American Tragedies and American Dreams

GarnerDecades ago, I taught at a community college. The bunch of us treated our shared office as if it were the neighborhood bar. We’d hang out for hours. That beat going home to our cheap apartments or our parents’ basements and watching TV, which was all we could afford on the pittance adjunct professors are paid. James was a jazz musician. Mo’s nose was always to the grindstone. Patrick was enthralling. I wish I had had a video camera recording our every conversation. His words glittered.

Melvyn was only a teenager. He was a new kind of person – a computer nerd – on the cusp of a revolution that would enrich many. Education was just beginning heavy reliance on computers. We profs were luddites. We would fumble with the computers – accidentally unplug them with our feet – and squeal that this was a sign of the end times. Young Melvyn to the rescue. Melvyn had a bouncy step, a perpetual smile, and a know-it-all air: that combination of goofy youthfulness and superior impatience exhibited by a hundred other computer geeks on a hundred other campuses. Melvyn’s hours seemed to be pre-dawn through midnight. Young Melvyn was the computer demigod.

Now, decades later, James is near retirement as the president of a better community college. Mo is still plugging away, at a higher-paying university. Patrick, brilliant Patrick, never landed the tenure-track, Ivy League position that could match his outsize intellect. He drank. He was homeless. He died.

The last anyone had heard of Melvyn, he was in jail. He had been stealing computers. Melvyn was the one member of our group who was born at the right place and the right time to parlay his freakish natural gifts into the best-paying job and the cushiest future. He destroyed all that with stupid, unprofitable, recklessness.

Melvyn was black. The scuttlebutt was that Melvyn had felt uncomfortable being the computer demigod of an academic setting, accepted by whites. Stealing computers restored his sense that he was authentic. He was in solid with his homies. He was sticking it to the man. The man who liked, trusted, and relied on him.

James is just as black as Melvyn. Mo is an immigrant with the kind of facial hair seen on many an FBI wanted poster, a foreign accent and a name that sets off alarms – Mohammed. James and Mo were able to build comfortable lives in America. Melvyn could not. But then neither could Patrick, a tall, handsome, heterosexual, Irish-American.

I’ve been thinking a lot about American tragedies and American Dreams in the wake of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand jury verdicts. I’ve also been thinking about my current young students’ futures.

I walk to work through Paterson, NJ, a post-industrial, high-crime, majority-minority city. My commute helped change me from someone who once voted communist to someone who now shocks herself every time she pulls the lever for a Republican.

As I walk, I pass healthy African American men in the prime of life who spend their days smoking joints and gossiping on streets littered with trash that no one but the rain ever removes. The day of the Trayvon Martin verdict, I was stopped by police cars, flashing lights, and yellow tape. I actually hoped for civil unrest. Something to show that Paterson still had a pulse. In fact one of Paterson’s former silk mills, a three-story brick structure, had completely collapsed. The bricks that sprawled chaotically, good only for blocking traffic, once surrounded industry founded by Alexander Hamilton and workers that gave Paterson an international reputation as “Silk City.”

There are facts, and there are stories. Impersonal forces like gravity, chemical bonds and time create facts. Humans create stories. Facts are objective. Stories are subjective.

It is a fact that police kill a disproportionate number of black males. What is the story one builds around those facts? For me, the pressing question is: what story is most likely to condemn my students to jail terms alternating with de facto incarceration on garbage-strewn street corners? What story will empower my students to become like James, an African American college president?

Here’s the story Della Kurzer-Zlotnick is telling. In December, 2014, Kurzer-Zlotnick, an Oberlin student, posted a letter to her professor on her Facebook page. In her letter, Kurzer-Zlotnick asked that her final examination in statistics be delayed.

“Students of color, particularly Black students, have suffered significant trauma,” she wrote, “due to the Grand Jury decisions” and thus they “are not at all in a place to take their final exams right now.” “Black students” are “struggling and feel traumatized because of the recent and day-to-day acts of racism in this country. Black students and other students of color have to focus on their survival.” Kurzer-Zlotnick herself identifies as “a white, middle-class person” who has “to [sic] privilege of being able to step away from these events and put enough energy into schoolwork and finals to assure that I will pass my classes.” But, she says, “Just because the murders of Eric Garner and Michael Brown do not seem to threaten the survival or safety of white people does not mean that they are not severely affecting students on our campus.” Those students, she reports, “are tired, they are hurting beyond belief.”

Kurzer-Zlotnick describes herself thus,

“I’m 18. My biggest passion is social justice and community organizing…At my synagogue, Shir Tikvah. I had the social action position when I was 15, and I didn’t really know what that meant – I just knew I cared about social change and progress.”

According to Forbes, the total annual cost for a student to attend Oberlin is $62,000. Five percent of Oberlin’s student body is black. Thirteen percent of the overall American population is black.

Is Kurzer-Zlotnick’s letter telling a true story? Are African Americans so burdened by murderous police that they can’t function, and do they need rich, white liberals, who publicly admit to their own cluelessness, and who live in white enclaves, to make excuses for them and to lower standards for them? And is this the route to a better tomorrow for all?

Here are some more facts, and a different story told by a different teller. One of my students, Terry, is an African American. Terry had a difficult semester, too. Terry was traumatized by life events too personal and too crushing to recount here, but please imagine the worst. Terry never asked for special treatment; in fact Terry never initiated disclosure. I noticed that Terry was depressed and I asked why. Terry never missed a class. Terry produced work so far superior to that of others that I asked to display it as an exemplary model.

And here is yet another story. After the Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand jury verdicts were announced, a concerned friend emailed me. “Be careful,” he warned. “They are predicting black rage.”

In the days subsequent to the Brown and Garner verdicts, my black neighbors are saying to me what they usually say. “Good morning … nice weather … my kid is giving me a hard time … my dog wants to go for a walk.” Al Sharpton called for protests in Paterson. I saw no protests in Paterson.

Other news is claiming our attention in Paterson in December, 2014. There are, of course, the usual drive-by shootings, heroin busts, and deadly fires. But lately we’ve learned that in the entire city, only nineteen students scored high enough on the SAT to be deemed “college ready.” This while sixty-six employees in Paterson schools earn at least $125,000 annually. Paterson teacher Lee McNutly went public to allege that his school was nothing but a chaotic “indoor street corner” where teachers were coerced into falsifying records in order to ensure six-figure bonuses to administrators. Paterson school #20 displayed a large sign for a week that contained multiple misspellings, in spite of parental complaints. All these local stories demanded more attention than alleged “black rage” over the Garner verdict.

And yet Jesse Jackson insists that it is inevitable that black people “explode” in riots. In late November, 2014, after riots in Ferguson, Missouri, CNN’s Don Lemon interviewed Jesse Jackson. Lemon, who is black, said that “Lawlessness and violence should not have happened and there should be no excuses made for it.” “If people need jobs,” Lemon asked, “why would you burn down a store where you could possibly get work? What does one have to do with the other? What does lawlessness have to do with lack of jobs?”

Jackson responded. “There is a body of people who after a long train of abuses simply explode…Pain can lead to irrational conclusions. To be locked out of police departments, fire departments, contracts and schools. Those factors matter.”

Here’s another story. A youtube poster calling herself Honestly Speaking posted a video entitled “The Mike Brown Fiasco” on December 2, 2014. Two weeks later, it had over a million views and seven thousand up votes. Honestly Speaking looks into the camera and shouts. She shouts that Mike Brown was a “disrespectful” thief, “asshole” and someone who “don’t contribute nothing to society” “who started the trail that lead him to his death. Just because he is black does not change the fact that he committed a crime.” She denounces protests as “bleeding heart bullshit.” Honestly Speaking is a black woman.

I am a former leftist and I know how facts are spun. “Truth is that which serves the party.” Ideologues will insist that black people like James, who became a community college president, are statistical anomalies, that black people like Don Lemon who push back against Jesse Jackson are sellouts or self-hating blacks, “house niggers” or Uncle Toms. Ideologues will insist that my black neighbors who did not riot after the Eric Garner verdict suffer from “false consciousness.” Ideologues will insist that African American students like Terry who do well within existing institutions are pawns whom The Man allows to succeed at the expense of their oppressed brethren – it’s all a conspiracy. In this spinning of Terry’s story, Terry’s success only delays the inevitable and necessary revolution. Ideologues reserve their most toxic vitriol for outspoken and admired black women like youtube poster Honestly Speaking. She’s already responded in a youtube video to being called a “race traitor.”

The left claims women and minorities. When women and minorities resist the left’s lure, we receive the harshest punishment. Witness what the left does to Sarah Palin, Deneen Borelli, or even Juan Williams.

Here are some facts. My coworkers describe hiring committees that decide that only African American candidates will be considered, even though that policy is not stated in the job description. Whites will apply, but will not be considered. My students and coworkers, who often are members of minority groups themselves, gossip angrily of others, including family members, who slack or claim preferential treatment because of their skin color. Maureen describes to me her volunteer work as a mentor for African American interns at a Fortune Five Hundred company. It maddens her that these interns need to be trained in basics like arriving on time, dress and comportment. I see monies, positions, programs, scholarships, that have been designated for African Americans, go begging, because they lack appropriate applicants. I see extended hands that reach out to emptiness. I see highways to success with no traffic on them. I see, in short, many Melvyns.

The past is prelude. We’ve seen these riots before. Jesse Jackson excuses them; implies that they are the way that African Americans can get jobs they would not otherwise get. Is that true?

The National Bureau of Economic Research is the largest economics research association in the United States. It is notable for the number of its research associates who are also winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics. The NBER published two papers in 2004, “The Economic Aftermath of the 1960s Riots: Evidence from Property Values” and “The Labor Market Effects of the 1960s Riots.” These papers indicate that the race riots of the 1960s “had economically significant negative effects on blacks’ income and employment.” It’s not just that cities affected by riots, like Newark, became dysfunctional and welfare-dependent ghost towns in the immediate aftermath of rioting. These riots had longer term, insidious, and all but invisible impact. Before the riots, the difference between what white workers earned and what black workers earned was becoming smaller. Black workers began to earn more. The narrowing of the gap between black workers’ wages and white workers’ wages accelerated during the 1940s – before the Civil Rights Movement. The riots reversed this trend. Researchers concluded that the black workers who suffered the greatest economic blows in the 1970s and beyond lived in cities where rioting was most severe. Riots were also found to depress the value of black-owned property. Rioting hurt black income and black assets.

Yes, white supremacy still exists. That’s a fact. What do we do with that fact? What story do we tell? What story will help my students and my city?

There are lots of statistics that could be used in any number of ways. It is a fact that if a woman was overweight in high school, she is statistically likely to earn less than her slender peers for her entire working life, even if she loses weight. It is a fact – one that many leftists would like to bury – that children who grow up in the same home with their biological mother and biological father do better on a slew of life measures, from incarceration rates to lifetime earnings. It is a fact that poor, white Christians are significantly underrepresented on the campuses of elite universities among both students and faculty. It is a fact that recent immigrants from Africa, who are themselves mostly black, are a “model minority” with above-average incomes and education.

What do we do with these statistics? How do we cherry pick among them to weave a story that justifies a riot or encourages a young person to plug away at a secure but unglamorous job?

Jesse Jackson insists that suffering people must explode. But not all suffering people do explode, and not all those who explode are suffering. Terry suffered and did not explode – Terry excelled. Della Kurzer-Zlotnick acknowledges that she is a rich white girl, and yet she is exploding – and urging others to join her.

I would like to assign reading to these activists, specifically Shelby Steele’s book “White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era.”

Shelby Steele is a black man born in 1946; he knew, and suffered under, Jim Crow. In spite of this, he accomplished much. He lived to see his former white, liberal allies insist that he owed them his “gratitude” because their bleeding hearts, not his hard work, were responsible for his success. In response to their condescension, he says, he felt a murderous rage even more intense than that he had felt under Jim Crow. Steele says that the bleeding heart narrative erased his achievements.

African Americans confronted the Ku Klux Klan. They risked Freedom Rides that ended in beatings and arson. They remained calm as lunch counter patrons poured sugar over their heads. But somehow these same black people are so delicate they need a confused 18-year-old girl to protect them from final examinations in statistics. Kurzer-Zlotnick’s enthusiasm for “social justice” must erase the considerable accomplishment of African American students like Terry, who soldier on in spite of personal hardship, and earn A grades. High achieving blacks become some kind of race traitors or freaks, anomalies who can’t be acknowledged because their existence threatens the story Kurzer-Zlotnick is telling about white liberal guilt and noblesse oblige.

The harm white liberals do is not limited to their need to erase African American achievement. Kurzer-Zlotnick is a powerful audience. The performance she applauds is explosive black rage. She would probably applaud Melvyn’s fencing stolen computers.

In 2006, in the New York Times, Harvard scholar Orlando Patterson, a Jamaican-born black man, wrote that one explanation for young black men’s criminal behavior was the applause antisocial behavior earned black men from white youths. Young black men have the highest self-esteem of all ethnic groups, he says, and that self-esteem is not lowered by what many would assess as failure, for example out-of-wedlock births and poor grades. Not only young whites applaud criminality among black men. Corporate America does so, as well, making millions from hip-hop and ghetto fashions. Young whites, Patterson says, know when to turn off rage chic. The young black males who have been duped into providing this performance may not know when it is time to leave the stage. The whites move on. The blacks are trapped.

I would like to invite Della Kurzer-Zlotnick to walk to work with me through Paterson. I would like her to step over broken glass and past shuttered factories. I would like her, simply, to listen to conversations on buses. My neighbors want their kids to do well, and are proud of them when they do. They work difficult jobs; I see them in nurse’s aide and McDonald’s uniforms, day after day, year after year. Injustices of many kinds are a given; that’s a fact. The key is what story one tells about injustice. It might be exciting for an 18-year-old girl to urge protest on one day when she feels worked up. I would like to invite Kurzer-Zlotnick and others to live in cities like Paterson after the protest is over, to see which approach has long-term, beneficial effects.

  • Bamaguje

    Brilliant thought provoking write-up Ms Goska.
    You hit the nail right on the head… that White guilt pandering and lowering of expectations & standards of civilized conduct, is largely responsible for Black underachievement and criminality.

    “…in the entire city, only 19 students scored high enough on the SAT to be deemed “college ready.” This while sixty-six employees in Paterson schools earn at least $125,000 annually” – Goska.

    The thieving Paterson schools officials should be arrested and prosecuted for fraud. They collected humongous paychecks for jobs they refused to do. They must be made to refund the money.

  • cecil91

    Several hurdles on the way to a conclusion in this piece. But the end message seems to encourage conservative ideals of hard work, self reliance, and responsible behavior. And who could doubt the successes of that approach to life?

  • Peter Castle

    It’s not about color. It’s about, culture, values, and character.

    See “Ferguson in Flames” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-5I.
    See “Propaganda Kills” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-6n.

    • Sheik Yerbouti

      Yes, it’s a purely cultural conflict. And while most of us are content with that, black Americans are not. For them the “enemy” is basically anyone who is not black. That sort of multigenerational racist hatred of all others is what’s really destroying blacks in the US. They create hostility, division and isolation then gripe when nobody wants to be around them.

      So while it’s a cultural issue, too many blacks are too stupid to see anything other than color. For them anyone who isn’t black is evil. We can’t buy our way beyond this with EBT cards.

  • kiwi41

    PC has stifled the ability to approach the problem.

    Until we can accept ( and say ) that there are black people, white people and then there are the fc u-k-i-n-g ni qq ers, and they can be ANY colour, the problems will continue to multiply. Now, the ni qq ers are in power……………..

    And it is the civilized, productive blacks and whites who will suffer .

    • Danusha Diane Goska

      I’m going to politely disagree with you. I think that what makes someone a loser is often the result of culture, culture that can be changed.

      I’m really bothered by the garbage on the streets. I saw a young man about to throw some garbage on the street. I stared at him. He actually stopped and waited and then threw it in a garbage can.

      I think society can change the message it is sending to cities like Paterson. I think right now Al Sharpton has the microphone. I think we need to take it away from him and give it to people like Shelby Steele and this youtube poster who calls herself “Honestly Speaking.” If you haven’t seen her videos, please view them.

      • nimbii

        Well, Al may be headed for jail if a Republican lands in the White House and revisits his Obama brokered sweetheart tax evasion deal with the IRS. Bye-Bye Al.

      • Bamaguje

        “I think right now Al Sharpton has the microphone… we need to
        take it away from him and give it to people like Shelby Steele…” – Danusha.

        Who’s going to take the microphone from Sharpton? May be you haven’t noticed, the pandering White-guilt establishment rewarded him for his race hustling with his own show on MSNBC.
        Shelby Steele isn’t their idea of what ‘Black’ should be.

        In the same vein, America’s first ‘black’ president is one who attended a “God damn America” church for 20 years until he was forced to quit by the demands of his 2008 presidential campaign.
        The White-guilt establishment rewards race baiting rabble rousers.

        • birddog

          The White-guilt establishment rewards race baiting rabble rousers, which in turn makes matters worse. Obama has set race relations back decades in this country.

      • birddog

        We are also losing the culture war Danusha, if you haven’t noticed.

  • TruthBeTold

    Patrick, brilliant Patrick, never landed the tenure-track, Ivy League
    position that could match his outsize intellect. He drank. He was
    homeless. He died.

    I know someone like this. A brilliant young man who could never find his way and was institutionalized long ago.

    Some mavericks make it big and we celebrate them. Others, too smart to fit in, are unrecognized by those around them in businesses and are marginalized because their ideas are seen as outside the mainstream.

    Businesses tell us they want the best and the brightest; the innovators. But many businesses don’t. They just want people to go along and play their role as a cog in the wheel.

    It’s a crap shoot of vying personalities. Great management recognizes and cultivates potential. Bad management is selfish and has a delicate ego.

    • JayWye

      My last job was with an alternation of good and bad managers. it was exactly as you stated. Unfortunately,the bad upper management won,the company ended up sharply downsizing,then was bought by another competing company. After 50 years of excellence.
      It’s many products used to be entirely made by themselves (and mostly in the USA),then transitioned to products made by Taiwan and other foreign nations and rebadged and sold as company products,but never having the same level of service or quality the company was known for.

  • nimbii

    The Congressional Black Caucus should read this article…not that it would do them much good.

    Many of them come from these kinds of neighborhoods and will tell their constituencies to “…keep on hatin’ and we’ll get this changed some day but for right now, just keep voting for me.”

    The hope is to keep themselves in their limos for pre-election visits to these failed neighborhoods. They tell residents about how they are serving them with failed crony-capitalist projects. The same projects that keep their beltway-bandit social engineering consultants kicking into their reelection campaigns while their constituents remain in poverty.

    • Danusha Diane Goska

      One of the frustrations is that people who I think “should” read this … won’t read this. But thank you.

  • Danusha Diane Goska

    A man was actually stabbed to death on my doorstep recently. I was questioned by police (as were all my neighbors.) I have already forgotten the man’s name. No one could profit from publicizing just another minority murdered by just another minority.

    • nimbii

      That is true and that is sad. The grievance industry has focused us on MSM worthy events for power and profit.

      It congratulates itself as does the MSM and that is doubly destructive and despicable.

  • ricpic

    I don’t give a damn about the future of young blacks. Yes, I know, their future will affect mine. Here’s the thing, like millions of other powerless non-criminal whites my only defense against blacks is distance, as in white flight to those parts of the country that are still mostly white. And if distance can’t be achieved then at least enough of an income so that I can afford the upper middle class neighborhoods that are blessedly free of blacks. That’s all a powerless white can do to increase his chances of not being robbed, burglarized, assaulted — live a life with as little contact with the noble blacks as possible.

    • nimbii

      Admittedly, I am similarly situated but sooner or later distance and money will not protect us.

      I do care about young blacks because each one I see working is hopefully, one less disaffected person to consider attacking whites for everything that’s wrong with their lives.

    • birddog

      and arm yourself

  • physicsnut

    yup – diversity is great – as in Yugoslavia.

  • physicsnut

    if they want to act like Palestinians -they should move to Gaza.

  • Juan Pablo

    One time a white guy assumed because I was dressed in a white tux at his country club that I worked for the wait staff in the restaurant.
    I should have exploded in rage. Where was my white girl companion to encourage me to riot? I was there all alone in that moment of racism with no rich white girl to lead me.
    It was almost as bad for me as that time Michelle Obama had to get something off the shelf at Target because she was taller. (God that must have been awful!)

  • TMRYAx2

    “Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility,and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
    -Sigmund Freud

    It’s so much easier if everything can be blamed on the ‘other’ guy.
    That way it’s all ‘his’ fault that I don’t have what I want – not mine.
    Therefore it’s ‘he’ who needs to change or be changed – not me.
    I can keep doing the same old things and expect different results if only that ‘other’ guy were somehow constrained.

    Tyrants promise to ‘help’ people by getting back at the ‘other’ guy – revenge/’justice’.
    People vote to give tyrants the power to constrain the ‘other’ guy.
    Thus tyrants gain the power to control everyone.
    Tyranny ensues.

    If you want the right to make your own decisions – you must take responsibility for the decisions you make.
    When you pass responsibility for yourself onto others – you lose your right to make your own decisions.

  • GSR

    I no longer care about supposed racism, bigotry, discrimination, etc. No. Longer. Care. The bottom line is, people of different races/ethnicities and cultures seldom, if ever, get along.
    Even more than segregation, perhaps true separation of races/cultures should be tried. Then can I have some peace and quiet?

  • Bamaguje

    “Blacks in the US don’t seem to want to be Americans. Most seem to resent the title and have adopted Africa…” – Sheik Yerbouti.

    Really? So why haven’t they moved over to Africa?
    No, slothful criminal-minded African-Americans don’t give a damn about Africa. Their self destructiveness has little to do with Africa.

    On the contrary as Ms Goska rightly points out, Blacks from Africa (Nigerians, Ghanaians etc) are much better off than African-Americans.

  • Ambriorix_Le_Belge

    Absolutely brilliant article

  • Stephen Bellinger

    Great propaganda piece.

    • Otto Gross

      Sorry, but my curiosity is getting the better of me. Why is that this is propaganda, and I imagine you’re saying the oppositions view is factual and the only honest view of things? It’s her view -my view, lots of people observational views. I think this is a great opinion piece. Solid writing. Well thought out. Tell me what qualifies as propaganda? Or maybe this just trolling with the hope that you’ll shut someone up not by the weight of the argument but some smug comment. So… public forum, please show us how this is propaganda.

      • Stephen Bellinger

        IMO its propaganda., because the premise is false on the foundation, that we all start front the same place, that we all have the assets to move forward, and that just “hard work”, and determination and we all will get ahead in life, and that’s just not true. No one becomes a success ALL on their own, no one is an island. And if your island is filled with danger, as compared to another whose is filled with opportunity, outcomes will be very different. But that’s her view, and she is entitled to it. The idea that ONLY conservatives think in terms of “ideals of hard work, self reliance, and responsible behavior”, is ridiculous. Because if that was true there would be no rich liberals. Also the idea that liberals need an “underclass”, is a person that does know the first thing about capitalism, and free markets. I can go on, but every see the world from there own view, VERY FEW can see the world from another’s. Conservatism is about preserving the status quo, resistant to change, so if the status quo has you in a position of power or privilege, of course you think its good.

        • Danusha Diane Goska

          Stephen thank you for responding to Otto’s question.

          Stephen you wrote “the premise is false on the foundation, that we all start front the same place, that we all have the assets to move forward, and that just “hard work”, and determination and we all will get ahead in life”

          In fact nowhere in the article do I say anything like that. I’m afraid either you have not read the article, or you skimmed it and imagined it said something it did not.

          “And if your island is filled with danger, as compared to another whose is filled with opportunity, outcomes will be very different”

          Stephen, I live in Paterson. Do you understand that about the article?

          “filled with danger” — a man was murdered on my doorstep recently. i was questioned by Police, as were all my neighbors.

          Before that, two men were shot to death in front of my building.

          I live with threats like this daily.

          Otto, who posted above, grew up in Paterson. Danger? He rubbed elbows with Mafiosi and had to fight for his life, as did his family members. They had to fight to survive. Literally fight, with their fists.

          “Conservatism is about preserving the status quo”

          Stephen I am a registered Democrat and I have voted for Communist candidates. Admittedly that was a long time ago.

          In short, it’s pretty clear that either you didn’t read or didn’t closely read the essay. that’s okay; we are all busy and reading does take time.

          Merry Christmas.

          • Stephen Bellinger

            Listen, I read your piece, and that’s what I got from it, open forum, and IMO is just that, my opinion. We are dealing with perceptions, and our personal views of the world, right? Not to discount yours, but mine is different, is that not what freedom is about? See your writing this, your opinion, your view, helps you, and that’s great. But IMO, it also gives “cover” to the bigotry, and prejudice in ingrained in America, that what I see from it. But all in all I still enjoyed the article.

        • Otto Gross

          No we don’t all start from the same place. I grew up poor in Paterson and worked my way out. Others did too. White, black, etc – success is largely self-determined. While there are instances when prejudice hinders people, it’s not the automatic reflex go-to the Liberal Left sells. People make poor choices and we shouldn’t label it otherwise so people feel better about themselves. We shouldn’t subsidize poor choices.
          Conservatism is about preserving the status quo. That sounds like propaganda to me. Since your consider yourself the enlightened VERY FEW, when are people accountable for their own success or failure? You imagine this conspiracy to hold down people. I go to all the meetings and it never comes up – and yes I know about capitalism – as as business owner and working for a Fortune 50 company. Discussions about how do we find enough people with basic skills does come up. Do their job, show up, take their job seriously. If there’s an underclass it’s because of a skills gap and not some grand conspiracy to explain away Why Johnny Can’t Read ( or his synapses don’t fire ).
          Lived there, been there, and I ( and D ) speak from the front line. Believe it or not – with compassion in mind. We owe it the the “don’t haves” a real understanding of where they go wrong. Bigots? yep, but now the real monster in room we need to openly discuss. Americans fight dumb things like bigots, but I think I see the same root cause here. I get the idea that you see government as the guarantee that everyone has the same level of success and not just a level playing field. No system will fulfill that. Second problem with what you’re suggesting that has to do with the idea that comes across that the system is either perfect or it’s a failure. Large systems are hard to keep self-sustainable and your philosophy makes it impossible.

          Your “underclass” comment and capitalism are the propaganda the Left sells. In the real world people can or can’t do the job. That simple. There is no economic advantage to have an artificial support system and depend on foreign labor. Those factories closed because in the real world we got bested and the people you call the underclass lost jobs. Unreal expectations have more to to do with it than a system meant to keep an underclass in a distopia. God or Darwin ; take your pick.

          Otto

          • Stephen Bellinger

            Otto, I believe in personal responsibility, and YES, do not support poor choices, but it if funny, how the poor choices of some are “life” sentences, but the same poor choice of another, is just “probation”

            Let me break in down to you… “success is largely self-determined ” pretty simple view, considering how complex life is, and its interconnections.

            And all your talk about, if you can, or can’t do the job, is great, if you, and yours truly live by that, you are the exception, not the rule, because “meritocracy” is a great goal, but a myth.

            And NO the government no matter how much it may want to, CAN NOT, produce equal outcomes, we agree on that. But “conservatism is about preserving the status quo” is a straight Webbers dictionary definition. So how is that liberal propaganda?
            See you think that because you say you are about fair play, and merit, etc. great for you, that you project that same view to everyone else in the same type positions, and that is where I see your failing, my opinion. See I know how pervasive, and nuanced bias is here, and so much a part of business as usual, that it is not even noticed, HOWEVER that is still no excuse not to do your best, make good choices, and push for what you want in life. See my problem with the right, conservative view is that the ethos says that you can’t even acknowledge injustice, prejudice, or bias, and then they add that BS at the end, saying that gives people an excuse. It is like history, conservative view, IMO, only talk about the good, minimize the bad, and ignore the ugly… false, presented as truth.

  • Otto Gross

    Great article. Growing up in Paterson and seeing what a distopia it’s become makes me sad. Growing up poor fifty year ago was a call to do everything you could to make a better life. Paterson was the palette for so many innovations – the submarine, the Colt rifle, the airplane engine for the Spirit of St. Louis, the engines that dug the Panama Canal. Authors, entertainers, musicians… so how it devolved into lowering the bar and sticking one hand into someone else pocket to share in their reward for hard work, and with the other blaming them for poor choices. We now subsidize bad habits and poor decisions. America is as much a state of mind as it is a place on the globe and we can not let “failure” be as good as our sights are allowed to get set on. Hopefully everyone reading this will pass in on.

  • Maynard

    The liberal agenda is to make sure that they will always have an “underclass” who needs them and so they strive to convince the black men/women that they can’t better themselves, the best way to accomplish this is by claiming that all whites are racists.

  • birddog

    The irony is that people who read your work for the most part agree with you. The people who need to read your work never will.

  • birddog

    You miss the mark here, other minorities(except for American Indians) were never given liberal “help”. Those two groups prove that the worst thing that can happen to a minority group is to have liberals take them under their wing. Hispanics need to take heed, they will probably be next on the liberal help list.

  • birddog

    Other than white guilt and liberals the ready acceptance of affluent blacks to offer excuses and cover for black thuggery seem to be their greatest impediment to moving forward.

  • Lanna

    Good and accurate article…its a shame the black race has been used like they have by the left, to cause violence, and unrest, they are the loosers in society, and they need to wake up and stop the progression. They are not gaining support, its the opposite.