonian to remove Sanger’s bust.

Bill Shuey: The Disaster of Inner Cities

That's Bill Shuey, a freelance writer in North Carolina. He's an old friend of a special friend.  He posted this piece (emphasis added) about "The Inner Cities" on his blog, on May 9, 2015.

The reoccurring melodrama that is the disaster of America’s inner cities has surfaced again, and in Baltimore this time. There is nothing really new in the on-going upheaval – just another dead druggie and a community in revolt because of his demise.

Interestingly, it seems that the police rarely kill a young black man who is well dressed and on his way to work, school, or church. For some unknown reason the recipient of the bullet or the harsh treatment are always the least functional of society. Yes, I know that every human life has value, but some lives are far more valuable than others.

As in Ferguson, MO, the street thugs and chronic unemployed are out in the streets in mass attempting to fill the void between their welfare income and what others work for by stripping store shelves. The mayor of Baltimore actually encouraged this sad criminal behavior by suggesting that they should be allowed to steal and destroy as they chose. Nice policy, unless you own property that is being destroyed.

The federal government has sunk $1.8 billion into Baltimore in just the past few years. The population of the Baltimore metropolis is 2.7 million, which indicates a fund breakdown of 665 dollars per individual. But that figure is highly misleading because not a dime of the money went to the suburbs or the more affluent areas – it all went to the inner city. Unfortunately federal money is funneled through city governments, where it is diverted to things that have little, if any benefit to the folks who actually need help. And of course there is always the city council member who just happens to have a cousin or uncle who owns a business that needs some income. The milking of the white cow is after all the national pastime!

There are systemic problems in the inner cities of America, and they are neither new nor unique to Baltimore. Leading the roll of unfortunate circumstances is the fact that marriage and the presence of a father figure in the home is a rare occurrence. Also, there seems to be little motivation to attend school for the purpose of actually attaining an education – 55% of fourth graders can’t read! Fifty percent of students actually complete high school – far fewer truly receive a diploma! Thus, if there were jobs available in the inner city, there would be few individuals who could read a job application or perform the tasks associated with today’s mechanized work environment.

The desire to advance socially and economically does not seem to afflict the residents of the inner city. The insidious intentions of government to help the lower class have bred dissatisfaction by providing just enough to exist and curbing any desire to achieve. The results are people who are resentful, basically helpless, have little foresight or ambition, and more than willing to destroy what they did not build.

The mayor, police commissioner, prosecuting attorney, the president of the Baltimore city council, and most other Baltimore officials are black – what could only charitably be termed black leadership is inept and ineffectual. The self-appointed reverends who come into the inner cities are there for the face time and are little more than parasites – what have they ever done to make anything better for the citizens of Baltimore? Until the residents of the Baltimore’s of America decide to want effective representation, and something more than existence – nothing can change – and that is the sad truth.

If you are reading this article in the hopes of finding some solution to the chaos that is America’s inner cities – you came to the wrong place. From the White House to the outhouse, the resounding cry is RACISM. This is the constant convenient drumbeat that allows the politicians who have actually created this mess through their ineptness, promotion of racial divisiveness, and failed policies to hide behind the term and avoid any responsibility.

I am not a pessimist by nature, but I see no resolution for the problems that plague the ghettos. Throwing tax dollars at the problem may help cleanse the souls of politicians but does nothing to heal the problems!

 

Jason Riley: Black Liberals and Other Racists

Jason Riley, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and member of the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal, could be the second coming of Thomas Sowell.  He wrote today a piece entitled: Black Liberals and Oklahoma's Video Racists, in which he exposes once again the identity politics of the left - especially those in the media and the self-anointed black leaders.  The contrast between the Liberal meme and the reality is striking.

First the Liberal Meme:

The black left... specializes in scouring America for signs of remnant racism and seizing on them as evidence that little or nothing has really changed. So long as we have to live among the Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundys or those frat boys on the bus, the argument goes, racial gaps in academic achievement, employment, criminal behavior and other areas will persist.

But here's the reality:

Our majority-white country has a twice-elected black president who, in 2008, outperformed both John Kerry (in 2004) and Al Gore (in 2000) among white voters in states such as Texas, Georgia and the Carolinas. Hispanics govern New Mexico and Nevada, and Asians govern Louisiana and South Carolina, which also has a black senator. Yet Mr. Blow (a black columnist for the New York Times) cites the University of Oklahoma episode as proof that white racism in the U.S. today is “immeasurable” and “unyielding.”

Thomas Sowell: Racism and George Zimmerman

Dr. Thomas Sowell takes the mainstream media to task for once again (in the Trayvon Martin case) "filtering and slanting the news to fit their own vision of the world."

"One of the first things presented in the media was a transcript of a conversation between George Zimmerman and a police dispatcher. The last line in most of the transcripts shown on TV was that of the police dispatcher telling Zimmerman not to continue following Trayvon Martin.

"That became the basis of many media criticisms of Zimmerman for continuing to follow him. Only later did I see a transcript of that conversation on the Sean Hannity program that included Zimmerman’s reply to the police dispatcher: “Okay.”

"That reply removed the only basis for assuming that Zimmerman did in fact continue to follow Trayvon Martin. At this point, neither I nor the people who assumed that he continued to follow the teenager have any basis in fact for believing that he did or didn’t."

You can read the article on National Review Online by clicking on the link below: 

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/297172/racism-and-george-zimmerman-thomas-sowell

Negroes with Guns: Ann Coulter

A World War II Marine veteran, Robert F. Williams, wrote "Negroes with Guns," published in 1962 and available HERE.  It's the story "of a southern black community's struggle to arm itself in self-defense against the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups."


Ann Coulter's column today at Human Events discusses the lessons of the book in light of the hyper reported Trayvon Martin case and the subsequent ill-advised demand by some for tighter gun control laws.

We don't know the facts yet, but let's assume the conclusion MSNBC is leaping to is accurate: George Zimmerman stalked a small black child and murdered him in cold blood, just because he was black.

If that were true, every black person in America should get a gun and join the National Rifle Association, America's oldest and most august civil rights organization.

Apparently this has occurred to no one because our excellent public education system ensures that no American under the age of 60 has the slightest notion of this country's history.

Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.

(Contrary to what illiterates believe, the KKK was an outgrowth of the Democratic Party, with overlapping membership rolls. The Klan was to the Democrats what the American Civil Liberties Union is today: Not every Democrat is an ACLU'er, but every ACLU'er is a Democrat. Same with the Klan.) 

In the preface to "Negroes With Guns," Williams writes: "I have asserted the right of Negroes to meet the violence of the Ku Klux Klan by armed self-defense -- and have acted on it. It has always been an accepted right of Americans, as the history of our Western states proves, that where the law is unable, or unwilling, to enforce order, the citizens can, and must act in self-defense against lawless violence." 

Contrary to MSNBC hosts, I do not believe the shooting in Florida is evidence of a resurgent KKK. But wherever the truth lies in that case, gun control is always a scheme of the powerful to deprive the powerless of the right to self-defense. 

You can read the whole Coulter rant by clicking on the Human Events link above.


H/T: bmck1

Lovie Smith Wants You to Vote for our Post-Racial President

Some interesting comments on Breitbart.Com about this endorsement.

H/T: jpa1948

Trifecta: The Cult of Obama - American Narcissist

The gang at Trifecta are, once again, exercised over the most narcissistic president to ever "occupy" the White House.  Stay alert here for one of those easy-to-miss nuanced phrases that reveal the true agenda of this supreme egotist: Shared Prosperity, indeed!

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105&load=6629

Obama Administration and Abortion and Perversion in Africa

The Left will defend this administration by telling you that the USA has, since the days of LBJ (and, they will tell you with glee, Nixon), has publicly advocated population control in foreign (especially third world) countries.  What they won't tell you is that never before this administration did the USA dare to export abortion and sexual deviancy.

Is The Congressional Black Caucus Racist?

RACISTS! The Congressional Black Caucus Bashes President Obama

“The Congressional Black Caucus loves the president too,” Waters said. “We’re supportive of the president, but we’re getting tired. We’re getting tired. And so, what we want to do is, we want to give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he’s prepared to lead on. We want to give him every opportunity, but our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is. We don’t know why on this trip that he’s in the United States now, he’s not in any black community. We don’t know that.”

California Rep. Maxine Waters

Walter Williams, Freedom Fighter

This was posted by Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute today. It's a 28 minute interview of Walter Williams by Reason TV. It will be 28 minutes of your time well spent.

Walter Williams, Freedom Fighter

ZoNation rewrites Black History Month

Alfonzo Rachel of PJTV is not enthused about Black History Month and would like to know why the sponsors of the month always fail to mention prominent Black Republicans, or the fact that the Black leaders of the past, who actually deserve to be honored, were Republicans.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=84&load=4853

Mayor Adrian Fenty & Chancellor Michelle Rhee: Simply Too Good

Joe Hicks of PJTV posted this video today on the PJTV website. It's a sad tale of what happens to public employees and elected officials who do the right thing for the right reasons. The real losers are the poor students in the District of Columbia Public Schools.

The NPP Case: A scarcely reported scandal

It looks like the U. S. Civil Rights Commission, unlike the U. S. Department of Justice believes that the enforcement of civil rights laws should be race neutral. Imagine that. The story was reported, believe it or not, by CBS News.

In a sharply worded letter to senior Justice Department official Thomas Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division, the commission said it had evidence raising "serious concerns" about whether the department's policies "are being pursued in a race-neutral fashion."

The story came to light when Megyn Kelly of Fox News interviewed former justice department career prosecutor, J. Christian Adams, earlier this month.

Abigail Thernstrom: Amnesia at the NAACP

This is from The Corner on National Review Online yesterday. Abigail Thernstrom, along with her husband Stephan, has written extensively on "race," and manifestly knows more about the history of the NAACP than the association's current leaders.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Amnesia at the NAACP [Abigail Thernstrom]
The president of the NAACP, Ben Jealous, has demanded that tea-party supporters “expel racists from the ranks.” In an interview with ABC News, he claimed that the organization had, “for more than a year” been watching “as tea-party members have called congressmen the N-word, have called congressmen the F-word. We see them carry racist signs and whenever it happens; the membership tries to shirk responsibility.”

Tea-party “members”: Is there a membership list so that individuals who are alleged to have engaged in very ugly language can be properly identified and expelled or at least denounced? Of course not. And where is the taped evidence supporting the charges?

These are questions to which the NAACP should be particularly sensitive. In the 1950s, southern whites viewed its members as “outsiders” with subversive aims that deprived them of constitutional protection. The organization was blamed for the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the general assertiveness of the “new Negro,” and southern state officials sought to force the organization to turn over its membership lists; compliance would have invited reprisals from the White Citizens’ Councils.

Half a century ago, in other words, the NAACP understood that American democracy depended on the freedom of citizens to form voluntary associations and petition their government for a redress of grievances. Need it be said? The fluid “tea party” is made up of precisely such voluntary associations, petitioning our government. The membership is more heavily white than the general population, but more racist? That is not the finding of a Washington Post/ABC poll taken in April 2010 — the best evidence we have on the question.

— Abigail Thernstrom is the author, most recently, of Voting Rights — and Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections. She is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.