My Great Good Friends,
I walked into a room where a houseguest was watching coverage of the Dallas massacre on NBC. While it would never occur to me to turn to the Brian Williams fantasy network for objective news on anything, the broadcast (I’m sure inadvertently) did provide a powerful insight.
On screen was the articulate anchor Lester Holt (black) questioning a local affiliate’s field reporter (black). Subsequent segments included interviews with the police chief (black), the former mayor (black), the trauma surgeon who treated the wounded cops (black), the attorney general of California (black), the attorney general of the United States (black), a congressman (black), etc.
All while waiting for a statement from the most powerful man in the world (black).
I did not support President Obama in 2008, however I did think a silver lining to his victory would be to put ‘paid’ to the whining about American racism I have been hearing my whole life.
After one trillion dollars (yeah, with a ‘t’) spent on Great Society programs over the last 50 years the vast majority of black Americans have, thankfully, been afforded the opportunity to attain the most prestigious positions in our society.
So what of the dregs? The militants, the multigenerational dependent, the anarchists the nihilists?
I am beginning to think skin color is no longer the barrier to elected office or a multi million dollar network contract.
I am beginning to think the barrier is self immersion in ghetto culture, violence, misogyny, the rejection of education, and emulating gang appearance and speech.
The important word in the previous paragraph is SELF.
The happenstance of one’s skin color is not something we can control, hence virtue in the blood and treasure spent in the last half century to stop the waste of human potential. That is not what is happening today.
Its pretty evident when there are white faces among the unhinged rioters, and stoic black faces among police lines, that race in America is no longer the issue.
The race hustlers and profiteers from Sharpton and Jackson to the NBA and the music media conglomerates have no motivation to change the status quo. And, they certainly have been successful in broadening their consumers beyond the inner city.
Dr. Williams, the trauma surgeon mentioned above, has a darker complexion than I, and he is welcome in my home.
Eminem, the rapper, has a lighter complexion than I, and I wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire.
We owed support to the civil rights movement because no one chooses their skin color and therefor black’s exclusion from society could be, had to be, fixed by society.
We owe zero, nothing, to the punks, rioters, snipers – white or black, urban or suburban – who are choosing to self exclude from society.
In the 1950s we could not tell someone to ‘just change your skin color’. But today we can tell these folks ‘just drop the ghetto / gang speech, clothes and attitude’.
Study like the doctor or attorneys above, serve bravely like the police chief above, get elected like the representatives above, become as articulate as the President, and get those stupid preppie glasses Lester Holt wears.
So; we don’t choose our skin color, but we can choose how we present ourselves to society and it’s enforcers.
And all the evidence suggests America has evolved to the point where an individuals’ choices, not the happenstance of race, will determine his fate.
AnyHowitzer, lets hope the current situation defuses before the self segregating thugs learn the locks on our front doors are for their protection, not ours.
-ATN