So says Jason Riley in today’s Wall Street Journal. Like many conservative Black men and women whose voices are just now being allowed to be heard, the true heart and soul of the Black Community—just like all other communities in the USA, are tired of the political left led by their media infantry, misstating and obfuscating the issues plaguing the lives of all peoples—not just minorities. Burgess Owens, Candice Owens, Senator Tim Scott, Thomas Sowell, Dr. Ben Carson, Clearance Thomas, Jason Whitlock, and a host of other Black businessmen, academics and professionals are leading this charge, and what they say and the solutions they recommend to all Americans should be considered carefully.
Some background is in order. The 1965 Civil Rights Bill and legislation now known as The Johnson Great Society initiatives was a watershed moment in our country regarding race relations. There certainly was “systemic racism” in our country dating back to the civil war and the Jim Crow Era. Jim Crow was ubiquitous in the Deep South, but not just in the South. Some of the most disturbing examples of racism can still be found in large Northern Cities and suburbs, and in fact, cultural and economic conditions that led to racism can be in retrospect attributed to conditions of poverty and the suppression of educational opportunities.
But in the years between the end of World War II until the Great Society programs, the Black Community was lifting itself out of poverty. The American promise of freedom and the African American experience are intertwined and today continue toward reaching their full potential—because of each other. Prior to 1965, 80% of Black Children were born into a family with both a mother and a father. As in the homes of many impoverished families, grandparents played an important role in raising children and they lived in the home 50% of the time. Starting in 1870 with Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver and in places like Tuskegee University, Hampton Institute, Fisk, and Wilberforce a model for Black education and upward mobility was allowed to thrive and grow. Doctors, (Founders and Presidents of Medical Schools) Lawyers (State Supreme Justices), Bankers and Businessmen (heads of fortune 500 companies—Coke and Starbucks for example) and moving forward until the mid-60’s even when there was overt racism, the Black Community when allowed to work together and when their values were upheld in churches, schools, cotillions, and social clubs and universities—and most of all families, the plight of Black people improved. From 1944-1965 wages of Black employees rose faster than any other demographic group. Same thing with the ownership of property, farms, and businesses. But the key was the Black family. Following foundational principles, upward mobility was being realized.
In 1973, Senator Danial Patrick Moynihan gave the commencement speech at The Ohio State University. I was there. He was a warrior in the civil rights movement and was courageous in his unyielding defense of liberty for all people. In that speech, he warned about the “demise of the Black family”. He as an academic sociologist and several years earlier had written a report on the effects of the Great Society Programs on the Black family and the decline of the family across all demographics. He was correct in his predictions and they have been proven to be even truer today. Today only 40% of Black families have a mother and a father living in the home—again in 1965 that number was 80%. Three times more Black people are living under conditions of poverty, and the chance of a Black child living in a large city for upward mobility is less than what it was in 1965. Barack Obama in 2013 told us that a person living in poverty—any color, growing up in a home with only one parent has a 5 times greater chance of living their entire life in poverty. If they don’t graduate from high school they have a 5 times greater chance of being incarcerated or homeless. If they use drugs both numbers are multiplied several times over.
The media narrative is that there is systemic and institutional racism and these are the causes of the problems in all communities of impoverished citizens. We hear from op eds and on the opinion news that there is retrogression in racial relations. Tonight, we will hear the left—President Biden, double down on their assault on the American Family. They are going to recommend economic pressure and incentives encouraging children to be raised and educated outside of the home. Government run or subsidized homecare centers will raise our young children, and elementary schools will indoctrinate them. Mothers and fathers and grandparents will be marginalized. This is in fact moving away from what has been proven for 15,000 years to work, but the political left has a stake in identifying both the existence and the impact of racism. For those of us who are “Believers” in God and Liberty and the sovereignty of the individual this is all serving a master who is not serving us. Parents exist to be workers for the State and children will be raised by the State so they too will be workers for the State. There is no need for the family.
Black Lives Matter (BLM), Anti-Fi, the political left, have served the public with a false narrative that racism is on the rise. In their founding documents they advocate for the overthrow of the” traditional patriarchal family.” Here is some information to consider: 1. There were 7000 Black Homicides in the USA in 2019. 1/3 of 1% involved a white policeman and an unarmed Black person. Police Killings of Black men decreased by 80% from 1960 until 2000. According to the Washington Post, in 2019, police killed 999 people involving 10 million arrests and 100 million interactions with the public. 254 were Black and 424 were white. Not the narrative the left wants you to believe.
According to Jason Riley proof that interracial relations have never been better is in these numbers: Acceptance of interracial marriage has dramatically improved over the past 50 years. In 1958 only 4% of whites approved of interracial marriage—less for Blacks for very important reasons. In 2013 that number rose to 84%. During that time the intermarriage rate of Blacks and Whites rose from 3%-17%. Hardly an argument for systemic or institutional racism.
As you listen to Mr. Biden and the government-media-corporate narrative ask if what they are proposing are programs that strengthen the family or increase dependency. Ask if individual liberty and upward mobility are being facilitated and incentivized. Ask if the private sector, churches communities and families are being mobilized and deployed to leverage their influence on children, or is the Federal Government inserting itself into the fabric of our society in a way that has already proven to be deleterious and destructive.
These ideas have proven to be devastating whenever they have been implemented. Socialism, Communism, totalitarianism only improves the life of the elite ruling class—the political—corporate oligarchy. The Godless doctrines that are the foundations of these systems destroys families and communities. The working class exists to support the ruling class. The standard of living of workers subsidizes the lifestyle of the ruling Oligarchs.
The truth today is that the Black Community in our country is more Christian and more Conservative than the rest of the country. Without the promise of “free stuff” and without the instigating of race baiters and with a renewal of the Black Churches and families, and by allowing for economic principles and policies that facilitate upward mobility—free markets and capitalism, the plight of those on the margins will be improved dramatically in all communities of all colors and ethnicities when freedom and liberty are allowed to prevail.
“Fundamental Change” is not The American Way.
MAGA “Fight Like Hell”
