Bill Cosby Wakes Up Black America
Others, like NPR's Juan Williams, follow, in this City Journal piece by editor Myron Magnet, author of The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass. Here's the problem:
With a 50 percent high school dropout rate and a 70 percent illegitimacy rate, with African-Americans committing half the nation's murders though only 13 percent of the population, black America--especially the poorer part of it--is in trouble. "We cannot blame white people," Cosby asserted in his incendiary speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board school desegregation decision. "It's not what they're doing to us. It's what we're not doing." As Jesse Jackson used to say, Cosby recalls, "No one can save us from us but us."
As for Williams' thoughts on the sorry state of black America:
If black leaders really wanted to help the black poor, Williams argues, they'd combat the "cultural belief that being 'authentically black' does not allow for high quality intellectual engagement in school," as columnist Joseph H. Brown put it....If black leaders really wanted to help the black poor, they'd stop decrying "police brutality and the increasing number of black people in jail" and focus instead "on having black people take personal responsibility for the exorbitant amount of crime committed by black people against other black people" (which accounts for the exorbitant number of African-Americans in jail). But they don't. As Cosby pointed out to Williams, the NAACP has its headquarters in murder-ridden Baltimore, but "I've never once heard the NAACP say, 'Let's do something about this.' " Indeed, Williams notes, "they never marched or organized, or even criticized the criminals." Nor did they exhort poor black people to stop smoking crack.
But black crime devastates African-American communities. Residents live with "a sense of an enemy within. That enemy is a neighbor, a friend, possibly a child, any of whom is capable of robbing or assaulting them." In some cities, like Baltimore, drug dealers still terrorize entire neighborhoods, which resemble Sadr City. The thugs are as vicious as Sadr City militiamen, too. Williams tells of a Baltimore woman who testified against drug dealers operating outside her house in 2002. The next day, gangbangers firebombed her house, though she managed to put out the flames. Two weeks later, they firebombed her house again, this time kicking in the front door and dousing the staircase with gasoline, incinerating the woman, her husband, and their five kids. As she was dying, the woman fruitlessly screamed, "Help me get my children out!"
Even as old-style racism fades, Williams says, the black-crime epidemic is incubating a new racism. The crime "gives credence to the racist stereotype of black people, especially young black men, as a race of marauding, jobless thugs"--a stereotype that even Jesse Jackson shares. "There is nothing so painful to me at this stage of my life," Jackson said in 1993, "than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery and then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." This grim development makes it all the more urgent for black leaders to say that "the black criminal is no friend of black progress."
Lack of fathers is a big part of it -- one of the gifts of the welfare movement, making it easy to be a single black mother, and, in turn, removing the stigma. We literally paid for the ruin of black society, and the Reverend Wrights of the black community were right in line for their pieces of silver for the maintenance of the black victim-industrial complex. Thanks, but I'll sing along with Cosby, if you don't mind.
And please don't swallow the idea that poverty creates thuggerhood. Just look at the Asian community -- like the Koreans who emigrate to this country and work night and day running small grocery stores in New York City. And on a related note, here's a piece from the LA Times on why Asians do better in school than Latinos.
The O'Jay's said it best (way back in the '70's): "Don't call me brother." It is about time other blacks are speaking up against this attitude. Pity is it took not only so many deaths and decades of violence but our first black presidental canidate being called not black enough -- whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.
I keep telling people that we actually had more togetherness in the '70's. While I do recall people who sounded very much like Archie Bunker (yeah, like they're nonexistent today), it also seems that we reached out and became friends across ethnic barriers much more easily.
I think it's got more to do with the PC police. The PC police scream diversity while lumping everyone into some stereotype. If you do not act like said stereotype, then you are accused of not having pride in your heritage. Unless, of course, you're white. Then if you do take pride in your roots, you are labelled a bigot. This serves to divide and prevent dialog between the individuals we all actually are.
T's Grammy at July 22, 2008 5:36 AM
The lack of father thing isn't just an issue for poorer blacks - it's poorer whites, too. The welfare-makes-it-easy logic definitely applies there also.
Just got of the phone with my mom, who basically runs a labor and delivery triage unit. She doesn't give medical information to me (of course) and never IDs patients (of course) so I'm saying this generally so I don't get her in trouble: My mom was driving to work just now and telling me how distressed she was by the state of things. Yesterday a 20 year old girl came in. Pregnant w/ twins. No man. Her girl_friend was wearing a t-shirt that said an expletive. She was at the doctor's and he said "have your friend drive you to the hospital immediately." She instead went home, ate dinner then called 911 to drive her. Who pays for that ambulance ride? Who will pay for those babies b/c goodness knows she doesn't have a job, or at least not one that pays more than minimum wage.
Everyday it's a new story about some busted up high school drop out having a baby. A lot of times they use drugs. These people are not capable of taking care of themselves, let alone add another life to the planet and raise it successfully in a way that adds to humanity.
These chicks pop out babies and their moms raise them. It's disgusting. Is it wrong to think that some people should have their tubes tied...per court mandate...?
Gretchen at July 22, 2008 6:04 AM
There are whites who do this, too, including upper-class twits who think it's okay to intentionally have a baby without a father, but welfare payments didn't seem to cause in the white community or other communities what they did in the black one. Any ideas, anybody, why that is?
Amy Alkon at July 22, 2008 6:07 AM
Ooh! Ooh! Pick me!
I'll give you my hypothesis.
After the radical left took over the Democratic party, they decided to maintain power by creating a permanent dependent underclass. And the urban blacks drew the short straw.
So, by way of policies designed to make the most disadvantaged become completely dependent upon the state, and therefore permanent Democratic voters, the far left undertook a policy of systematically dismantling the black nuclear family. This was done, primarily, by excusing every bad act by young black males as "a response to 200 years of racism", and by replacing men with government in the role of father.
Some blacks (Jackson, Sharpton) caught on to the scheme and became enablers for both the ill-behaved, and the Democrats who benefit from their failure.
Which goes a long way toward explaining the phenomenon of liberal blacks calling Colin Powell "house negro", Ward Connerly "Uncle Tom", and various and sundry other names for blacks who decided that they needed to do for themselves rather than wait for someone else to do for them.
The whites that do it? Lazy pieces of shit that found a way to game the system so they could fail in comfort.
brian at July 22, 2008 6:16 AM
Amy,
I just finished reading Shelby Steele's "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement." I think it addresses your question.
In a very rough nutshell, what I got from it was this - The Great Society was built on the "Liberalism of Dissociation." It attempted to correct historical oppression by relieving blacks of responsibility for their circumstances. That this only substituted one brand of white supremacy for another mattered not at all to the enlightened baby boomers.
Whites, on the other hand, were never relieved of this responsibility - no excuses were built into the system for them (although in their alliance with the black victicrats the NOW crowd has made great strides towards institutionalizing this attitude towards women as well).
Black Power is White Guilt. Both are oppurtunistic manipulations of the other. Opportunism being the key element, and a human failing (not a black failing in particular), the result was endless opportunism and the conclusion that "Black Power" was gained by throwing off responsibility and individual achievement as "the white mans tools of oppression."
I would submit (in answer to your query) that this argument and the resultant destruction it wreaks upon those it would presume to help has not yet taken root completely in the white "upper class twits" you describe. They do the same stupid things but A. They are held societally responsible and B. They have a long way to fall, unlike the 16 year black girl in Compton who gets pregnant.
I have done no justice to an argument masterfully laid out (and on point) in his book, but I do recommend it to anyone interested.
WolfmanMac at July 22, 2008 6:22 AM
When I talk to the kids at the inner city school, I've started making it part of my message not to get pregnant too young, and how terribly hard it is to have a kid young and without a daddy...also that you end up being a permanent part of the underclass (I don't say it in those terms -- but that you never develop who you are and what you can do so you'll probably always be stuck as somebody without a cool job and without much money).
Thanks for those analyses, guys. Very interesting.
Amy Alkon at July 22, 2008 6:37 AM
I don't know, Gretchen, but I tell you this: I'd only be relieved if my daughter were forced to have a tubal litigation.
I know she'd be shocked and appalled to hear me say that and it is sad but true. As it is now, I'm just holding my breath hoping she doesn't come up pregnant again. And I just don't get it. I raised her to be responsible.
Also sad but true, T will always be my favorite grandchild. Not just because he's the first but simply because I can't put myself through this hell again with her. If she ever has another child A) I won't get as involved in seeing that they don't starve on the street and B) I won't let myself get as attached to them as I have T.
Yes, that's unfair to any other grandchildren she gives me. But she's simply left me so drained, I have nothing left to give. And she's used that grandbaby (see my other post above) to guilt me into giving more than I should have one too many times so if she has another, I will start out being cold.
I already am supporting one father in gaining custody; I don't want to and won't allow myself to be put in this position again.
T's Grammy at July 22, 2008 6:46 AM
T's Grammy - sorry to hear all that. You need to be harder. She might be an adult but she's your child and your her parent.
She will probably threaten to keep T from you. In fact, she seems like an irresponsible, extremely selfish overgrown child. Which means she WILL keep T from you. All you can do is try and let him know you love him and are there for him. But I'm confident that a time will come when she comes groveling back and demands for assistance. B/c you owe it to her, didn't you know?
Best of luck.
On the other stuff: when someone is perpetually told that s/he is a victim of society and indoctrinated to blame others for her circumstances it inhibits her ability to introspectively examine the true causes for her condition. Maybe there is societal bias but it's a matter of a self-fulfilling prophesy at this point. Did "society" force you to drop out of high school to go work as a cashier? No, your slut mother who keeps having kids and can't pay the bills guilt-ed you into it. And no, "society" didn't knock you up. And no, "society" didn't tell you to do drugs in order to "ease the pain of a shitty life."
These kids don't need Math class. They need a 60 day life-is-tough-now-get-with-it boot camp. Complete with vocational education to inspire them to learn a trade or continue with traditional education and a 5 day crash course in child rearing. This would include actually having someone's baby for five days, four nights. Crying. Diapers. Puke. All of it. No help. How ya gonna go work at the grocery store with that kid? Then they'll learn how to put on a condom. I'd rather see my tax dollars go towards supplying birth control pills and condoms over WIC food stamps any day.
Seriously. Tubal. Ligation.
Gretchen at July 22, 2008 7:16 AM
Amen, Gretchen!
Flynne at July 22, 2008 7:25 AM
Personally I think for all this to change, we would be talking about an entire culture change. The emphasis in the home being most important. The article in the Times nailed it. I grew up in a Mexican area not to far from Lincoln High. But went to a magnet school that was a college prep school. The area it drew from was probably about 65% white, 5% asian, 20% Mexican (mostly from my neighberhood), 10% black. Yet the make up of the school was closer to 65% white 30% asian 3% mexican, 2% black. The emphasis in the homes on school was much more prevelant in my asian freinds homes than any others that I can think of. They were told being a success was directly due to how far you went in the academic world and that directly affected how far you were going to go in the real world. Where in my comunity it was finnish school work and take care of the family. I believe these attitudes came directly from the culture of the countries that we were all within a generation or two of imigrating from. The black comunity has been here alot longer than a few generations so the attitudes there are probably purely a local phenominum. But it all goes back to what we are taught by our parents. All parents should want there children to be better than they were. I know I do.
PVM at July 22, 2008 8:24 AM
Very interesting side note to this discussion:
African immigrants to the United States (people who move to the US from African countries, not African-Americans) are actually an extremely well educated immigrant group.
An interesting quote:
In an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Journal of Blacks in higher education, African immigrants to the United States were found more likely to be college educated than any other immigrant group. African immigrants to the U.S. are also more highly educated than any other native-born ethnic group including white Americans. Some 48.9 percent of all African immigrants hold a college diploma. This is slightly more than the percentage of Asian immigrants to the U.S., nearly double the rate of native-born white Americans, and nearly four times the rate of native-born African Americans.
flighty at July 22, 2008 8:45 AM
Mark Steyn, among others, has written extensively that there's a direct connection between the size & longevity of a region's welfare class and most every problem facing it internally. He often cites Britain and Canada's province of Quebec as two prime examples where a rampant welfare mentality equates to increased crime and a general notion that individual responsibility is a ridiculous, old-fashioned notion.
In America, clearly this problem also applies to huge swaths of the Black community in the United States. Sadly, as we all know, way too many so-called Black leaders have built their careers (and fortunes) on propagating the welfare (and victim) mentality.
Contrast this with the excellent article Amy linked to about Asian students and their parents and we have a very wide spectrum.
Robert W. at July 22, 2008 9:19 AM
Thanks, Gretchen. She is but she also has mental illness issues. However, that could be part of it. I go to group support for people with family members that are mentally ill and there seems to be a few things that the mentally ill have in common: they're very self-centered, very bright and very manipulative.
Extreme circumstances like skipping state with a child because the courts won't protect her from a perv of a father don't exactly make for mental stability. Also, if I knew then what I know now about genetics, I don't think she'd exist given that there are definitely undiagnosed (and a couple that have been) nutcases on both sides, but I didn't. Hell, science didn't know as much about that 25 years ago.
How much is the actual mental illness and how much she hides behind it, I can't even begin to guess but there's something wrong with that too. Unfortunately, couple weeks after selling stuff to get food, she fell apart and T wound up with Daddy again anyway and Daddy may, with my support, go for custody. And I hope he gets it. Permanent. Because that boy needs a childhood. He needs a stable home he can grow up in.
I feared her cutting me off but decided I couldn't control that. I had to look out for my grandson. Now she seems resigned to the situation. Says she can understand it if he does and asked point blank if I thought he should. When I said yes and calmly stated because T thinks he needs to take care of her and he can't be flip-flopping back and forth to her when she's okay and Daddy when she's not, she cried but understood. Crying's understandable. I can't imagine losing a child. I said she needed to focus on getting her act together, managing her illness and straightening out her life so she could be a mother to him instead of him, at 4, feeling like he needs to take care of her and she actually listened instead of flying into me over it. So something's getting through. Of course, she had gone off her medication and now she's back on it so that could be why.
It's gonna be a long hard road ahead -- for all of us. Unfortunately, T too. He has my stubborn, hard-headed personality so he's in for a hard life just there but it may be a good thing too because he's also gonna need to be as strong as Grammy's been.
I don't think Daddy will keep him from me -- he's been very good about facilitating visits with me so far -- but, because I've been so involved, and he's lived with me more than he hasn't for his 4 1/2 years, I'll have no problem getting visitation rights. If he files, my daughter will probably get supervised visitation and I'll probably be the one doing the supervising, so I don't see T and me being separated. Anyone caring about him wouldn't because he is very attached to his Grammy. He knows who's been looking out for him. ;)
T's Grammy at July 22, 2008 10:47 AM
Gretchen - -
Have you seen the Baby Borrowers on TV?
Briliant! Young couples (teenagers and early 20's) that think they're ready for kids are put up in a suburb and given kids of varying ages to care for a week at a time (NO HELP from mom or dad). They are also required to hold down part or full-time work and run a household.
By the end, most of the young women are in tears crying for their own mothers. Many of the young men have actually showed themselves to be quite responsible, but still claim to be too young for kids.
Best form of birth control I've seen. I think it should be mandatory watching for all HS kids or maybe we could institute a national program for parents to send their teenages too. Like Outward Bound with babysitting instead of hiking.
Rosebud at July 22, 2008 11:04 AM
"He drove the kid home to what looked like a shack. The boy opened the door, and there was his mother on a mattress on the floor, having sex. The boy walked past the couple “and sealed himself off behind a curtain.” The man fled; the mother signed the form the cop held out to her, “pulled the covers over her head, and left her son standing mutely behind the curtain.” "
This is beyond sadness. How could anyone turn out 'normal' after a childhood like that?
Snoop Diggity-DANG-Dawg at July 22, 2008 11:27 AM
"Have you seen the Baby Borrowers on TV?"
I saw about half of an episode and that's all it took. It should be a mandatory 3-day intensive for all 16 year olds.
I remember babysitting when I was 13, three girls ages 7 months, 3 years and 5 years. It was a hot, humid August night and these parents usually stayed out until 12:30/1 AM.
The baby wouldn't sleep. She screamed. She hated me. I hated me. I hated her. I finally got this idea to stand in front of their kitchen sink with the water running while gently bouncing her in my arms.
Given that I was in a tank top and she was in a little t-shirt thing we were all sticky and sweaty. Some parents might find that to be an intimate, close moment to bond with their child and somehow the sweat signifies some emotional shit about love or something. I just kept thinking "this sucks." Even at $8/hour (not bad for a 13 year old back in 1998).
That memory is still with me 10 years later. Everyone should have to go through that.
Gretchen at July 22, 2008 11:58 AM
WHY do papers and newsreporters not trumpet THIS from the tops of buildings? And we're supposed to feel sorry for blacks because they might be descended from someone who used to a be a slave? I think not. History is full of slave classes working their way up to running countries-heck, blacks even did it in the Caribbean. Why are US blacks so whiny and pathetic? We've enabled them to be, that's why. Let's lose the welfare payments for additional kids. That'd be a good start. And how about we stop policing the ghettos at all, since they won't ever cooperate with cops? And then stand there, refusing to tell the cops what they know, bitching that the cops never solve crimes against blacks. Unreal.
momof3 at July 22, 2008 12:08 PM
Flighty,
I think you are absolutely correct. I have a buddy who came here from Sierra Leone when he was ten. His father is Lebanese, his mothe is black African. He has his masters, is the mosyt stimulating conversationalist I know, and is, furthermore, typical of Black Africans I have known. He has told me often how his father never let it rest - Get.Your.Education. He did, and the result is a family that came here fleeing the troubles in their home country with literally the clothes on their backs, settled in SouthEast D.C. (a godforsaken part of a godforsaken city) that now run a million dollar business. The contrast could not be greater.
It isn't race, its culture.
WolfmanMac at July 22, 2008 1:03 PM
Amy, I agree that welfare did a lot to ruin the family, and that self-help, or community help, is the only way out of that quagmire. But I disagree a bit with how you got to your conclusions.
Welfare didn't start off as an incentive to have fatherless children. What it did do was drive the fathers away almost immediately. Instead of acting as a bridge from poverty to financial security, welfare rules demanded poverty. A father who stuck around but only earned the minimum wage -- not enough to feed his family, house his family, cover medical for his family -- jeopardized the subsidies instead of subsidizing them. And a cycle was born. (And, no, I'm not advocating having children you can't afford.)
Also, as someone who has worked with impoverished girls in the most horrendous circumstances, I think the key is teaching them that they have a choice. Getting pregnant is often a passive act: not saying no, not insisting on a condom, not taking control because you don't feel you have a choice over your destiny. Not getting pregnant, on the other hand, requires an understanding that you can choose -- and that's not always easy for girls (or boys) who don't have a say in whether their homes are safe or their schools are safe or they can walk safely to a friend's house without worrying they're wearing some gangs colors. They grow up believing what they do doesn't matter because their hard-studying friends still get killed by stray bullets, the best students still get raped by mom's crackhead boyfriend. . .Choice is power, and too often these kids grow up feeling absolutely, utterly powerless. I know you're trying to tell them otherwise, and that's so admirable, and I'm just offering this because once I realized how difficult the idea of choice was I started having an easier time getting through to the kids in my program.
Oh, I give you any housing project in Boston in the 1970s/80s if you wonder why poor white girls didn't end up pregnant in droves. They did, and they do. Check out the rural western states, or the deep South, too.
JulieA at July 22, 2008 1:08 PM
Yeah it's funny, Jesse Jackson used to talk like Cosby, way back when. Didn't he have Operation Bootstrap or some other self-improvement group going back in the 80s?
carol at July 22, 2008 1:10 PM
I always thought the best form of birth control would be a montage of hot chicks slows getting fatter as their pregnacy progressed and top it off witha full on crotch shot of a baby getting yanked out. And if they could gett footage of a bitrth where the mother was torn by the birth that would really stop kids from wanting kids.
My money says it would stop girls from wanting sex
lujlp at July 22, 2008 1:10 PM
Sorry lujlp, but when I went to high school, they did show the Miracle of Life tape and it showed a woman giving birth and showed the baby's head coming out. Unfortunately, by that point, most of the girls I knew were already having sex. And I was only fourteen or fifteen years old.
The problem with welfare is that it was never intended as a longterm program. It was supposed to be a shortterm measure during the the Great Depression as far as I can recall. Same with Social Security. And it was intended for widows only, I believe.
On the main subject, I think it's bullshit to keep blaming another race for your problems. Oh boo hoo, cry me a fucking river. I've experienced serious discrimination because I am 28 but look closer to 18. So that means I should blame all those potential employers and clients for not taking me seriously because I look like a teenager? No, I don't blame them because I don't know if I would hire someone who looks so damn young myself. I've had to perservere and present myself in a manner befitting my experience. We all have obstacles to overcome, the question really is whether or not we choose to.
maureen at July 22, 2008 1:55 PM
I agree with Mr. Williams. If the black community would stop looking for conspiracy theories as to why we cannot succeed and took responsibility for making it happen, who knows what we could do. And a lot of it begins with parenting, I know my mother struggled, but I never saw it. She protected my innocence as long as she could, and influenced my maturity as best she could. My best friend and I got into an argument just yesterday. He says that the media has overblown that HIV epidemic that is tearing across the black community, claiming that all the ad campaigns and television specials are unecessary. That white people are responsible for striking that fear into us. I immediately asked him if he was fucking kidding me. Then I let him know that even if his dumbassed thinking was correct, at least somebody was taking responsibility for educating our youth about the risks of unprotected sex. If it prevents unwanted pregnacy and devastating disease, whoever can be as heavy handed as they like. But hey, I could be wrong and the white person personally responsible for holding me down just hasn't found my address.
Deion at July 22, 2008 2:20 PM
I dont suppose you live in az maureen?
And Deion, my responsibilites at the patriarchy keep me pretty busy, but I know people who work for THE MAN. I'll find out exactly who lost your case file and we'll have you oppressed in no time. Would next week be good for you? I'd make it happen sooner but I have a wedding to goto this weekend
lujlp at July 22, 2008 2:38 PM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=o76WQzVJ434
in the mean time this might help Dieon
lujlp at July 22, 2008 2:59 PM
From syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts:
Everybody should have a white man. Even white men should have a white man.
Because when you have a white man, nothing is ever your fault. You’re never required to account for your own failings or take the reins of your own destiny. The boss says, "Why haven't you finished those reports, Bob?" and you say, "Because of the white man, sir."
Conan the Grammarian at July 22, 2008 4:55 PM
I don't know about the "Africans do better" thing. Obama's dad was a serial family abandoner. His relatives blamed tribal values, which is a twist--in the US, slavery is usually the root cause.
Kate at July 22, 2008 5:58 PM
From syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts:
Everybody should have a white man. Even white men should have a white man.
Because when you have a white man, nothing is ever your fault. You’re never required to account for your own failings or take the reins of your own destiny. The boss says, "Why haven't you finished those reports, Bob?" and you say, "Because of the white man, sir."
I wish the feminists would sue the african american's or vice versa for copyright infringement. One is stealing from the other, and I would prefer to deal just with one.
jerry at July 23, 2008 12:32 AM
Katie says:
I don't know about the "Africans do better" thing. Obama's dad was a serial family abandoner. His relatives blamed tribal values, which is a twist--in the US, slavery is usually the root cause.
That is a good point, Katie. But I will also say look how he turned out. I personally have no use for him whatsoever (or for his opponent), but he's done pretty well for himself.
WolfmanMac at July 23, 2008 6:27 AM
lujlp,
I'd forgotten how gorgeously funny that clip was - thanks!
Jody Tresidder at July 23, 2008 6:45 AM
Thanks lujlp, next week will do nicely. I'm up for a new job and when don't get it because I'm gloriously underqualified and the person who does get it is of another race, I need to be secure in where I place my blame.
Deion at July 23, 2008 7:36 AM
Rosebud, I am totally hooked on Baby Borrowers!
The parents who are volunteering their children for this project are braver than I would be even with the shadow nannies and the ability to watch in a nearby house.
Oh, and I can't wait 'til they get a dose of the old people.
T's Grammy at July 23, 2008 9:47 AM
Kate,
I was talking statistically speaking. Taking one anectodal example (Obama's father) does not disprove the fact that African immigrants graduate college at a very high percentage.
Blaming child abandoment on anything other than a weak sense of personal morality is stupid. Which African "tribe" values the abandonment of children?
flighty at July 23, 2008 9:41 PM
Amy, I am surprised you don't see it.
Thuggery is all about competition for a limited resource: women. Look at any rap video.
The baddest of the bad boys gets all the women. Women, in turn, liberated by Welfare had every incentive to choose a thug, since success reproductively if they have a boy will center on being the toughest, most intimidating thug around.
You can also see this in the UK, where the mostly white birth rate is 50% illegitimate. In the US it is 34% for whites (compared to 4% in 1965 according to Juan Williams).
Women, unless constrained by other social factors will always choose the thuggiest, most hypermacho guy around. Even "sophisticated" white middle/upper class women do this, though the guys they choose tend to display lots of testosterone with base jumping, motorcycle racing, and other high-risk endeavors that show lots of testosterone.
Read any blog like Christian Lander's "Stuff White People Like" where discussion of Asian women dating across racial lines comes up -- Asian men HATE it because being viewed as "low testosterone" they come out on the short end of the stick. Asian women tend to marry Asian men in the US only after severe pressure from their parents and relatives.
If you look at wealthy white celebrity women (actresses, models, and the like) the aggregate pattern of the same choices (enabled by relative wealth) happens: choosing a "short term" "hot" guy who's loaded in testosterone but cheats with the Nanny, or a friend, or the baby sitter, or whatever.
With the end of Segregation the Black Community lost it's social capital (social disapproval of women choosing hyper-masculine thugs, leadership by the Black Middle class which fled to non-urban areas). Lost it quicker and more completely than nearly everyone but lower-class white Brits and celebrities in the US.
Those with the biggest resistant to enabling pursuit of pure thugs (the baddest bad boys) have the highest social cohesion and lowest crime rate: NE Asian immigrants.
whiskey at July 23, 2008 11:59 PM
Whiskey,
Good post.
WolfmanMac at July 24, 2008 6:02 AM
Caught baby borrowers last night. Not exactly a real parenting-test-drive. They have it pretty easy I think. But if it makes some kids think twice, then great!
momof3 at July 24, 2008 7:40 AM
momof3, they should make it more real, have them do this in the actual crappy apartment they'd have in the types of jobs they're doing. I felt sorry for those 2 teens last night caught between the couples that were fighting. I was hoping that Morgan would come home to all those stacks of dishes she left and ordered that kid to clean up. Then she had the nerve to make like she knew what it'd be like to be a single mom? Overall, I was disappointed that the teens weren't tougher on them. I can't wait to see what the old people do to them next week. I hope it isn't as disappointing but I figure any seniors volunteering have got to be pips.
T's Grammy at July 25, 2008 8:08 AM
The reason Africans do so well in this country, is because the type of person who is able to come here is already a smart, capable person. We live an ocean away from Africa, so just getting here requires talent.
Unfortunately, it is producing a "brain drain" in Africa, because the smartest Africans go to Europe or the US to get educated, and end up staying.
NicoleK at July 25, 2008 12:38 PM
hmm.. thank you very much. usefull information
Miley-Cyrus-Fan at August 1, 2008 10:26 AM
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