Baron's Epstein probes 'Please Stop Helping Us'
Published September 8, 2014
by Mitch Kokai, The Locker Room, September 8, 2014.
Gene Epstein of Barron’s is the latest reviewer to heap praise on Jason Riley’s book Please Stop Helping Us.
A member of the editorial board at The Wall Street Journal (published by Dow Jones, which also publishes Barron’s), Riley would surely call himself a conservative. But he pays homage to liberalism’s achievements on behalf of blacks. “The civil rights struggles of the mid-20th century,” he declares, “were liberalism at its best.” He hails the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and includes in his honor roll “Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., the Freedom Riders, the NAACP, and others who helped to destroy significant barriers to black progress and make America more just.”
But Riley believes that liberalism has long since become a part of the problem rather than part of the solution—and especially the liberalism of today’s black leaders. “The civil rights movement of King has become an industry that does little more than monetize white guilt,” he observes. By contrast, “King and his contemporaries demanded black self-improvement despite the abundant and overt racism of his day. King’s successors…nevertheless insist that blacks cannot be held responsible for their plight so long as someone somewhere in white America is still using the n-word.”
Liberals portray young black students as victims of school systems run according to “European American” values, a judgment that exempts the students from responsibility for poor performance. One reason this view is dubious, the author points out, is that black students from African countries generally perform better in school than their American counterparts, even though English is not their first language.
Another reason: Black American students show much-improved performance in charter schools—public schools run by independent organizations according to the same European-American values. The success of charter schools, he notes, is “one reason why they are so popular with black people.” These are black people—as distinct from black civil rights leaders—who refuse to succumb to liberalism’s destructive delusions about the proper schooling of their children.
Please Stop Helping Us is written in a clear but understated style that gains power from understatement. Not once, for example, does the author use emphatic words like “hypocrite” or “hypocrisy.” But he does expose liberal hypocrisy in some of its blatant forms.
September 9, 2014 at 6:43 pm
Norm Kelly says:
Jason Riley MAY be conservative. He's obviously well-educated and well-spoken. I know, terribly close to the same way the senile Harry referred to Barack when he was still running to be occupier. The senile Harry said it in a derogatory way, sounding surprised that a well-spoken, educated black man was possible. I say it of Riley as a compliment.
The important thing to remember about the civil rights act of 1964 is who stood in the way of this becoming law. The Demoncrat Party did everything it could to prevent this from becoming law. Algore's dad even voted against it. So, educated blacks know the truth of history.
And Jason can see how the 'civil rights movement of King has become an industry that does little more than monetize white guilt'. When was the last time any civil rights leader said or did anything about the black-on-black crime in Chicago? When was the last time any civil rights leader said anything about the high rate of fatherless families in the black community? When was the last time any civil rights leader said anything about blacks refusing to speak proper English; instead preferring Ebolics (is that a form of ebola?) Just like Kwanza, Ebolics is a made up phenomenon with the specific purpose of excusing young blacks from speaking plain English or trying to monetize white guilt.
If 'black civil rights leaders' were interested in improving the lot of the average black, they wouldn't be promoting the Demon party agenda. They wouldn't be encouraging blacks to vote uniformly for demon candidates. They would be speaking directly to black communities explaining what it takes to PULL THEMSELVES out of the conditions they are in. If every other group of people has the ability to improve their lot in life, what exactly is holding down the average black? Simple. People like the buffet slayer in Raleigh, reverend whats-his-name. People like Al Sharpton. And Jesse Jackson has a role in this crap as well.
Jason can get away with writing the things he does because he's a black man talking about the situation from the inside. I have no white guilt. But I'm bound to be labeled a racist because I can see the facts as clearly as Jason can. But I'm not supposed to 'talk' about it because I'm a white boy. What y'all don't know is that I'm a white boy whose roots are in Canada. The place where escaped black slaves went for freedom. So instead of me & my family participating in slavery as you so wrongly may assume, it's just as likely that my Canadian family helped many free blacks to avoid capture again, and possibly even to help them secure employment. You don't know, so don't even think about the white guilt, previous slave-owner, racist crap. It won't work. And your first response CAN'T ALWAYS be to refer to truth-tellers as racists! Come up with another response for a change! Even libs can think enough, I believe, to come up with a different response for a change. It might take some time, but I have confidence in you!
