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Issues That Divide Us #4: Race

What, race is a divisive issue? Do we not have a black President? Did we not just appoint an Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court? Is that all not window-dressing? We still have issues, spoken or unspoken.

The core of the race issue still involves the confrontation of black vs. white people. Others who were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants have managed to assimilate themselves into American society. If Latinos are not entirely mainstream, it is probably only a matter of time before they are. It is their growing numbers that alarm English-speaking people more than anything else. As with any other immigrant group, those members who have been in this country a few generations are generally better accepted than the new arrivals.

As an example of how assimilative our society is, consider this: On December 8, 1941, which group of people living in America did we hate the worst? Was it the Negroes? Not even close. It was those lousy Japs! Today, a Japanese-American can live feely in our society with no significant barriers in his or her way. And, even though several of them were unfortunately wronged at the start of the war, by being thrown into less-lethal concentration camps, they have since assimilated because neither the dominant Caucasians nor the Japanese themselves allowed the unfortunate events of that time to drag the process down.

Still, though black people have been living in America since the seventeenth century, so many of them somehow remain outside the mainstream. Is that the fault of racism? Yes it is. Is it entirely the fault of racism? No, it most certainly is not. Let's just come right out and say it: a large element of the black population has inflicted unacceptably anti-social behavior on our society, far, far out of proportion to the population of the race. It is for that reason that otherwise reasonable white people are not entirely comfortable with any black stranger they encounter.

White apologists for this phenomenon will try to tell us it is the poverty, not the race, of this so-called underclass that is at the root of the problem. Or they may cite the humiliating aspects of racism itself. I don't buy it. The many other people outside the WASP circle did not come to America with wads of cash stuffed in their pockets and nice, cushy jobs lined up (nor did the earliest WASPs, for that matter). And, as for acceptance, the Italian, German, Irish, Hispanic, Jewish, Polish, Chinese and Vietnamese Americans of today were once nothing more than wops, krauts, micks, spics, heebs, polacks, chinks and dinks to the complacent majority, yet they earned the respect of their tormentors through hard work, education and good citizenship.

Were they all models of perfection? No, of course not. All of those groups had their criminal element, but, even though there was a time when every American with an Italian name was assumed to be in the Mafia, all those groups had far more members who wanted nothing more than to be good American citizens.

Other people will try to slough this aberrant behavior off to "the legacy of slavery." Okay, let me first get this good and out of the way: slavery was EVIL AND WRONG. Having said that, let me point out, all the slaves are now dead. Furthermore, all the slave masters are now dead. Yes, there are horribly insidious forms of slavery being practiced today in this country, but that behavior is illegal and, therefore, not countenanced by our society, as Negro slavery was prior to the Civil War.

The point I am making is that none of my black fellow-citizens are now the legal chattel of a white person. None of my white fellow-citizens are allowed to "own" a black person. Slavery is finished and has been for many, many generations. So get over it.

By the way, allow me to take a brief moment to address the question of so-called reparations for slavery. The issue needs to dry up and blow away. Fortunately, neither Candidate Obama nor President Obama ever expressed any enthusiasm for the idea.

First and foremost, no black person living today, as I said, has to suffer the indignity of being owned by a white person, nor is any white person allowed to own a black person. So who, amongst the living is entitled to payment? We compensated the interned Japanese I mentioned earlier, because there were still victims around to compensate.

Second, reparations of any significance would be far too much of a strain on our already-strained budget. Even if your grandparents were born into slavery (which they most certainly were not), we simply cannot afford to pay the bill.

Third and most important, both the slave-holders and the slavery toleraters have paid for their sins many, many times over. Just prior to his execution in 1859 for the abortive raid to free the slaves of Virginia, John Brown wrote, "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." That purgative process was a little misunderstanding known as the Civil War, in which over half a million white people lost their lives. I think that constitutes enough in the way of payment, thank you.

To be sure, I do not for a moment believe that those within the mainstream of society need only to fold their arms and wait for the black underclass to get with the program. We need to acknowledge that a problem exists, and we are part of it, but the victims of racism need to realize, it is largely up to them to do whatever it takes to make the reasons for it go away. I am quite certain that if the overwhelming majority of black people had the sense of purpose and decency of an Obama, a Colin Powell or an Oprah Winfrey (none of whom were born filthy, stinking rich), we would have achieved complete and true integration years ago. Racism is not, repeat, not about skin color.

Let us look at some of the areas of friction, and see if we can find any useful solutions.

Profiling

When we think of profiling in this context, we typically think of white police stopping and harassing black motorists for the crime of DWB: driving while black. Officers, please get this through your heads: it's wrong; it's destructive; there's no moral or legal justification for it whatsoever. If you are angered that some "uppity" you-know-what is driving a better car than you could ever afford, then stifle. That is what your job requires you to do, not vent your frustrations. You are paid a salary to "serve and protect" everybody. And, if that is too much of a burden to bear, then find something else to do for a living. You carry guns and have the power to curtail peoples' liberty. With that power comes tremendous responsibility.

Every time you harass or shake down a law-abiding motorist, just because you don't approve of his race, you are adding fuel to the fire of the false doctrine that white racism is the sole cause of the problems that beset the Negro. And, until that fire is extinguished, disadvantaged black people in this country are never going to make any significant progress.

On the other hand, profiling, in general can mean increased vigilance. In that context, any officer of the law should be allowed to direct his or her attention wherever instinct dictates the need is most urgent. And, if that means that young, casually-dressed black males get more than their share, it does not mean that injustice is being committed. Ask yourself: who commits more violent crime, men or women? Youths or senior citizens? People dressed in the latest "gangsta" fashion or those in formal wear? And, in many urban environments, black people or white people?

Even within a black community, it is entirely reasonable that a police officer will keep an eye on a collection of young black men on a street corner and drive right by a gathering of elderly black ladies in front of a church. Maybe the youths are college students, trying to look tough, just for the fun of it, but the cop does not necessarily know that.

But, isn't that prejudice? Sure it is. What of it? Prejudice is a natural instinct, built into the human species, not just white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. As such, it can be and has been a life-saving tool in less orderly times. It is not a noble instinct, and it ought to be suppressed, but anyone who says he is entirely without it is a liar.

When prejudice is not suppressed, it becomes discrimination, and that is wrong. That is the crucial difference between "profiling" in the sense of keeping your eye on a gang of street punks and "profiling" in the sense of brutalizing a black person, just because you feel like it.

Granted, you cannot turn discrimination off like you can turn off a light switch, and, maybe, in isolated cases, you need not do so. For example, I am quite sure that at least 95% of all the Arab and Muslim people living in America are decent and law-abiding. Unfortunately, the small percentage who aren't do not go about with "I'm a Terrorist" buttons pinned to their shirts, so we really don't know who they are. For that reason, I do not patronize any businesses I think are run or staffed by Muslims, just on the off-chance that a percentage of the money I lay out will go right into the coffers of Al Qaeda. That said, we need to make every effort to ensure discrimination is not part of our lives.

Crime and Punishment

As things currently stand, we are not all entirely equal before the law, which we should be. The notion that "all men are created equal" means just that. Obviously all men are different from one another-as are all women-in a multitude of ways, right from birth, but, before the law, we are all supposed to be the same.

There is no doubt whatsoever that black people get more severe treatment from the law than whites do. Would a white man have been beaten as brutally as Rodney King was, even if he had been equally messed-up on drugs? I think not. Would a white man have been riddled with bullets the way the African Amadu Dialu was, just for producing his wallet? Don't bet on it. Would the penalty for crack cocaine be far, far more severe than the penalty for powdered cocaine if the rock form of the drug were a favorite of white users, rather than black users? No way.

Such treatment by the law, from the cop on the street to the judge on the bench, is morally wrong, even though it is clearly driven by the disproportionate propensity toward violent crime in the black community. Until we somehow find a way to recruit angels from Heaven to fill the ranks of our law-enforcement and judicial systems, the problem is going to be with us. The true solution lies in reducing the high crime rate.

Black spokespersons who lament that too many of "our people" are in jail, completely overlook the inconvenient fact that too many of their "people" did something very wrong to get there. Society does not have enough police to lay upon the scene in order to prevent much of this crime. The prevention needs to come within the community itself where the perpetrators grow up and live.

For one thing, people in those communities need to get rid of the "don't snitch" mentality. To do that, society as a whole needs to pitch in and help. First of all, let's face the fact that the defiant slogan, "Don't snitch, " is just code for "I don't want to get killed." While, on one hand, decent people need to hear it in the schools and from the pulpit that they have duties as citizens, on the other hand, the people in charge need to provide the brave ones who do come forward with a lot more protection than has typically been the case. Deadly retaliation for damaging testimony is not just a theory, it is a hard reality.

Not only do potential witnesses and their families need to be protected from the thugs who would silence them, the justice systems needs to go after those thugs with a vengeance. If it could legally be done, I would very much like to see witness intimidation become a federal crime, with the act of intimidation itself the cause for a very lengthy prison term, and witness murder an automatic death sentence. If it were a federal crime, then it could be enforced with the full vigor of the law, even in those jurisdictions that disallow capital punishment.

Perhaps such draconian measures would not stop a desperate suspect from trying to silence a potential witness, but it might severely inhibit any stooges he'd recruit to do his dirty work.

Another point of attack in the war on crime is overwhelmingly the fault of the establishment. Our media simply has to stop glorifying those destructive people who prey on society in general and their own communities in particular. It may make for a little less in the way of TV drama (although I am horrified at the thought of it being replaced with yet even more "reality" TV), but it may also de-glamorize a useless and destructive lifestyle. You people who run the media would have plenty of money to spread around after such a sacrifice if you didn't feel you had to pay everybody twelve zillion dollars a year. I do not, for a moment, advocate censorship, but I do express the hope that those with the power to do so will display a little responsibility for a change.

Another crucial point of attack is hope-a pretty difficult commodity to dispense in these trying economic times, to be sure. Never mind that other minorities who were far more poverty-stricken worked their way up and out of their ghettoes, we have to deal with the here and the now. It is for this reason that I was not and am not entirely against Affirmative Action, but I will deal with that concept a little later. I do not think society is falling down in this aspect, but it needs to keep up the good work. Certainly the election of President Obama sent a very hopeful message to all members of his perceived race about the virtues of working productively within the system.

Perhaps the most crucial part of the solution, though, is education. I will get to that in the next category, but let us start with the most basic education: having sex can cause babies, no matter how ready you are or are not to have them. A black conservative commentator, whose name, unfortunately, escapes me and who is greatly-despised within his race, once said that the greatest problem confronting black people today was not white racism, it was babies having babies. Now let us look at education in general.

Education

Clearly and obviously, education has been the prime tool for advancement in our society for as long as we have had a society. It has not always been there for black people, but it is now. Far, far gone are the days when slaves were deliberately kept illiterate or when schools could be "separate but equal, " which, in reality, just meant separate. I am the same age as Miss Brown of Brown vs. Board of Education, and I am 64. Integration of our schools has been the law of the land for over half a century.

So, why aren't our schools better integrated? Why are there still, to this day, so many underachieving "black" schools? Let me be blunt: it is because so very, very many black youths are poor students, and I mean more in terms of deportment than academic achievement. That being the case, the parents of other children will do all they can to keep them out of predominantly-black schools. You know it as well as I.

Are so many black children poor students because they are too stupid to master the subject matter? No, that is a base lie. There is nothing in the high school curriculum that a normally-advantaged black student cannot master and learn. The problem goes entirely to motivation, and the fault overwhelmingly goes to the parents.

When I was in the 10th grade, I was not the most zealous student in the world, so I typically got B's and C's (to say nothing of flunking algebra). I had a good Chinese friend in my class, who happened to get a look at one of my report cards. "If I brought home grades like that, " he said, "my father would beat me." Now, I am not advocating the kind of severe corporal punishment my Chinese friend would have come in for, had he let his studies lapse the way I did. I am raising the point to show that, like many in his community of Chinese Americans, he was expected to learn and excel in school. Anything less was inexcusable. My family moved after that, so I lost track of him, but I would be willing to bet he is doing very well for himself today...and he probably honors his father every bit as much as I do mine, who never beat me for bad grades.

It is natural for all children to resent schoolwork, whatever their race or ethnicity. When you stop to think about it, "student" is the stinkiest job around. You get paid not one thin dime for your hard, difficult work. Then too, figure that the multiplication table is every bit as stressful to a fourth-grader as a lawsuit is to Bill Gates, but Mr. Gates, at least, gets paid plenty for his aggravation.

The point is that students need strong motivation from their parents to overcome that dislike and realize the many good and advantageous aspects of learning. Asians and Jews are not biologically smarter than everyone else. They just got the value of learning instilled into their beliefs more firmly than others did. In this aspect, far too many black parents are at the very bottom of the chart. They tend to believe that any effort-however justifiable-to discipline their little darlings is an unwelcome intrusion by adults who have no business doing so. Learn this, everybody, please: school is not daycare, it is school. Your children are not being sent there to be bullied and harassed by adults, but to learn. The more they learn, the better chance they will have to live a better life than you do, and isn't that what all parents want for their children?

Finally, it is a lot easier for parents to discipline and motivate their children to be good students if there are two of them in the home. President Obama alluded to that problem in a recent Father's day speech, as did Louis Farrakhan, for that matter. Sure, marriages can fall apart, with people of all races, but at least make an effort, for goodness sake.

Affirmative Action

It is too bad we ever had to have such a thing, but, clearly, we did. Whether we still do is up for debate, and I do not pretend to know the answer.

There was a time, though, when white bosses, in both the public and private sector, simply would not hire black people for any but the most menial, undesirable jobs. To compound the problem, many colleges and universities were reluctant to take on black students. Something, short of an outright quota system, needed to be done.

On the other hand, I completely approve of the Supreme Court's recent decision regarding the Connecticut firefighters. Although I think the Bush Court is absolutely the worst in memory, they were right on this one issue.

When the municipal authorities gave a test to all the candidates for advancement within the fire department, they, in effect, made a compact with them: excel on this test, and you will be promoted. When they then attempted to jettison the results of the test because the only successful candidates were white, they violated that compact. They were perfectly at liberty to remake any future exams more to their liking, but they had already made this deal, so they were morally and-as it turned out-legally compelled to stick to it.

But, in the bad old days, Affirmative Action was both necessary and important, not just as a matter of justice for the recipients, but as a strong indicator of hope to the typically disadvantaged communities they came from. If a black child sees only the pimp and the drug dealer living high, while the honest man is flipping burgers, like a chump, what is he going to think? If the girl in the ghetto sees only the hookers dressed in finery and seemingly free of drudgery, while the honest women have to clean white peoples' toilets, what is she going to think? Never mind that the dealer and the hooker are soon likely to come to unfortunate ends, it is the present, not the future, that makes the impression on the children. When they can start to see black policemen, firemen, government employees, even business executives, then the way of lawlessness stops becoming the only way to achieve some dignity.

Still, Affirmative Action may have been too liberally applied. One of my best friends was on a flight recently, where he was seated next to an elderly black doctor. They struck up a friendly, but honest conversation in which the doctor asked my friend, "Would you be afraid to have me attend to you?" My friend replied that, if he were wheeled into the ER and encountered that gentleman, he would not be the slightest bit concerned, "But, " he added, "I'd be worried if it was your grandson, instead." "I hear you, man, " the doctor responded. Still, I think that too-liberal Affirmative Action has been better for us as a society than no Affirmative Action at all.

In Conclusion

I do not think the situation is nearly as bleak as it was in the past. I do think we are making progress as a society at large. But we will not be there yet until the disadvantaged stop investing themselves in the culture of victimization. Self-loathing is at the root of so much aberrant behavior. But we who are not among the disadvantaged must never abandon our efforts to help that progress along. Not only is it the Judeo-Christian thing to do, it is the wise thing to do as well.

Sources

Wikipedia Shelby Foote, The Civil War, A Narrative, Vol. I National Public Radio