Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The Romney NAACP Speech and Black Americans

I read the comment of Anonymous after I wrote my blog today. I'd just like to add a few points.
The NAACP is an honorable American organization, that was trying to help Black Americans and other minorities before most of us. Like the Urban League, the NAACP tries to be even-handed in matters of racial inequality. They don't always succeed because no organization can "vet" every member. Mr. Sheldon's remarks after Mitt Romney's speech go far toward making this point.
Because of the work of the NAACP, Urban League, US and state governments, many corporate CEOs and senior managers, and millions of caucasian Americans, as well as the gigantic effort of Black Americans themselves, there are now middle class, upper middle class and upper class Black Americans. They contribute to America's culture and economic success and they represent the future of their race in America by their example and effort - and their ability to tough it out in the face of racial prejudice that a non-Black will not and cannot ever understand fully. Thankfully, I believe that "gut" racial prejudice is greatly diminished in America today.
The tragedy is that sometime in the 1930s, the Democrats in charge of Washington realized that there were poor Black Americans who needed a lot of social assistance. They set out to deliver it, all the time reminding the Blacks who received help that it was the Democrats that had come to their rescue. That led to ghettos, unemployed Black men who grew up in generations in which work was not available and not needed because the government paid them to do nothing. Other results included unmarried mothers with several children, poor schools in the ghettos that had already formed, drug dealers feeding on boredom and social decay, and no real path out.
Starting in the 1960s, this began to change. But the long-term damage to the Black community in America is still all around us. And it is exacerbated by the later immigrant populations which cluster around Black areas to get their free shares of America's dole.
I have worked all my life to try to help, as have many others who have devoted much more of their time than I to the effort.
The proof of the Democrat Party's inability to provide a way out, or if one were cynical its desire to keep the American Black community "barefoot and pregnant," can be seen in the Obama administration, which talks the talk but doesn't even put on shoes when it comes to walking the walk.
Mitt Romney is absolutely right. He will be a better President for Black Americans than any Democrat would ever be.
Please, Anonymous...be openminded. Put the blame where it belongs - there's enough to go around to both Blacks and caucasians. Work hard to undo the wrong. Do not make excuses for Black Americans, but do not paint them all with the same brush either.

1 comment:

  1. I like it..A nice capitalist idea. Let's publish and make that money.

    ReplyDelete