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| A Reader Writes. November, 2009 |
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| Disagreement Can Be a Good thing. |
Sun Gazette Reader sends AAAP publisher a letter. The Rebuttal:
Dear hard working, fifth generation home owning businessman,
Thank you for taking the time to write to me. It is clear that you are passionate about your beliefs and that you have strong feelings regarding the racial situation in Williamsport.
To a certain extent, I agree with you that African-Americans are often our own worst enemy. We exhibit self-destructive behaviors. We seem to be apathetic and irresponsible. I cannot deny that a segment in the Black community abuses Public Assistance privileges, but that is true in all groups. I agree that welfare can sap the strength of a person’s soul and relegate that person to a life of dependency and subjugation.
As I analyze the talking points in your letter, I have come to believe that you probably don’t know a lot of Black people, especially those that have been classified as Williamsport’s influx. In fact, you target young African-American males in your misguided reasoning as to why an overwhelming preponderance of Black homes in Williamsport are rented. We differ on this point. Black males are the victims of being locked out of America’s prosperity.
I know, I know. It sounds like hogwash to you. You probably think I am just making excuses for the irresponsible behavior of young black males. Since I am over 60 years old, I must confess that don’t understand the issues that young people face today. It seems to me that we ask these young men to be “MEN” without giving them the tools to do the job. They are expected to earn a living, raise a family, buy a home and live happily ever after but they don’t have road maps or any guides to get them to the desired destination. Actually, their path is fraught with obstacles to derail them. We, as a society, have let them down.
In his famous, To Form a More Perfect Union speech, President Barack Obama said, “As William Faulkner once wrote, ‘The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past.’ We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.”
Pardon me for being a little preachy, but I point to the timeless wisdom of Jesus, the Christ. He said, “Seek and ye shall find.” If you look for trouble, you will find it. If you search for peace and happiness, you will find it. And if you see the hip-hop generation as lazy, irresponsible ne’er-do-wells that are uneducated and unemployable then you will find that type of individual. I don’t deny that they don’t exist. But the great majority of young men that wear the distinctive baggy “hanging-off-their-butts” pants are decent, moral, pleasant and courteous. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder; you see what you want to see.
In your letter, you state that these men suffer from “The Attitude” of unwarranted expectations. You say that Blacks say, “Someone owes me something.” You ask me, “Who are you trying to kid?”
I ask that you reread my column that was printed in the November 1, 2009 Sunday Edition of the Williamsport Sun Gazette. I do not absolve the black community of its responsibilities. I asked, “Will Black Williamsporters seek to balance the equation (of 81.1% rented vs. 18.9% owner occupied)? Then I asked, “Will developers, bankers, and bureaucrats work with the African-American community to build more owner-occupied housing?” I implied that there is a possibility of a partnership between Blacks and Whites to solve a problem; people working together to achieve a healthier more prosperous community.
Ultimately, the Black community must take the initiative to rectify a growing problem. If nothing is done, the quality of life will continue to disintegrate and a crime-ridden, illegal drug-infested ghetto will be born. There will be more acts of violence. Assaults and shootings will become commonplace.
We must offer these young men a way out. We must give them new choices. We must inspire them with hope of a bright future.
The oppositional nature of Black youth is in direct proportion to the crushing pressure of the larger omnipresent White culture. We expect these children to run in the race while not considering the handicaps that have befallen them. “Your mother is a crack addict? Don’t worry about that, go out there and compete. You were abandoned by your father? Don’t worry about that, be a man and raise a family.”
I agree our society is far from perfect and that it is better than other countries in the world, but I still have the right to complain. There is always room for improvement.
But if lenders of financial institutions were as prejudiced as you seem to be against young black men, Black home ownership would be impossible and Black families would continue to be broken. I contend that you have an attitude problem too.
In his book, Audacity of Hope, President Obama said this, “In general, members of every minority group continue to be measured largely by the degree of our assimilation – how closely speech patterns, dress, or our demeanor conform to the dominant white culture – and the more a minority strays from these external markers, the more he or she is subject to negative assumptions…
Internalization of antidiscrimination norms prevents Whites from acting on such stereotypes of Black criminality, Black intellect and a Black work ethic, but the cumulative effect of these stereotypes have snap judgements on ‘Who’s hired and who’s promoted, on who’s arrested and who’ prosecuted…’
Rather than invoke our sympathy, our familiarity with the lives of the Black poor has bred spasms of fear and outright contempt. But it is mostly indifference…
The Black underclass ‘alien in its behavior and in its values’ conservatives argue is a result of cultural pathologies not racism and inequalities.”
That about sums it up. But one more thing…
History. Yes, President Lincoln was a Republican. And the Democrats, during his time, opposed the abolition of slavery. In fact, the KKK was the unofficial terrorist organization of the Southern Democrats. For many years, Blacks voted Republican until Eleanor Roosevelt lobbied her husband FDR, to give African-American soldiers a chance to fight and prove themselves in battle during World War II. Blacks switched to the Democratic Party in large numbers. When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, outraged Dixiecrats left the Democratic party and became Republicans. Today, that historical opposition to Black progress now resides in the Republican Party and has manifested itself as an unreasonable opposition the Obama Presidency.
Again thank you for writing me.
Richard C. James
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