Jeopardized by self-destruction

An unpopular truth

[Reprinted from Issues & Views May 31, 2004]

"Brown vs. Board of Education is no longer a white person's problem. We've got to take the neighborhood back," opined Bill Cosby in his by now well-known speech in which he castigated lower-class blacks for their self-destructive behavior. But blacks never needed to lose that "neighborhood" in the first place. It was blacks of the higher social classes who insisted on dumping all that was worthwhile and unifying in those neighborhoods, as these elites sought to climb up the mainstream ladder of success. Such people cared nothing about the needs of the blacks they left behind, who were not prepared for competition in the mainstream, but could have been helped to continue building ladders among themselves, to climb at their own pace.

Those poor, but honest blacks of several generations ago, who earned their livings through menial labor, faced ridicule from elites, who derided them for being no better than "farmers." [See "Black Men: They Could Be Heroes" - Part 1 and Part 2] These poor were looked upon as an embarrassment. Now their misguided progeny continues to be an embarrassment. In commenting on Cosby's candid remarks, Thomas Sowell observes:

Nobody enjoys being made to look bad in public. But too many in the black community are preoccupied with how things will look to white people, with what in private life would be concern about "what will the neighbors think?"

When your children are dying, you don't worry about what the neighbors think. When the whole future of a race is jeopardized by self-destructive fads, you put public relations on the back burner.

Yet public relations is what modern "civil rights" is all about. What could be more implausible than the USA Today quote of the fatuous head of the NAACP, Kweisi Mfume, who apparently is determined to bask in the momentary glow of Cosby's words? Says Mfume, "Much of what Cosby said I've been saying in my speeches." What a shameless dissembler. Whenever he does make the rare mention of black misconduct, it's only to dump the blame on whites or on the "institutionalized racist system." You can be certain that Mfume's NAACP fundraising machine is already concocting plans to turn the Cosby remarks into yet another fundraising ploy. Watch your mailboxes.

Mfume is the man who heads the organization that thrives on the perpetuation of black poverty and ignorance, and would lose his entire livelihood if the black masses were miraculously transformed into high-achieving, productive citizens. This is the organization that for decades has sent out overt signals to blacks to look upon themselves as victims and upon whites as their perpetual victimizing enemy. These are the "civil rights" protectors who work overtime to dig up old grievances on which to keep blacks fixated, the guardians who defend and make excuses for the most socially destructive behavior, the group that gives awards and blessings to base "hip-hop/rappers," whose messages of vulgarity and violence fill the lives of vast numbers of youth.

The great misfortune for us all is the influence that wayward black culture (70% illegitimacy rate and glorification of criminality) has had on the general society, as young people of other races emulate its anti-social trends. Perhaps Cosby's biting words will resonate beyond those for whom he meant them, and encourage non-black youngsters to develop some healthy disdain for their gangster mentors.

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