Guest Post by Walter E. Williams
Many whites are ashamed, saddened and feel guilty about our history of slavery, Jim Crow and gross racial discrimination. Many black people remain angry over the injustices of the past and what they see as injustices of the present. Both blacks and whites can benefit from a better appreciation of black history.
Often overlooked or ignored is the fact that, as a group, black Americans have made the greatest gains, over some of the highest hurdles, and in a shorter span of time than any other racial group in history.
For example, if one totaled up the earnings and spending of black Americans and considered us as a separate nation with our own gross domestic product, we would rank well within the top 20 richest nations. A black American, Gen. Colin Powell, once headed the world’s mightiest military. Black Americans are among the world’s most famous personalities, and a few black Americans are among the world’s richest people such as investor Robert F. Smith, IT service provider David Steward, Oprah Winfrey, and basketball star Michael Jordan. Plus, there was a black U.S. president.
The significance of these achievements cannot be overstated. When the Civil War ended, neither a slave nor a slave owner would have believed such progress would be possible in less than a century and a half — if ever. As such, it speaks to the intestinal fortitude of a people. Just as important, it speaks to the greatness of a nation in which such gains were possible. Nowhere else on earth could such progress been achieved except in the United States of America.
The issue that confronts us is how these gains can be extended to about one-quarter of the black population for whom they have proven elusive. The first step is to acknowledge that the civil rights struggle is over and won. At one time, black Americans did not enjoy the constitutional guarantees as everyone else. Now we do. While no one can deny the existence of residual racial discrimination, racial discrimination is not the major problem confronting a large segment of the black community.
A major problem is that some public and private policies reward dependency and irresponsibility. Chief among these policies is the welfare state that has fostered a 75% rate of out of wedlock births and decimated the black family that had survived Jim Crow and racism. Keep in mind that in 1940 the black illegitimacy rate was 11% and most black children were raised in two-parent families. Most poverty, about 25%, is found in female-headed households. The poverty rate among husband-and-wife black families has been in the single digits for more than two decades.
Black people can be thankful that double standards and public and private policies rewarding inferiority and irresponsibility were not a part of the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. If there were, then there would not have been the kind of intellectual excellence and spiritual courage that created the world’s most successful civil rights movement. From the late 1800s to 1950, some black schools were models of academic achievement. Black students at Washington’s Dunbar High School often outscored white students as early as 1899. Schools such as Frederick Douglass (Baltimore), Booker T. Washington (Atlanta), P.S. 91 (Brooklyn), McDonogh 35 (New Orleans) and others operated at a similar level of excellence.
Self-destructive behavior that has become acceptable, particularly that in predominantly black schools, is nothing less than a gross betrayal of a struggle, paid with blood, sweat and tears by previous generations, to make possible today’s educational opportunities that are being routinely squandered. I guarantee that blacks who lived through that struggle and are no longer with us would not have believed such a betrayal possible.
Government should do its job of protecting constitutional rights. After that, black people should be simply left alone as opposed to being smothered by the paternalism inspired by white guilt. On that note, I just cannot resist the temptation to refer readers to my “Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon,” which grants Americans of European ancestry amnesty and pardon for their own grievances and those of their forebears against my people so that they stop feeling guilty and stop acting like fools in their relationship with Americans of African ancestry.
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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Someone may well assassinate this guy. He is not toeing the BLM party line.
I wouldn’t be surprised. Dumb does as dumb is.
“Many whites are ashamed, saddened and feel guilty about our history of slavery,”
Horseshit, every race has been a slave at one time or another.
But blacks have NO sense of guilt over the fact that BLACKS did the enslaving and selling of other blacks to European and Muslim slave traders.
You might not be “ashamed” or “saddened,” but it is undeniably true that “many whites are ashamed” — horseshit is denying that truth.
Blacks should aspire to emulate Walter Williams, but will not as he is “acting white”. One of the most egregious slurs a black person can receive is to be accused of “acting white”.
Excelling in school, staying away from criminals and gangbangers, speaking “the king’s english”, not “rap” or “ebonics”, living one’s life as an honest human being without a “slavery” or “oppression” chip on ones’s shoulders is “acting white” and looked down upon by blacks and their peers.
Blacks consider disrupting the educational process as “being real” and rebelling against “the system”-all massively detrimental to blacks.
Dr. Williams is wasting his breath by attempting to impose white standards on his black brethren.
Ghana is offering citizenship to any blacks who desire to return to Africa. I would support a program that would give blacks a stipend to relocate to the African continent and establish themselves there permanently with revocation of U S citizenship with no right to return to the USA.
14 trillion dollars to achieve black repatriation would be a bargain.
I will differ with you on one point only, living as we do and as Walter Williams does is not imposing white standards, it is living a civilized life. Black repatriation is a non-starter.
Since almost all blacks consider white society to be “white supremacist” in nature, I cannot agree with your assessment on “one point”. It is blacks who want to tear down “white civilization”. You are correct in stating that “white society” IS “civilized society”, something that no other culture ascribes to.
Regards,
Ever been to Japan or Singapore? Yep, East Asians.
Safer, cleaner, more polite, and more civilized than the USA; sad to say.
This…
“The first step is to acknowledge that the civil rights struggle is over and won.”
…is required if we are going to move on.
We also must end affirmative action.
All Affirmative action for every so-called group.
The problem is that the people do not want equality or justice, they want to get even, so they keep trying to make up for past transgressions by putting a system in place to commit equal but opposite transgressions. They seem to have no awareness that if they are against racism, they should be against racism, but instead they say they are against it, but then advocate for it and somehow apparently remain oblivious to their own double standard.
I often wonder how many Black Americans are afraid to take a stand. As we know, no one is safe from the Woke Mob, and once they turn their eyes to you, and decide you are now a target of destruction, then there is not much that will save you.
This alone, as well as the deafening silence regarding the murder spree of Black people killing fellow Black people in Chicago, speaks volumes about what this “movement” is really all about.
Some of my personal encounters with members of the Black community who are NOT part of this craziness, now or in the past, tell stories of coming from a place of poverty, or violence. They speak with sadness of their childhood friends who made different choices and are either dead, in jail, or addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.
Their outcome is not one of jail, gangs, drug use, or out-of-wedlock children, as they had some pivotal experience that was an epiphany about what they wanted in their lives.
Their stories are about making a decision not to go down the same path as some of their contemporaries. Staying in school and actually studying and graduating both HS and college.
They also all have some religious leanings, and regularly participate in a church community that includes regular attendance. These churches are almost always non-denominational, at least around here.
They tend to be married.
They tend to live in the suburbs.
They typically never speak about being a victim of anything except their own human frailty.
They are active in their communities but you have to seek out what they do. They do not shout it from the roof tops.
They have mothers that were married to their fathers, and if not, had just them or typically maybe one other child. These mothers tended not to be on welfare. They had an uncle or grandfather that was a strong, positive, presence in their life if their father was not there.
They usually do not smoke cigarettes.
Now, if you take away the “black” part of this, I can tell you unequivocally that this can be the same story for anyone who grew up in poverty.
The word racism is used as a blanket excuse for the personal failings in contemporary society. Society is not the government. The government is meant to do a very small set of things. Keep sound money. Maintain a sound infrastructure. Protect our borders. Enforce the Constitution via the courts.
Society on the other hand, is the values a group of people hold in and of themselves without government mandates.
These values are not to murder. Not to steal property that is not yours. Take care of the weak, such as children, elderly, and animals. Abhor rape and physical violence against others. Defend those you love.
Society that is functioning correctly will naturally grow and thrive with advancement in technology, medicine, and food/fuel sourcing.
If everyone under the Constitution is equally protected and has access to live their life while not impeding the life of others, then what you do with that life, the choices you make, is yours and yours alone.
We cannot pretend that prejudices don’t exist. They do. But to also pretend that a person’s choices are not the greater influence on his or her outcomes in this day and age is not only naive at best, but more damaging to our souls.
Standing up and saying “I accept the responsibility for my choices” is far harder than letting everyone else apologize for some perceived racism. It perpetuates people as victims, diminishes them as human beings. It in fact does the very thing they are crying out about. It once again paints them as different, separate, inferior.
It screams out that an entire race of people are incapable of helping themselves, and now must rely on others taking up their standard for them.
This is the cry of all personal failings. The finger pointing. The blame game. It keeps the addict addicted. It keeps the criminal in a life of crime. It also allows them to wreak a path of destruction fueled by self-hatred and shame at either what they themselves have done or allowed their contemporaries to do.
Well thought out well written sadly it all falls on deaf ears . The founders of BLM are not interested in black education and achievement ! Their interest lay in excuse making and destroying American society being devoted Marxist Communists with a series of Socialism threads forcing middle America to bow down falter and fail . This is part of a greater plan and the infiltration into American schools and colleges is complete !
This has produced a huge portion of current young adults to be useful idiots . Look around the country and look what is in the wake of the Covid 19 scare/coverup tactics .
After 40 plus years of economically hollowing out the middle class of America our entire system was spiraling down the drain after the greatest transfer of wealth from the many to the few at the top and the politically connected .
Along comes Trump with a MAGA promise ! Hollow words with masses eager to hear and follow . Of course he sounds good compared to the other line of bull shit yet still the same bull shit !
American industry is not back and neither are the industrial jobs that paid the tax base for schools teachers police & Fire .
How many shipyards and steel mills reopened ____ not enough if any ! Those former 30,000 steel and shipyard workers supported over 1,000 or more service jobs in public and private sectors .
So Make America Great Again is no different than Yes We Can !
President Trump is still our only choice regardless of his dismal success there is still a faint glimmer of hope fading quickly .
Remember Carrier , Trump left , the press left the lights went out the jobs left and the lights went on in a Carrier plant in Mexico .
A GM plant that paid $29 bucks per hour is now a Chi-Com auto glass factory paying $12.50 per hour ! Stories like that are all over our nation and that does not restore communities black or white !
I don’t think the author understands the thinking of the black majority in major cities. I don’t get them either. I am just glad I don’t live anywhere near these people.
I have read Mr. Williams writing for a long time now. As a Professor, his economic writings can be understood by just about anyone and he has tried for years to enlighten people in the “black community” . He understands them all too well and is probably very disappointed that so many prefer to remain ignorant and uncivilized. He is good man who understands.
In order to properly assess our present “state of affairs, it is necessary to look back to those who imported our now useless “farm implements” and to put the blame where it belongs. Solutions must also be discussed for future implementation.
The slaves that were brought to the “New World” were NOT the “best and brightest”, but were dregs from the various tribes that their leaders wanted to get (and be) rid of.
Internecine warfare also played a factor in the slave trade.
What better way for tribal leaders to obtain highly desirable “trinkets and baubles” while getting rid of those who were causing problems?
Troublemakers, ne-er-do-wells, criminals, mentally retarded and just those who fell out-of-favor in their respective tribes were sold off, an advantage for the tribal chiefs.
It was a “win-win” situation for the jewish financiers, jewish ship owners and auctioneers, and those who initially needed “muscle” (farm implements).
It was a “win-lose” situation for the future generations (and the rest of us) as we are living with this sorry, dysfunctional race, putting up with their very different “habits”, criminality, the need for instant gratification and other idiosyncracies to this very day, due to their very different DNA.
In every case, even with the “talented tenth” who were supposed to uplift blacks and prove that blacks could succeed in white-run society, blacks have proven to be abject failures.
Black inability to conform to white societal norms is proof that they should be segregated and eventually returned to their own African societies.
It cannot happen soon enough. Let’s start with segregation and end with repatriation. We would all be better off.
Even if it takes 14 trillion dollars to repatriate all of our “obsolete farm implements” it would be a bargain.
“Reparations”, once received, would permanently ban any recipient from returning to the USA as well as revocation of U S citizenship. Recipients would be “bar coded” and “chipped” in order to enforce the permanent ban on re-entry to the USA.
A “bargain” indeed…
I never enslaved anyone and have no intention of apologizing for anything. As I have about many things, get up get out, get over it. There are many brilliant black Americans yet those that are “worshiped” are the ex-cons , the criminals who lose their lives to police. Just think if men like Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, and many like them were the men being honored and not criminals, would this not produce a better end result.
The uneducated are taking out their own now. A white Democrat Senator was attacked:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/protesters-attack-wisconsin-state-senator-in-chaotic-night-at-capitol-report?utm_source=whatfinger
Hiding behind their masks, too stupid think they’re unaccountable for their behavior.
You don’t talk or negotiate with people like this. You feed them buckshot.
Reparations?
How does 40 acres and a mule sound?
In South Dakota.
Good old Jeffersonian approach.
For all races that feel victimized by whatever.
Best suggestion EVER!!!
Declare 100 years of slavery for all White people in the U.S. as reparations.
How about you suck black dick for 100 years?
HAHAHAHA…Hell, I thought that’s what school bonds were on my property taxes.
Remember that the talented 10th was going to lift the other 90% up, even they realized it wasn’t going to happen.
Why? The American blacks have spent the past 150+ years proving they, as a group, can’t measure up – and that it has nothing to do with anything beyond their genetic composition. That fact that you can sift through the all the shit and occasionally find something that isn’t shit among them isn’t meaningful – the extreme outliers aren’t even remotely worth the problems caused by the rest of their race. We have better things to do than babysit these creatures for the rest of eternity. Haiti is the pinnacle of their ability, and they are never going to change.
We need a permanent separation from these people.
“…my “Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon,” which grants Americans of European ancestry amnesty and pardon for their own grievances and those of their forebears against my people…”
This confuses me. If I have a grievance – that is, a complaint about some foul deed or injustice – against Williams’ people, why would I want his pardon or amnesty?
Also, since he is a professor and since careless writing, especially by tenured academics, bugs me, I will take the liberty to point out the lack of parallel construction in his opening sentence:
“Many whites are ashamed, saddened and feel guilty…”
Finally, Professor Willliams has a plush job at a school known for its emphasis on libertarian philosophy, a field of study which appeals primarily to a narrow segment of the White, male, 120 IQ-or-higher population. Therefore I suspect that his audience is mostly White people in general and smart White kids in particular. If he is serious about helping his own race and if he genuinely believes that Blacks can outscore Whites scholastically if taught properly, why isn’t he working in the academic trenches with black youth at a black school?
“why isn’t he working in the academic trenches with black youth at a black school?”
Because no amount of education will ever change what they are.
Agree. And that’s the core issue, which Williams studiously overlooks.
He seems to be a reasonably intelligent guy, but I have no doubt he was hired in deference to the diversity anti-racist agenda – for which libertarians almost always forego their principles when Whites are at the butt end of discrmination – not because he was the most qualified guy GMU could find.
Whites and blacks would do best to learn that whites were not responsible for slavery in America. http://www.wethoughttheywerewhite.tumblr.com