BLACK LIVES MATTER IS MERELY A CORPORATE BRIBES SUCKING
HOAX.
IF ‘SYSTEMIC’ RACISM IS PREVALENT, THEN HOW DID BARACK
OBAMA GET ELECTED TWICE? IT’S NOT BECAUSE HE AND BIDEN WERE DOING ANYTHING FOR
BLACK AMERICA.
OR HOW DID OPRAH WINFREY BECOME A BILLIONAIRE?
OR MICHELLE OBAMA, WHO WAS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE ADMITTED TO
ANY LAW SCHOOL, GRADUATE FROM HARVARD LAW?
BLM
Suppresses the Truth About Poverty
As so
much despair has gripped our nation during this difficult time, I decided to go
into our nation's most distressed communities with a message of hope and truth.
I have been working on policy issues dealing with race and
poverty through my organization, UrbanCURE, for 25 years.
We purchased billboard space in hard-hit cities across the
nation and posted a short, time-tested message that strikes at the heart of
what drives poverty.
The billboards show a picture of a young black man or young
black woman and say: "Tired of Poverty? Finish school. Take any job. Get
married. Save and invest. Give back to your neighborhood."
The billboard then refers to Proverbs 10:4, which says,
"A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes
rich."
This is a message delivered with care and love. It's a
message I know is true.
It is so true that it produced an immediate reaction from
Black Lives Matter, which contacted the billboard company, Clear Channel
Outdoor, demanding that the billboards be taken down.
Claims from Black Lives Matter -- laced, of course, with
profanity -- that our message is racist, inaccurate and self-hating are a crude
distortion of reality.
I know the accuracy of our message from my experience in
life. I was once a young woman with disdain for the "establishment,"
living off welfare and going nowhere.
Then two Christian businessmen straightened me out. Their
message and guidance saved my life.
Aside
from my personal experience and my daily learning as a Christian, I also know
the truth of this message from years of policy work that has been going on in
Washington.
The impact of the "success sequence" on poverty is
well documented.
Brookings Institution scholars Ron Haskins and Isabell
Sawhill published their findings in their book, "Creating an Opportunity
Society," in which they report that those who follow three steps -- finish
high school, get a full-time job and get married before having children -- face
a 2% chance of being poor.
Brad Wilcox and Wendy Wang of the American Enterprise
Institute followed on this work, showing that among millennials -- ages 28-35
-- there was a 53% incidence of poverty among those who did not follow these
steps and a 3% incidence among those who did.
But regardless of whether or not you want to believe me or
agree with me, what about freedom of expression?
What about the inherent importance of keeping dialogue open
and free in our nation, with a goal of reaching truth? How can shutting down
communication serve anyone's interests?
Shutting down dialogue, shutting down free and open exchange
of ideas, is exactly what Black Lives Matter wants. It said as much in a
Facebook post to the billboard vendor that read, "At the end of the day,
messaging and narrative control is priceless."
Unfortunately, Clear Channel Outdoor responded to the
intimidation of Black Lives Matter and took down URBANCURE's billboards,
saying, "We strive to respect a wide variety of viewpoints on diversity
and racial sensitivity."
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But can shutting down a powerful and truthful message because
Black Lives Matter doesn't like it reflect respect for "a wide variety of
viewpoints"?
The nation's shock after the terrible murder of George Floyd
at the hands of a policeman was justifiable. But the pushback unfortunately put
wind in the sails of Black Lives Matter.
The question is: What does America, and what do black
Americans, need? What will fix our problems?
For sure, suppression of free expression will make no one
better off.
These are communities that need truth, that need love, that
need empowerment.
This is the message we are delivering at UrbanCURE.
I hope Clear Channel Outdoor has a change of heart and is not
intimidated by Black Lives Matter to breach contract and not publicize UrbanCURE's
message on its billboards.
Star Parker is president of the
Center for Urban Renewal and Education and author of the new book
"Necessary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This
is Good News for America." Readers can respond to Star's column by
emailing star-parker@urbancure.org.
BLOG EDITOR: WE EXPLORE ALL OPINIONS FROM ALL SIDES!
Institutional Racism
Institutional
racism and systemic racism are terms bandied about these days without much
clarity. Being 84 years of age, I have seen and lived through what might be
called institutional racism or systemic racism. Both operate under the assumption
that one race is superior to another. It involves the practice of treating a
person or group of people differently based on their race. Negroes, as we
proudly called ourselves back then, were denied entry to hotels, restaurants
and other establishments all over the nation, including the north. Certain jobs
were entirely off-limits to Negroes. What school a child attended was
determined by his race. In motion pictures, Negroes were portrayed as being
unintelligent, such as the roles played by Stepin Fetchit and Mantan Moreland
in the Charlie Chan movies. Fortunately, those aspects of racism are a part of
our history. By the way, Fetchit, whose real name was Lincoln Perry, was the
first black actor to become a millionaire, and he has a star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame and, in 1976, the Hollywood chapter of the NAACP awarded Perry a
Special NAACP Image Award.
Despite the nation's great achievements in race relations,
there remains institutional racism, namely the widespread practice of treating
a person or group of people differently based on their race. Most institutional
racism is practiced by the nation's institutions of higher learning. Eric
Dreiband, an assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the
Department of Justice, recently wrote that Yale University "grants
substantial, and often determinative, preferences based on race." The
four-page letter said, "Yale's race discrimination imposes undue and
unlawful penalties on racially-disfavored applicants, including in particular
Asian American and White applicants."
Yale
University is by no means alone in the practice of institutional racism. Last
year, Asian students brought a discrimination lawsuit against Harvard
University and lost. The judge held that the plaintiffs could not prove that
the lower personal ratings assigned to Asian applicants are the result of
"animus" or ill-motivated racial hostility towards Asian Americans by
Harvard admissions officials. However, no one offered an explanation as to why
Asian American applicants were deemed to have, on average, poorer personal
qualities than white applicants. An explanation may be that Asian students
party less, study more and get higher test scores than white students.
In court filings, Students for Fair Admissions argued that
the University of North Carolina's admissions practices are unconstitutional.
Their brief stated: "UNC's use of race is the opposite of individualized;
UNC uses race mechanically to ensure the admission of the vast majority of
underrepresented minorities." Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair
Admissions, said in a news release that the court filing "exposes the
startling magnitude of the University of North Carolina's racial preferences."
Blum said that their filing contains statistical evidence that shows that an
Asian American male applicant from North Carolina with a 25% chance of getting
into UNC would see his acceptance probability increase to about 67% if he were
Latino and to more than 90% if he were African American.
In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209 (also known
as the California Civil Rights Initiative) that read: "The state shall not
discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or
group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the
operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."
California legislators voted earlier this summer to put the question to voters
to repeal the state's ban on the use of race as a criterion in the hiring,
awarding public contracts and admissions to public universities and restore the
practice of institutional racism under the euphemistic title "affirmative
action."
When
social justice warriors use the terms "institutional racism" or
"systemic racism," I suspect it means that they cannot identify the
actual person or entities engaged in the practice. However, most of what might
be called institutional or systemic racism is practiced by the nation's
institutions of higher learning. And it is seen by many, particularly the
intellectual elite, as a desirable form of determining who gets what.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of
economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams
and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
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