by Hugh Murray
The excellent article by Jared Taylor, “School Suspensions:
More Official Baloney,” exposes how the government and media collaborate to
promote the lie that anti-Black racism is wide-spread and corrective measures
must be taken. The logic is clear in the
first paragraph: Education Secretary Duncan laments that minority students face
much harsher discipline than non-minorities despite the fact that “researches
[at the National Education Policy Center] have found no evidence that students
of color engage in more misbehavior than White students.” Taylor draws the final line of the syllogism:
this “leaves discrimination as the only culprit.”
Taylor’s
article uses statistics, including those from the Department of Justice, to
prove that students of color [Blacks and Hispanics] do in fact engage in more
misbehavior than White students, and therefore the notion promoted by the
educrats that minorities receive harsh punishment is not true. Because they
engage in far more unruly and violent behavior than their white and Asian
fellow students, Blacks and Hispanics are suspended more often and deservedly
so.
My purpose
here is not to summarize Taylor’s research.
I merely note that his article is conservative in scope, limited to the
distortions of the academedia complex seeking to establish the false notion
that Blacks and Hispanics are victims of discrimination in school suspensions. My objective is to demonstrate how using
those same methods and a false premise, America has enacted “reforms” that have
been destructive to American society.
The method
of distortion is simple – take the general population of schools, break it down
into percentages of Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, and possibly
others. Then total the number of school
suspensions, expulsions, etc. Break
those down into groups also. Because the
percentage of Blacks and Hispanics suspended is greater than the percentage of
whites disciplined, the reason must be racial discrimination.
The same
method is used to contend that the death penalty is discriminatory; that in the
1980s and 90s the banking industry discriminated in not providing sufficient
loans to poor minority borrowers seeking to purchase a home; to the gap in
hiring police and fire fighters, or admitting students to university, law
school, medical school, etc. Everywhere,
when one uses the yardstick of proportionalism, one uncovers discrimination.
It is time
to assert – they are using the wrong yardstick.
When the US
Congress was debating passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA), much of
the debate centered on proportional hiring and firing, racial balance and
quotas, and the possibility of providing preferences for minorities. Southern opponents of the legislation warned
that passage would result in quotas and anti-white discrimination. Nonsense, replied the liberals. Liberals stressed that not only did the
proposed law not require hiring, firing, or promoting to achieve racial
balance, it expressly forbid such practices.
The law required hiring the best qualified candidate. This was the point of the law. This was to be the codification of Martin
Luther King’s speech during the 1963 March on Washington: the candidates would
be judged by their character, not by the color of their skin. This is why the commission created to enforce
the law was called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. There were to be no racial preferences,
deferences, or discrimination in hiring and firing. Liberal Sen. Hubert Humphrey, the majority
floor leader for the bill, asserted that if a Negro were hired instead of a
better qualified white, the Minnesota would eat his hat. The unstated assumption was that all races
were equally talented in all fields. In
future, more Negroes would be hired because in the past they had been denied
equal opportunity. With the new Civil
Rights Act, and the EEOC to enforce it, Blacks would be given equal opportunity
for all jobs, and they would quickly rise to the level of all other groups.
I believe
that most of those who voted for the CRA sincerely believed that equal
opportunity in hiring, etc., would result in the hiring of more Blacks
[Hispanics were a small minority in 1964 and were not a part of the
debate]. Blacks, who in some cases had
not been allowed to apply for positions before passage of the law, could now
apply themselves and apply for the jobs.
Being like everyone else, they would get some of the jobs. Everyone who had been to university – a small
but growing minority – had learned that all races were essentially equal in
every respect, in all talents and in intelligence. Blacks were, as a prominent historian once
phrased it, “white people with black skins.”
A few decades later, this notion was expanded to the theory that there
were no races; race was merely a social construct.
With
passage of the CRA of 1964, the overt discrimination that prevented Blacks from
sitting at a lunch counter, or enrolling in a neighborhood public school, would
crumble. Legal segregation would
evaporate as the 60s wore on. Blacks
could now eat a burger at Woolworth’s, apply for a post as cashier, as an
airline pilot, as a policeman, maybe in time, as a president. Because all races were equal, in time one
could expect to see a racially balanced work-force in all areas of life. And the government itself was the guarantor
of fairness in hiring through the EEOC.
Things did
not go as anticipated – or as hoped.
Many Blacks were not qualified for the posts that were opening up to
them. Many in the South had attended
inferior, segregated schools. [I do not
imply that all segregated schools were inferior, but most certainly were. I attended my neighborhood K-8 elementary
school, Judah Benjamin, and we wrote with chalk on the blackboard. When the chalk dwindled to stubs, we saved
them in a wooden box to be sent to the Black school. The neighborhood Black school – the
neighborhood was integrated – was crowded and had morning and afternoon shifts
for students. By the time I was in 8th
grade, white students from another part of the city were being bused in to fill
the empty desks in my school.] Of
course, attitudes toward schooling were different then. My mother was fairly well educated having
graduated from 8th grade, while my dad had finished schooling with 3rd
grade. In the South education was prized
less among whites and Blacks. Of course,
in the North, many Blacks attended the same schools as whites and received the
same education.
During
debate on the CRA a case arose in the North that was to affect the wording of
the law. In the fall of 1963 a Black, high-school dropout sought a job
at Motorola. Like all applicants, he was given a general ability test. He
failed it. He then complained to the Illinois Fair Employment Practice
Commission alleging he was not hired because of his race. The Illinois
state commission appointed a Black to hear the case, and in January 1964 that
examiner ruled that the test was unfair to culturally deprived groups and
issued a cease and desist order. Motorola was ordered to stop testing to
hire the best qualified applicants. To many Americans, requiring
companies to hire people who could not pass basic tests seemed unfair – it was
a threat both to merit hiring and an efficient work force. Because of
this threat, the proposed civil rights legislation was amended in Congress, as
the Clark-Case memorandum explained: “There is nothing in Title VII that
employers abandon bona fide qualification tests where, because of differences
in background and education, members of some groups are able to perform better
on these tests than members of other groups.” (Hugh Graham, The Civil Rights Era, p. 151)
Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen, Republican leader also had the legislation
amended so that only intentional discrimination was barred.
The general
presumption was that all races are equal in all talents. If this were true, why then were Blacks as a
group unable to compete with whites? One
obvious explanation was the inferior education Blacks had received in the
past. There were demands to grant Blacks
some special preferences to make up for that discrimination which they had
endured in the past. How would this be
determined? The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) began to use the proportional model to determine
what percentage of a workforce Blacks should have, and apply racial quotas to
guaranty that Blacks were hired or promoted to reach that percentage. Thus, if Blacks constituted 10% of the
population of a given area, they should be 10% of the police force, fire department,
everything. And no or few whites should
be hired until the Black proportion reached the ideal goal with a timetable for
achieving it (all this was a euphemism for quotas). Quotas had been outlawed in the CRA, but the
EEOC, the commission created to enforce the law, implemented policies meant to
subvert the CRA. The EEOC instituted
rules whose purpose was to deny equal opportunity to whites, and thereby
achieve the percentage of Blacks that the proportional model required. Past discrimination against Blacks would be
the rationale for imposing the affirmative action preferences for Blacks, which
amounted to negative action discrimination against whites.
There was
another issue that swelled to the surface in the late 1960s. This can best be illustrated by two film of
that era: Carmen Jones and Black Orpheus. In Jones,
Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge sang a modern Carmen. It is a European story in modern dress and Blackface. Negroes are simply white people with dark
skins. On the contrary, Black Orpheus, (the French-Brazilian
film, and the first to win the Academy Award in the new foreign film category)
takes an ancient Greek myth and places it during the Carnival in Rio. The whole film seems as far from Greece as is
Brazil; as far from Western culture as Santeria is from Roman Catholicism. In the film, the culture is exciting,
beautiful, bizarre – but alien. Do
Blacks have a distinct culture? Is the
culture the result of oppression? Or the
outgrowth of a different clime and times?
Or what?
If Blacks
in America are different from whites, to what extent should whites make
accommodations for those differences?
Soon there were law cases that Black men should not be required to shave
for certain jobs because the skin of Blacks was more sensitive to razors. Because the hair of Blacks was different,
they should be permitted to wear it longer, or in different styles from
others. And this was but the tip of the
iceberg. For years New York City schools
had rejected white applicants for teaching posts who did not speak standard
English, but the policy had long made exceptions for Blacks who spoke with
Black accents – even though these sometimes included grammatically incorrect
usage by standard rules. And if
exceptions were made for Black teachers, what about Black students? Often Blacks engaged in more horse play,
shouted more, used foul language. Whites
would be expelled for such misbehavior.
But often Blacks were not punished and continued with their non-standard
English and different manners. Should
they have been punished like whites?
In the 1980s
there was a prominent Black female educator, Adelaide Sanford, who contended
that Blacks were naturally more attuned to approximation than precision. Therefore, math exams must not grade Blacks
as others, even if the Blacks fail to deduce the exact answer. So long as they were approximately near, that
was good enough. (One wonders if
architects and engineers would be held responsible if their structures collapsed
because their approximations failed to stabilize a bridge or building?) Sanford’s reforms of the mathematics and
other curricula were never implemented, as far as I know. At least not yet. (
I am mistaken. Though I see no credit given to Sanford, schools did see a way to close the race gap in math by teaching “fuzzy” math, where accuracy is not so important. See the link http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/27/nyregion/the-new-flexible-math-meets-parental-rebel
lion.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)
In 1986 Sanford was appointed to the New York State Board of
Regents, helped compose a controversial handbook, and was nominated by and supported
by many to become Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools in 1987. She was not chosen.
Far more
significant was the assault on testing led by Eleanor Holmes Norton of the EEOC
during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Aptitude testing had developed over the early decades of the 20th
century so that by WWII, it was effective in determining the types of jobs
individuals would best be fit for.
However, on these tests, and of course on IQ exams, Blacks as a group
did poorly. The Left concluded, the
culprit must be the exams. Kill the
messenger! So Norton used her post to
try to abolish the tests, discredit them, and denounce them as racist. What other reason could there be for Blacks
doing poorly on these exams?
Through use
of the EEOC, court cases, and exorbitant fines, Norton generally succeeded in
preventing use of most exams for jobs.
Instead of helping to direct the individual to the best job fit for
which he was equipped, there was more randomness, more of the better qualified
filling lower positions, and more of the under qualified moving up (if they
were Black, or later Hispanic). Norton’s
objective was to lower qualifications for most jobs so anyone could be
considered “basically qualified,” and then the only way for the employer to
choose among the mass of “basically qualified” candidates was to hire by
racial, ethnic, or gender quotas. Of
course, that was the aim of the Left and EEOC.
Deny jobs to the best qualified and hire by quota.
Admittedly,
there has long been an antagonism in public schools to intelligent students by
the educrats. I attended a segregated,
white high school in New Orleans. New
Orleans, then still considered the largest city in the South – as it had been
since the 1840s – was more populous that Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, and
Memphis. It was also about 50% white and
50% Black. While the overwhelming
majority of whites were Roman Catholic, the overwhelming majority of Blacks
were Protestants. About a third of all
students attended Catholic schools, which like the public ones, were segregated
by race. Another difference between the
high schools – Catholic schools were still segregated by sex. My class year was the first in New Orleans to
attend co-educational public schools from K to 12 (For younger readers, co-ed
schools are those open to boys and girls.
Co-ed is a word seldom used today to refer to the kind of school that is
now ubiquitous. Today, when you say
school, you assume that both male and female students comprise its population.)
One of my
high-school history teachers was speaking informally to the class about the
contrast between Easton, where I attended, and Jesuits, our main, football
rival in the city. The teacher declared,
“At Jesuits, the students who have grades from 90 to 100 attend one class;
those with 80 to 89, another; and those 70 to 79, yet another.” Someone asked, “What about those who receive
less than a 70?” “They come to Easton,”
the public school teacher responded. We
all laughed, but there was truth in his observation.
This is
when I first encountered the concept of “streaming” – having separate classes
for those students who are weak, average, and excellent. I do not think that streaming occurred
officially at Easton, but by my second year, as a junior, I had heard who the
hard and easy teachers were. I sought
the rough ones. As many of their
students sought to transfer out from those teachers, it was not difficult for
me to transfer into the classes of the hard-graders. In that sense, Easton had self-service
streaming. Though known as a football
school, I was on Easton’s state champion debating squad. Being a debater probably did not enhance my
popularity, but it didn’t hurt it. I was
a nerd at a football school. One New
Orleanian of that era who attended Easton proved it was not necessary to play
on the football team to gain fame. No, we
generally do not remember Lee Oswald for football.
I realized much
later that streaming inside a class may have occurred when I was in 1st
of 2nd grade. At the time, I
was unaware. But in that class as we
learned how to read, we were divided into three groups, chicks, bunnies, and
ducks. I do not remember to which I was
assigned, but I do recall being surprised after speaking to a girl in another
group, and hers was behind ours in the reading book.
I think it
was under Eleanor Norton and the EEOC that President Carter’s Administra-tion
began a war against streaming. Put
simply, the good students were usually white, and the weak students,
Black. Thus, in an integrated school,
with streaming of classes, the class rooms were often segregated by race. In effect, when the Federal Government
demanded the end of streaming, it was not only requiring that the class room be
racially integrated, but that it be integrated by ability – the very bright,
the average, and the very dull. Is this
really good, educational policy?
By the
1990s the Government was pushing Outcome Based Education (OBE) in public
schools. Since Blacks were not
performing well, the educrats decided the reason might be that the teacher was
spending too much time with the average students, and moving on to the next
lesson when most students had understood that particular lesson. The result, however, was the slow students
could not keep up, falling ever further behind.
So now, under OBE, it was wrong to teach to the smart or even the
average student. In reality – that was
“racist.” To prevent such, the teacher
was not supposed to begin Chapter 2, until all students, even the very slowest,
had absorbed Chapter 1. So, bore the
smart and average student! So
what? They are probably white anyway. The teacher must go slowly through the text
book for the slow (often minority) students.
In time, teachers would use only dumbed-down text books aimed at the
slow students. Whites could (and did)
leave such public school systems for the suburbs or private education.
While these
“reforms” were being introduced by the Feds and the educrats, some parents were
using the courts to stir changes of their own.
The Federal Government had passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in
1990, and now some parents demanded the end of schools especially meant for the
blind, the deaf, or others severely disabled.
They demanded that their handicapped children me main-streamed. Not all parents agreed with these demands for
integration. They believed their
children had better chances in life if they could learn among those with
similar afflictions. But in some
schools, the severely handicapped were indeed placed in regular classes. With OBE, the teacher is not supposed to open
Chapter 2 until all understand Chapter 1.
Suppose some, or even one, in the class is incapable of such
understanding? Do you punish the
teacher? Or the other students? And if the weakest student never understands
year after year? It is then
theoretically possible then in 12th grade for the teacher to be opening
Chapter 1 of the first grade book, hoping this time, all will understand the
lesson. The policies are absurd. Are schools meant to educate?
Then
President George W. Bush proposed the No Child Left Behind Act. Part of the disputes revolved round objective
testing of students and teaching for the tests.
But far more insidious was the determination to narrow the gap between
Black, Hispanic, (thanks to liberal’s open-door immigration policy and massive
illegal immigration, Hispanics now outnumber Blacks in the US) and white
students on objective tests. Because
schools whose students did poorly on these tests might be punished, and even
closed, there was great incentive to cheat.
Teachers not only cheated, changing the answers given by their students,
but sometimes the teachers were ordered to do so by their principals and school
administrators. One prize-winning
teacher-administrator in Atlanta was revealed to be part of the cheating
process. Her students had scored high,
and her schools were promoted as examples to the nation. Then, scandal.
Worse, was
the emphasis on narrowing the racial gap on objective tests. If whites had done better, that would not be
deemed success under the program. The
objective was to narrow the gap. Thus,
if white scores were to drop drastically to equal the low scores of Blacks and
Hispanics, the Department of Education (under a liberal Republican) might judge
that to be a success! Obama’s Race to
the Top is much the same, but with less interest in closing schools that
perform poorly.
If these
reforms were not bad enough, often the reality in public schools is worse. I remember as a student in New Orleans when
the film “Blackboard Jungle” was shown.
Many segregationists warned that that would be the result of integrated
schools in the South. It was a sobering
film, and though the young, Black actor Sidney Poitier turns out to be a good
guy in the movie, the vision of schools so ill-disciplined and out-of-control
in liberal, integrated New York was an ominous forecast. Soon, however, I would dismiss such rears by
reading “The Southern Patriot,” the newsletter of the Southern Conference
Education Fund (SCEF, an offshoot of the Southern Conference on Human Welfare.
SCHW). The SCHW had openly endorsed
Progressive Henry Wallace in the 1948 election campaign, and President Truman’s
Attorney General placed SCHW on his list of subversive organizations as a
Communist front. The Wallace campaign in
the South in 1948 was in many ways a precursor to the civil rights protests of
the 1950s and 1960s. But between 1948
and the Montgomery bus boycott of the mid-50s, many integrationist
organizations in the South collapsed after being labeled as Communist dominated.) The SCEF newsletter contained reports on the
integrated schools of Washington, DC, stressing how well such schools were
performing. Clearly, that is not the
case in the long run, and I must now question if these reports of the 1950s and
early 60s were accurate, or little more than wishful thinking, or liberal or
communist propaganda.
I do not
seek to idealize the public schools I attended in the 1950s. There was bullying, occasional fights, some
students were mean, some kind. And for
the Blacks, their schools were generally unequal. Yet, it is inconceivable that we would have
had to walk through metal detectors to enter the building. I am now too lazy to research the crime
statistic in public school of the 1950s and compare them with the statistics of
today. In both eras, the statistics lie
– because in both eras educrats are more worried about the image of their
schools than reporting honestly about fights, threats, stabbings, shootings,
rapes, murders, occurring on school premises.
But everyone old enough to compare is aware that the schools generally
are far more dangerous today than in 1955.
Why?
The Obama
campaign to prove that Blacks are suspended and expelled more than whites is
not the first attempt by the Left to destroy standards of conduct in schools as
they previously destroyed academic standards.
I think it was in Cincinnati in the 1990s that schools adopted a policy
(either voluntarily or through court-order) of suspending students
propor-tionately by race. Realistically,
what can be the result?
Should
teachers impose a harsher discipline on white students, so their proportion of
suspension will rise to the level of the Blacks? Suspend a white for chewing gum, perhaps? Or more likely, fail to suspend a Black when
his action clearly deserves it? For to
suspend him will raise the percentage of Blacks suspended, and the government
may then accuse the teacher and the school of the gravest crime in today’s
America, “racism.” So, ignore the Black
when he shouts an insult to another student; ignore him when he insults a
teacher; when he hits a fellow student; when he slugs a teacher; when he rapes
or commits a major crime? Better to
ignore all this than be accused of racism.
As the
school ignores increasingly disruptive, uncivil, and even criminal behavior by
some Blacks, what are the ramifications?
Other Blacks observe what some can get away with, and though their first
impulse may have been to obey the rules, they find it more fun to join the
delinquent crowd – after all, they will not be punished for it. Some good Black student will be intimidated
and beaten. They will have to stop getting
good grades, stop studying, stop paying attention in class – because that is
“acting white” – a crime almost as horrible as “racism.” They are punished for being good students,
and the Black students who impose these punishment, sometimes harsh, are not
punished by the school.
And what
happens to the whites in such an atmosphere?
Some will be terrorized like the good Black students. But it will be worse. The curriculum has undoubtedly been altered
to stress the many accomplishments of Blacks, Hispanics, women, and everyone
except white men. The latter are
stigmatized as exploiters, oppressors, slave owners, aggressors, war-mongers. And they are not that smart. When waiting to vote in the presidential
election of 2008 in a long line inside a public school, I noticed the pictures
on the wall and the notice on the bulletin board. There were numerous photos of rap artists with
captions praising them. There was the
notice about the book Stolen Legacy,
about how the ancient Greeks learned everything from the Egyptians, stole their
knowledge, and then used it against the creative people of Africa. This is a variation of the “blue-eyed
devils,” Black Muslim school of history.
Whites invent nothing except how to mistreat others. So rap is a natural outlet for Blacks to
respond to such injustice. If whites
dispute some of this, Black bullies will verbally assault and insult them as
racists – the white ofays and white bitches and all the other foul words in the
bully vocabulary. If that does not
settle it, Blacks may use violence. Whites,
who can afford it, flee the school system their parents’ taxes support. Therefore many public schools in the city
become Blacker, more violent, less academic, and sprinkled with metal detectors
and extra police or security guards.
And then
the Leftists and Black Nationalists, whose policies promoted this academic
disaster, shout before the TV cameras, “Why is it whites don’t come to our
schools?” It is the policies of the Left
that have made them “their schools,” a culmination of Black culture, Black
discipline, Black academia, and Black crime.
A place where whites and others are quite unwelcome. A true blackboard jungle.
What
happens at university? The few good
Black students who, despite “acting white,” survived the hatred of the pampered
Black bullies in school can probably do well on SATs and other entrance
exams. However, universities must not
appear to be “racist.” So they use
affirmative action scams to reach their illegal quota of diversity
students. Therefore, some of the same
bullies who terrorized others in school, who did poorly on the Stanford
Achievement Tests (SAT), etc., may also be admitted to the same
university. And they will be admitted,
and even granted scholarships, above poor white students who perform much
better on exams. Equal opportunity?
The campus
will subsidize the Black Students Union and other non-white ethnic
organizations. There Black students will
learn that the reason they are receiving low grades in math and science courses
is the racism of the professors. They
are encouraged to enroll instead in Black Studies and other “relevant”
programs. In these, the ethnic professor
listens acutely to their stories of “oppression.” In some courses, they need not speak, or even
compose papers in white English. They
may use Ebonics instead. (In May 2012 a
blogger for the Chronicle of Higher
Education was fired when she suggested that these ethnic studies programs
be abolished, and cited some dissertation titles in the field as proof of their
political nature. Some 6,500 people
emailed the Chronicle demanding her
dismissal. Many of these were signed by
professors. That is how debate is
conducted in the politically correct atmosphere of today’s university.) And even if they were not enrolled in such
programs, it would be interesting to read some of the papers written by
President Obama and his wife when they were students. Unfortunately, the President who promised to
make his administration the most transparent, refuses to make available his
university writings, or even his grades – presumably because his papers contain
embarrassing material.
There are
many consequences of affirmative action, racial balance, and giving preference
to lesser and unqualified minorities.
Many Blacks at university are simply in over their heads. So now, they fail, leave the university after
a year or two, and blame the racism of the professors, the campus, the nation,
etc. To the good students, White, Asian,
Hispanic, even Black, there is reinforcement of the stereotype that the Black
is the intellectual inferior of others.
Of course, those who are most damaged by affirmative action are the
whites who were qualified for university but who were denied scholarships,
denied admission, denied equal opportunity simply because they were white.
The
university atmosphere of affirmative action also permeates the liberal arts
curriculum and research. What happens to
a psychology professor who proposes to study the possibly different
intellectual capabilities of the different races? Much of the research on race is
distorted. Some questions dare not be
raised – such as meaningful racial differences.
If that question cannot be discussed, then all discussion of race is
circumscribed, distorted, so that much of the writing in sociology over the
last 60 years might better be called “excusiology.” History texts must now emphasize minorities
and women, even though their influence on history may not be comparable to that
of white men, at least in the past few centuries. Indeed, by 1900 almost the entire globe was
ruled by white men. To the politically
correct university of today, this is a matter of embarrassment. They would prefer to have the picture of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence repainted, showing half the signers to
be women, 14% Blacks, etc. In the
education departments, the requirements become ever more political, performing
voluntary work for “social justice,” promoting diversity, etc. Their objective is to prevent a conservative
from being licensed to teach (like, fire the blogger!). A decade ago a friend had his young son in a
public school in New York. When asked
about the days in school, the boy told the dad he was never called on in class,
because the teacher did not call on boys.
The feminist ideology she probably absorbed in Women’s Studies spilled
over into her teaching. She would not
let oppressive males speak in her public school class room. My friend soon withdrew his son to a private
school. Other parents did the same.
Affirmative
action, and its related political correctness, have had a devastating effect
upon education in the US. One reason
political correctness went hand-in-hand with affirmative action was this: if
lesser qualified students were admitted to university, and someone noticed who
was the bottom of the class, and commented that Blacks were not very smart,
that was seen as an attack on Blacks, and also on the policy of the university
administration and on that of the government.
Such speech had to be suppressed.
Free speech was abandoned, so universities could impose hate speech
codes, preventing use of the “N” word, or the “W” word (wetback) or the “Q”
word (queer) or the … the word list grew.
To impose a policy that most witnessed to be untrue and unfair, the
threat of expulsion was deemed necessary.
In the clouding Orwellian world of the university, equal opportunity means
preferences; all are equal, but some are more equal than others.
In the
1950s and 60s, with the growth of the CR, many thought the result of CR would
be a decrease in crime. Sociologists
taught us the root cause of crime was poverty.
End poverty, and crime will disappear.
But while CR protest was generally non-violent in the South, Blacks began
rioting in the North beginning in Harlem in 1964. Riots spread to the West and South by the
late 60s, and there were some 700 riots by 1971. Crime, what the New York Times once called a riot in slow motion, rose to unheard
of heights. Somehow, the right to vote,
to eat a burger, to attend a neighborhood school, was translated into Ebonics
as the right to threaten, to pull a purse, snatch a wallet, to beat, stab, even
kill.
The Kerner
Commission blamed the riots on racism, and urged the hiring of more Blacks in
the media and police departments. And
some of those hires have been good. If
one watches a film from the 1930s, one might hear a policeman shout to a
fleeing suspect, “Stop, Stop or I’ll shoot!”
By the 60s, if a policeman shot a Black, the policeman was suddenly
tried in the media and might be tried in court.
Judges were quickly shoving the pendulum to weigh on the side of the
accused, and against society’s enforcers on the ground. This patronizing view can best be seen in the
death penalty. Who were most of the
accused murderers? Blacks, then about
10% of the population were convicted of about 50% of the murders. Surely, in the proportional view, the
affirmative action view, this disproportion among the races was evidence of
racism. The best way to abolish the racism
might be to abolish the death penalty.
Judges, sworn to uphold the Constitution, clearly were aware that the
Constitution itself mentions the death penalty for a crime. The Supreme Court made an utterly political
decision finding the death penalty un-Constitutional as cruel and unusual punishment. Even some years later, when the Court finally
reversed itself, it made the cost of achieving a verdict of execution so high,
that many states stopped trying. Also, a
white is more likely to be executed for murder than a Black in affirmative
action America. The reason: the court
does not want the percentage of Black executions to be too disproportionate to
the white executions. Blacks who kill
whites are more likely to be executed; Blacks who kill Blacks less so.
Blacks are
far more likely to be involved in criminal activity than whites. Philosophy professor Michael Levin wrote that
if a brand of automobile broke down one fourth of the time on the road, a buyer
might rationally choose another brand of car.
Today, one third of young Black men are either in prison, on parole, or
on probation. One third. (Since Prof. Levin wrote his book two decades
ago, the percentage of Blacks involved in crime has risen.) The percentage of
white criminals is far smaller. Young
Blacks as a group are far more likely to be violent criminals. This is why even liberal Rev. Jesse Jackson
once conceded that if walking on a dark street and he hears footsteps behind
him, if he turns and sees that it is a group of whites, he may feel
relieved. (Jackson related this in 1993
after Colin Ferguson killed six whites and injured 19 others on the Long Island
Rail Road.) This is why Obama’s
grandmother was rational when she admitted fear of unknown Blacks. The chances are 1 out of 3. The Left will shout, this is racial
profiling. No, it is criminal profiling. When Blacks as a group cease to be so
crime-prone, then others will have a different view of them.
One reason
Blacks are more likely to engage in crime is the punishment may not be so
bad. Often little happens to punish minority
juveniles on many charges. In schools,
physical punishment from the staff is almost as archaic as the hickory
stick. If unruly or criminal minority
juveniles are finally sent to a juvenile facility, they will probably encounter
old friends, and learn more of how to improve their criminal skills. Same with jail. By contrast, in many states, if a white is
sent to a correction facility, he will be a minority facing hostile
Blacks. Despite the propaganda of the
feminists about alleged date rapes (sometimes, the vindictive response of a gal
when her hangover cleared, or her Women’s councilor urged her to file because
the guy did not call her the next day for another date.), there are many more
rapes of men in the US – and almost all of these in prisons. Often, it is Black on white rape. But this is politically incorrect, so ignore
it, or excuse it.
I do not
know all the details of the Trayvon Martin shooting. However, the Left has been determined to
prevent people from defending themselves and their property from theft or worse.
That is the significance of the
case. The Hispanic Zimmerman lived in a
neighborhood of growing crime. Police
cannot be everywhere all the time. He
hoped to defend his and his neighbor’s property. Trayvon, who had been suspended from school,
who had a bag of women’s jewelry in his possession when apprehended in school,
who had drugs in his possession, and whose internet account bragged about doing
something to a bus driver, was certainly no angel. Was he simply purchasing items for his dad in
this new neighborhood, or casing apartments to acquire a new bag of
jewelry? And the confrontation? The specifics of this case are beyond my
knowledge. I want to make the point of
the long-range trend. At one point a
man’s home was his castle and he could defend it against an intruder with any
weapon handy, even killing the invader.
Because the proportion of Blacks involved in such crimes is higher, the
Left does not want anyone to shoot the intruder. Under liberalism, the castle’s moat has been
bridged, the ramparts sundered, the lady raped and the television stolen. The Left responds, “Oh, we are so sorry, but
we must not hurt the intruder. That
would be racist!” Similarly, we should
not execute the murderer; that would be racist.
We should not stop the shop lifter; that would be racist. With the Left, there is only one crime that
should be punished – the “crime” of racism.
The result of all these changes is a crime rate that would not have been
tolerated six decades ago. It should not
be tolerated today. But so long as the
only major crime is racism, and excusiology rules the academedia complex and
the courts, violent crime will remain high.
And how
does this affect the workplace? In 1950
an employer, about to hire a young person for a job, might ask about his
high-school grades. Since Blacks did
poorly, Norton and the EEOC sought to prevent that. The employer might ask about criminal
background. Because Blacks were much
more likely to have a criminal record, Norton and the EEOC sought to prevent
that question too. And the courts agreed
with her. (Of course, some of the crimes
were political. Martin Luther King wrote
his letter from the Birmingham jail. But
most of the Blacks with criminal records had them for violent crimes.)
So
“basically qualified” (i.e., lesser qualified or simply unqualified) Black and
Hispanic applicants were hired over whites with good backgrounds. They entered jobs where there might indeed be
friction. An influx of lesser qualified,
more violent, more foul-mouthed co-workers could change the work place. And, even if they performed poorly, they were
more likely to receive the promotion, thanks to affirmative action. The mix was toxic. Sometimes, someone would go postal, and
co-workers would be shot. More likely,
the whites simply became despondent.
Charles Murray in his new book Coming
Apart writes how many working-class whites have now become work-shy. Why should they be enthusiastic when the
promotion will go to the lesser-qualified, loud minority? Liberal programs have created a work-place
determined to destroy the work ethic.
Another
consequence of these Leftist, affirmative action policies, is that new
businesses try to locate in suburbs, away from central city. The unspoken reason for this is clear: who
wants to run a business with employees who are drugged-out, who never finished
high school, who may have criminal records, and who are angry? Consequently, plants evacuated the
cities. Some fled to the suburbs for
white workers. Some simply fled the
United States for plants in Mexico, China, Bangladesh.
As effects
of the reforms of the 50s and 60s have rippled through American society, with racial balance, affirmative action (AA),
diversity, and all the anti-white policies, the nation has become more crime-ridden,
less academic, less well educated, and in decline in industry, culture,
civility, and in most ways. Instead of
turning many Blacks into civilized whites, American cities have become Third
World enclaves of ignorance, violence, and barbarism. “Hey, hey.
Ho, ho. Western Civ. Has got to
go!” Will the future of America be
Detroit?
Some 60
years ago this country began to implement reforms based upon the theory that
all races were equally gifted in all areas of life. When Blacks failed to perform up to standard,
excuses were made, standards were lowered or abolished, and affirmative action
preferences were introduced and expanded.
Originally, many assumed these would be short-term programs. Even some of the Supreme Court Judges who
upheld affirmative action thought of them as temporary remedies. One judge in the Bakke case posited AA
preferences might last about 20 years.
Of course, 20 years later, there was no significant change in the gap between
Blacks and whites. So, 20 years later in
the Michigan university cases AA cases, Justice O’Connor, the deciding vote
upholding AA, stated in her decision that such preferences might continue
another 25 years. Does anyone really
believe the race gap will be closed in 25 years? Or in 250 years?
The assumption was that with the
a-a preferences, Blacks would do better in school, get better jobs, and eschew
crime. That was the theory. The reality proved the theory wrong. We have 60 years of disproof, the theory is
wrong, and all the programs based upon that false theory have generally failed. It is time to stop adding new epicycles to the
social equivalent of Ptolemy’s geo-centric view; scrap it, and adopt a more
Copernican theory. It is time to stop
concocting ever new excuses for the failings of many of a race. Moreover, we should also reconsider the words
of the scholar who would become a Democratic Senator from New York. Daniel Moynihan observed in the late 1960s
that the New York public school system, which had “transformed two generations
of Jewish immigrants into the intellectual elite of the world’s most powerful
nation,”’ was unable “to bring its black students,…up to grade level.”(As
quoted in Hugh Graham, Civil Rights Era,
p. 311)
I repeat, almost
all the myriad programs for the past 60 years have been built on the assumption
that all races, as groups, are equal.
These programs have generally failed.
Despite all the billions of dollars spent on Head Start and so many
other programs, despite all the preferences in university admissions, in
university scholarships, in job hiring, job promotions, in set-aside contracts,
in ability to borrow for purchase of homes, etc., the gaps between Black and
white remain. Crime is high; Black racism
is rampant; the work ethic for many has evaporated, jobs have immigrated to
other nations; America is in decline.
Sixty years
ago America began an experiment based on the assumption that Blacks were white
people with dark skins. The results of
the experiment are in. A large number of
Blacks simply do not act as whites; do not perform as whites. Whether they are
incapable, or unwilling is irrelevant at this point. If they are by nature different, or victims
of their own anti-intellectual and violent culture (which, admittedly, is
encouraged by the liberal media) is also irrelevant at this point. It is time to see the results of the
experiment. If it continues, the
experiment will destroy the laboratory.
It will destroy America.
It is time
to restore the CRA of 1964 to its original meaning. Hire by merit, not the color of the
skin. Use testing and check
backgrounds. Punish bad behavior and
criminals. Stop excusing inexcusable behavior
when performed by minorities. Do not
hire for racial balance. Do not treat groups equally, but treat
individuals equally. Then perhaps
America can rebuild – before it is too late.
Perhaps then, America can be America again.
