Can we please have an honest discussion about Black males?
Published May 6, 2014
by Allen Johnson, Editorial Page Editor, Greensboro News-Record, May 5, 2014.
A letter that crossed my desk one month ago seethed with outrage from the very first word.
“Let’s see,” Ernest Keyes wrote. “Fifty years (since the) Civil Rights Act passage. Fifty years of welfare assistance. Fifty years of affirmative action. Fifty years since MLK stated, ‘I Have A Dream!’?”
It continued: “In these 50 years, we have seen and heard it is never enough. We have seen communities and people wanting to be rewarded/entitled for producing negative social factors, and often seeking to blame someone or something else in life. Black culture will not accept their lack of responsibility to themselves, their families, and race.”It wasn’t very long, but it was forceful and provocative.
Would you publish it?
I did. I thought it gave voice to a view that needed to be heard. And over the 30 days since it appeared, it has sparked a lively conversation.
Meanwhile, recent headlines kept the dialogue current. There was Cliven Bundy’s inane rant about “the Negro” and picking cotton. Billionaire pro sports owner Donald Sterling’s lifetime banishment from his own team because of his racist attitudes. Then, much too close for comfort, the shooting death of an N.C. A&T football player. After two young black male suspects were arrested and charged, a reader challenged, via email: “I hope you will demand the end of the culture that probably caused the student’s death just as hard as you correctly demanded the Clippers owner’s punishment!”
That word “culture” keeps surfacing. In an April 16 letter, Bob Gaines, a self-described progressive, cited “the horrendously self-destructive culture of young black males. It is a hardened, almost impenetrable, culture of violence, drugs, disdain for work; pit bulls and dog fighting; contempt for women; contempt for educational attainment; ugly, violent, misogynistic music; homophobic behavior; and modes of dress that would embarrass a Third World country, and it has been steadily developing for at least 30 to 40 years.”
Gaines concluded: “I don’t know what Ernest Keyes’ underlying motives were, but he has a point..”
Kenneth Laurent countered, in his own letter: “While I understand and appreciate where Bob Gaines is coming from ..., I reject his premise that we ‘ignore’ the self-destructive behaviors of African American young men. One only need look at suspension rates in schools and incarceration rates in our prisons. ... We as a society are pretty good at the condemnation of those who engage in these behaviors, but we are terrible at providing realistic alternatives.”
If you’re curious, Keyes is a retired, 67-year-old businessman who prefers being called “Andy.” And, yes, he is white. He is an independent who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. “I would never make that mistake again,” he hastily adds. His favorite columnist is the black conservative, Thomas Sowell.
“I am not a racist,” Keyes says. “I am a culturist. The victim mentality in the black community needs to be addressed. More black leaders need to openly discuss these issues. Also, they need to admit to themselves that it’s really happening instead of making excuses.”
He says he is worried about erosion of the families among all Americans, but believes the problem is especially acute among African Americans. And he believes that if Americans can’t have an honest dialogue about race, the problem won’t get fixed. “It’s very easy to write me off as an old fart who grew up at a different time,” he says. But he says he’s so serious about these issues that he wants to start a dialogue between “everyday people” from different points of view about it, maybe on a public-access cable TV show.
I told him I probably believe more in personal responsibility than he does. But I also believe past and lingering racism are factors. For instance, half the federal and state prison populations are black and the educational system still struggles to connect to black boys. Even in pre-K black children as suspended at higher rates.
But we agreed more often than we didn’t. And he seemed genuinely interested in listening.
So, is the problem the self-destructive behavior of black males or is it a society that deludes itself into thinking institutional racism is only a figment of Al Sharpton’s imagination?
My answer is yes. It’s both. And until we have an honest reckoning about it, it will only grow worse.
I believe the answer begins in the black community,which has to see this for what it is: a crisis. And to take greater initiative in saving our children, especially our boys.
But it doesn’t end there. Unequal justice and opportunity in America planted the seeds of this crisis and we are reaping a harvest of poverty and crime and prisons we can’t build fast enough to hold all of the lives we’re writing off.
Contact Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson at ajohnson@news-record.com
http://www.news-record.com/opinion/columns/article_7f8455c4-d4b4-11e3-89c4-0017a43b2370.html
May 6, 2014 at 10:28 am
Norm Kellly says:
Maybe I missed something in all the emails & editorials & paper-based responses.
I have a very important question, one that appears raised by the editorial writer, but doesn't go anywhere. Black incarceration. In this post it appears the writer blames racism for the high percentage of incarcerated people being black. Is it racism that causes so many blacks to go to jail/prison? Or is it the culture in the black community that causes so many blacks to go to jail/prison?
It MAY be both. But it starts with the black culture. Take the Alsharptons, Jessejacksons and the attitude they provide for blacks. It's ALWAYS the whities fault that something happened to a black person. It's ALWAYS the whities fault that black people are 'suppressed' from voting. It's ALWAYS the whities fault that some black person didn't get a job or didn't get a promotion once they got the job. It's ALWAYS the whities fault that some black kid didn't pass from 6th grade to 7th grade (or pick a grade level). It's because the tests are all geared to white kids that black kids fail.
Just ask you nearest, dearest lib/demon/socialist. They will tell you that blacks are AUTOMATICALLY at a disadvantage. Blacks MUST be helped by the libs in order to level the playing field. The tests must be geared toward blacks, or the standards lowered for blacks, because they are incapable. (NOT my words. This is the attitude of libs and the demon party politicians! I'm not the racist, your friendly neighborhood lib is the racist.) Job quotas MUST exist in order to get blacks promoted or hired because they can't do it on their own. Another lib idea. Which CAUSES tension between people of color and people of not color. This doesn't ease racial tensions. And do blacks go to bed at night wondering if they got that job or promotion because they were qualified or because of some quota? Do black students wonder if they were accepted to a college because of skin color or because of qualifications?
But the black family culture, black community culture, is turning the same way, if it already hasn't. And wasn't supposed to electing the first black president supposed to bring us together? What has the occupier done to actually bring blacks & whites together? First, he refers to white cops as stupid. Second, he allows his attorney general to skip prosecuting the NuBlakPanthaParty because they are 'his people' even though it was obvious they were guilty of voter intimidation. I know the list goes on, but he has done absolutely nothing to bring the races together. He has done the opposite. Proving once again that he is NOT a leader; he is unqualified for anything. But the black culture still exists that because I'm white and they are not, I OWE them something. I'm not supposed to ask them for proof of who they are when they want to vote BECAUSE they are black, underprivileged and incapable of getting a picture ID. (also not my words. check out the buffet slayer and what he says about blacks not being able to prove who they are before you point the racist finger at me!) The buffet slayer of NC also says that blacks are incapable of getting themselves to the polls to vote - this is the reason early voting rules can't change. Again, his racist comments, not mine.
All day long I am told by every lib out there, every race-bater like Alsharpton & Jessejackson, that I am guilty of being a racist just because I'm white. I am guilty of holding down a black person because I'm white. The occupier telling me I'm stupid because I interacted with a black person during the day. I'm told that I'm a racist because I expect ALL people to be self-reliant, rather than reliant on government hand outs and stealing from others so you can get yours. Why am I paying for your cell phone, your health insurance, your food, your transportation, when I have to pay for those things for myself & my family? I'm not racist because I expect you to at least attempt to take care of yourself. I expect when you get a woman pregnant, YOU will provide for your new family. I don't expect, like loving kindly lib politicians, that if you just leave the family and ignore your responsibility that someone else will take care of your responsibility for you. I'm kindly and loving in that I expect you know your responsibility and will do your best, just as I do, to take care of responsibilities that you have taken on, not that you've passed on to me.
