...a Black Guy says it first, and then a White Guy agrees with it?
I have to ask because it’s getting quite confusing these days. I mean, we already know – having had two-and-a-half-years of experience with this phenomenon – that if you disagree with a (half-)Black Guy, on anything, and for any reason, it is considered an overt manifestation of the most blatant racism in some quarters, and you’re often accused of being the worst sort of Neo-Nazi/Tea Party/Eugenicist/Klansman who wants to see a return to the good ol’ days of Slavery, or a time when Evil White Males could shamelessly use The Law or Social Convention as a weapon against people of color, just because they could.
Or does context matter, so that if a White Guy Agrees With a Black Guy who says something negative – but provably true -- about Black People, it’s still racism, and worse, it’s the sort of racism that originated with a self-hating, Uncle Tom, House Negro who is, despite his appearances, is then called nothing less than a puppet of the GOP, Enron, Big Oil, and the Insurance Companies?
I have to wonder about that, you see, because I happen to agree with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who made the following remarks a few weeks ago:
“You’ve damaged yourself, you’ve damaged another person, you’ve damaged your peers and, quite honestly, you’ve damaged your own race…”
“Take those God darn hoodies down, especially in the summer. Pull your pants up and buy a belt ’cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt. Nobody.”
“If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t hire you ’cause you look like you’re crazy!”
A little context is necessary here. Mayor Nutter was making a public statement in support of the curfew that the City of Philadelphia has had to impose in response to a rash of Flash Mob incidents. These come on top of a rash of other incidents (mostly) involving black youth, the result of a confluence of modern social media and communications, violence and firearms, and a feeling of frustration within the Black Community -- not to mention rank stupidity – which has manifested itself in anew wave of anti-social behavior in not only within the City of Brotherly Love, but apparently nation-wide.
You can imagine the uproar from certain, but always predictable, precincts over such comments, and I won’t go into them here, if only because it’s a waste of bandwidth, and the outrage engendered mostly manufactured and rote. There are some within the leadership of the Black Community that sees any criticism of African-Americans, justified or not, as simple, reflexive racism, and which is prepared to defend even the most abhorrent and destructive behavior from that point of view. I hardly consider such sources worth listening to anymore because their true intent is not to discuss any issue with honesty, but simply to continue a paradigm in which racial strife remains a constant threat to civil society. It’s how their earn their living, either through donations from like-minded people, or as a means by which to pry taxpayer funds out of local, state and federal government.
There’s a serious issue in the Black Community and there’s a serious issue with Black Culture, in general, and finally someone from a position of leadership within that community has had the cojones to actually speak out -- forcefully and honestly -- about it. And the resulting uproar was entirely predictable and gratuitous, mostly because:
a) Mayor Nutter didn’t use the words ‘racism’, ‘Whitey is responsible’, ‘You are owed’ or ‘the Legacy of Slavery’ in a way which excuses and justifies the worst excesses of the Mob.
b) Despite the fact that actual black people are responsible for both the curfew (as a result of their actions) and the Mayor’s unflattering words, some segments of the black community cannot help but feel that they’re being unfairly singled out, and it stings them so much more when the truth about it all is told by another brother, who has ‘forgotten his place’ (i.e. you were elected to keep the welfare and ’programs’ coming, not engage in social commentary of an inconvenient sort).
c) Truths, especially distasteful and unavoidable ones, cut the deepest of all. And they cut the guilty (in this case the perpetrators of the violence, and their parents) right to the bone.
But unless you live under a rock, and you don’t or wont see what has happened, and you don’t make a connection between the events, the perpetrators, the circumstances under which they live, and the carefully-constructed edifice of psychology and double-standards we’ve erected around questions of race in this country, you’re never going to see it. Let alone understand it all.
I feel sorry for people like you; you’ve sentenced yourself to a fate almost as bad as death – a state of total apathy and inaction. You will continue to be a silent witness to events that affect your life without having the means of recognizing that things are happening (often against your will), or be possessed of the ambition to believe that things could be better. When the day comes when things do get better (one must always be an optimist about these things) you will have had no part in the event, and worse, no realization that anything has changed.
It has been boilerplate amongst the (mostly-) White Libtard apologist set – and the battalions of Civil Rights Activists who are their allies -- to suggest that despite the abolition of Slavery, Constitutional Amendments, enough Civil Rights Law to choke a brontosaurus, A Civil War, Affirmative Action, astronomical ‘investments’ in ‘education’ and social welfare programs, and 150+ years of changing social mores and attitudes, that African-Americas are still little more than ignorant savages, and that the best thing to do is simply appease them and let any bad behavior pass with nary a judgmental word. To do otherwise would be racist and hurt their self-esteem, you see. Or provoke violence.
The violence we do see, the mindless spite on display, is often explained away as ‘the natural result of _______’ or as an expression of fundamental disapproval with American society as it is currently constructed. It is disconnected from all the old standards of personal behavior and responsibility, and absolves the individual from having to think for himself, or make an effort to obey the rules of a civil society. You can throw all the sociological claptrap, all the pap psychology, all the political correctness right out the window; to call this other than what it is – outrageously criminal behavior – is to simply continue to justify it, and an abrogation of our shared responsibility for making our culture and society the best it can be.
It does no one any good to continue to do this anymore, and this very attitude never presents a solution to any problem, and is, in fact, probably why such indecent behavior continues to exist; we don't speak out, and we don't tar the offenders with the epithet criminal. Instead, we call them 'victims', and then wonder why all this stuff happens all over again, and then navel-gaze over the sheer stupidity of it all.
At what point do people – regardless of their color, politics, or creed – begin to take responsibility for the actions of even the few miscreants within their community, and then resolve amongst them to actually do something about it? I say ‘people’ and not ’government’, for a specific reason; government cannot solve these problems. In fact, government has created the majority of them. Government’s only response consists of either punishment or in throwing more money or laws at the issue, and nothing ever gets fixed. The root causes of these things are within the individuals involved, that is, beyond the reach of government.
And these problems are not only to be found within the African-American community: unemployment, broken homes, a poor educational system, political Balkanization, a lack of civility and ethics, a loss of the belief in the principles that once made America great, are to be found within every community, but in no other have they manifested themselves more – and with greater regularity, despair, and cyclical violence – than in the African-American community.
The cure to our social ills is a return to some sort of value system that puts the onus back on the individual in terms of ethics, honesty, a capacity for work, and individual freedoms – not government programs, curfews, welfare checks, or racial bomb-throwers in it for the money and notoriety. The family must be restored. Respect for the law must become the norm, rather than the exception. Ethics and Civics need to be taught in the schools again, rather than proper condom use,or all the wonderful things one can do with a penis. Stigma must again be used as an instrument of engendering good behavior.
Common Sense must return, and it must once again become a tool in the box of every individual, so that they may make the best possible decisions for themselves and their families.
My grandfather used to say “there is no such thing as good or bad luck – only the consequences of good or bad decisions”. And he was right. To do all of these things requires a social revolution which will be quite painful for some, and quite expensive, no doubt, but it must occur all the same. It begins with a bit of intellectual honesty, of the sort displayed by Mayor Nutter: YOU are the problem. YOU have made the wrong choices in life, and that's how you wound up here.
After that, it all requires a genuine effort and tenacity on the part of all the individuals involved. With a unity of purpose and a clearly-delineated goal, there need not be another American city under curfew. There need not be another community which routinely excuses – and tolerates --the inexcusable, making its own life a misery, and content to point fingers elsewhere as a reflex.
There are some who will beat the drum of Poverty as a cause of such reckless behavior, but let’s face it: we have the only class of ’poor’ people on the planet who are paid to stay that way, complete with cell phones, air conditioning, subsidized housing, public education, and Type II diabetes from all that cheap-and-easy-to-obtain food we produce. Material poverty is not the cause; it’s a spiritual deficit, and not just in purely religious terms, either. We have created successive generations of irresponsible and intellectually-lazy people, supported them with cash, and then excused them from having to obey even the simplest laws of a genteel society.
We should not be surprised at the outcome of that little experiment, should we?
The attitude of the irrationally-guilty White Liberal and the Civil Rights Crusader are, then, to some extent, paternalistic, and responsible for much of what we’ve seen recently. They have conspired to infantilize an entire race of people, mostly for their own selfish ends, and done it right under everyone’s noses. What we’ve seen in the streets of Philadelphia is not the result of racism or poverty – it is the result of often-misguided good intentions coupled with political utility and abject neglect.
After all, what does you typical latte-sipping, Brie-eating, Kofka-loving Libtard actually know about life in the African-American community? So far as she (it’s almost always a ‘she’) is concerned, The Government has provided food, shelter and a sub-standard education, and so long as ‘They’ don’t come to her gated community to ‘start trouble’, what’s the big deal? If it becomes a problem, throw some more (of someone else’s)money at the problem, hire more cops, erect another bureaucracy, and continue to keep ‘Them’ at arm’s length.
One could shake their head in abject disgust that such attitudes continue to exist in 21st Century America, but unfortunately they do. You find them within the most self-proclaimed 'Progressive' of individuals.
If you’re African-American and consider that sort of Liberal – the kind that gentrifies ghettos under the shield of federal Economic Empowerment Zone money, all the while spouting crapspeak about ‘affordable housing’ – to be your natural ally, then think again.
The only allies you will have in your struggle, whether the fight is for equality, civil discourse, or just plain old peace, look like you, and there aren’t enough food stamps, not enough Midnight Basketball, nor Affirmative Action entries into the toniest Law Schools, that can substitute for your honest effort, the fire in your belly, or your sense of self-respect. Set the proper example, be the catalyst for change in your own little corner of the world.
The Old Days of double-standards and politically-correct, excusatory dialectics in terms of the behavior we expect from people are over, or soon will be. It is a constant throughout history that civilizations that find themselves under cultural stress tend to get rather regressive, and often draconian, when it comes to restoring their perceived moral imperatives and standards.
Cultures experiencing extreme economic hardship, political turmoil, and social degeneration always try to ‘turn back the clock’ to a supposed Golden Age of proper behavior, and the agents of this change are often violent or unintentionally harsh, and dismissive of those least prepared – or willing --to join in the transformation.
Today it’s a curfew in but one American city, tomorrow might bring an outright (un-)Civil War. For the sake of civil peace and fundamental fairness, it behooves all of us to get out in front of that approaching tsunami before it surprises and drowns us all.
Mayor Nutter has taken a first step in the right direction, and we should all follow his example. Do your part in any way you can. My own contribution will be to volunteer at the local Boys and Girls Club (I’ve signed up this very week!) and perhaps mentor a kid or two who may need the help, and appreciate the effort.
To do otherwise is simply irresponsible and runs counter to your responsibility as a citizen of a free and decent country.
.jpg)
It’s that time of year, again, my friends. The time when Corporate America feels compelled to trot out the Potemkin displays of racial harmony, subject us White Boys to 4th-grade-reading-level lectures on the importance of Diversity, send us to the re-education camps where we can be exposed to the ranting and the raving of the truly unhinged as they get their opportunity – as they do every year – to be openly rude and racist, while I must bite my tongue, nod my head in mock sympathy, and pretend as if we really give a crap.
