July 09, 2002
Uncivil & Wrong
A headline from the Washington Post: "Black Leaders Attack Bush on Civil Rights". It is the usual stuff, the likes of Jesse Jackson and Kweisi Mfume, fathers of illegitimate children both, instructing others on the importance of civic virtue.
"Today," Jackson intoned, referring to George Bush and John Ashcroft, "we face the most threatening combination to civil rights in 50 years." In other words, 1953 held fewer threats to civil rights in America than does 2002. The man who claimed to have cradled Martin Luther King as he lay dying from an assassin's bullet has always struggled with the subject of history, so perhaps a refresher is in order:
* In 1953, Bull Connor was still the Public Safety Commissioner in Birmingham, Alabama.
* In 1953, Medgar Evers had to organize boycotts because gas stations refused to allow blacks to use their restrooms.
* In 1953, the U.S. was still a year from deciding that state-sanctioned school segregation is unconstitutional.
* In 1953, there were five black men destined to be lynched by white mobs before the decade was over.
* In 1953, fewer than five percent of eligible blacks were registered to vote in many Southern counties.
It is a shame that some seek to squander, in a single generation, the moral capital that King built and paid for with his life. It is a nearly equal shame that news media outlets like the Post continue to hail them as "black leaders," as if American blacks were some vast monolithic tribe, and these charlatans their elected spokesmen.
Posted by Woodlief on July 09, 2002 at 11:02 AM
Didn't MLK say something about judging according to the content of their character?
In today's Plain Dealer (Cleveland's abominable newsrag) I read about a store owner who is getting a 3 1/2-year jail sentence for defrauding the food-stamp program to the tune of $15 million. The scam was characterized by one of the prosecutors as a case of the store-owner stealing food from the mouths of children.
This is a mischaracterization. The scammer stole $15 million from the government (which stole the money from the taxpayers). The parents deprived their children of food so that they could purchase cigarettes, liquor, illegal drugs, guns, etc.
How many times has this scenario occurred in the Cleveland area in the last ten years? Three dozen times? Four dozen times? And every single time the script has featured the same players: Arab store-owning thieves and Black child-abusing parents.
The Jesses and Kweisis would characterize my outrage over such incidents as racism. And it would be were I to extrapolate from these incidents (as common as they are) and impute moral slovenliness and criminality to all Arabs and all Blacks.
Still, I must ask, who should I blame for the fact that almost all the Black leaders I see and hear, both locally and nationally, are race-card-playing demagogues? The Blacks who apparently support them? The media that features one type but not the other? It seems I get a steady diet of Jesse, Sharpton, Farrakhan, Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters, OJ, Tyson, Tupac, Jacko, Iverson (and I could run this list of leaders, role models, icons, and superstars on and on). What, precisely, am I supposed to respect here?
That's one in the X-ring, Tony.
The only significant way blacks are worse off in 2002 is that they are "represented" by the likes of Jackson, Sharpton, and Farrakhan, instead of Martin Luther King.
Now THAT'S a step back.
Hello Everyone,
The truth needs to be told.
http://p200.ezboard.com/fnfisgetoutthevotefrm3.showMessage?topicID=2008.topic
I couldn't help but piggy-bag off of the topic to expose other truths.
Sincerely,
Michael Lofton
Hello Everyone,
The truth needs to be told.
http://p200.ezboard.com/fnfisgetoutthevotefrm3.showMessage?topicID=2008.topic
I couldn't help but piggy-back off of the topic to expose other truths.
Sincerely,
Michael Lofton
