>> A baby born Black in this country has always had a tougher row to hoe than a comparable baby born White.
Not always, but often. That is not due in any sense to white privilege or some long past damages sustained as a result of slavery. Or of anything that happened in the 1950s, even.
But if you want to try to dissect the problems that potentially get in the way of a black child, you will find every one of those problems present in some white children as well.
So, you might say, "This child is born into abject poverty." Yes, that happens. In fact, so are many, many white children. Or you could say, "But black children have, on average, an IQ of 6 points lower." That is true, too, but that is just a fact of life, which has nothing to do with black history. Or, some black children are born to poor parents and thus will never have a chance at life. And of course, that happens in communities of all colors.
What we do know is the best chances for success come from determined, loving families who are willing to give their child the advantages they can muscle. We do know that if they're on the streets at 12 carrying a weapon, their odds are greatly diminished, yet black children tend to be in that position more than white children. That if their neighborhoods are packed with crime where dope is sold on the street corner, you know what happens. IF they aren't compelled to finish k-12. All these things happen, but they are not inherently related to a child's blackness. And they sure as hell aren't related to some kind of "white privilege".
We've tried spending trillions of dollars and now they want to spend trillions more. It doesn't work, and there is scant evidence that spending money does any good at all (It is a failing of government that it doesn't use such funds in pilot programs and other commonsense measures to try to find solutions, but that isn't going anywhere.)
The bottom line is that whites are not holding black people down. It simply isn't a fact. Middle class whites have given up trillions of their own wealth to try all these programs and none has worked to life blacks out of the horrific environments they suffer in home life. These lifestyle choices date back in some cases for decades. Fractured families, the unwillingness to practice birth control or set reasonable expectations for family life, all matter. Just as these things do in white families.
I think it is really wasted energy to continue trying to find a white bogeyman to lay this on. And a lot of blacks have determined this as well.
Before we moved to Texas, the casino we used to frequent in Hot Springs drew a roughly equal number of whites and blacks. There was at no time any indication of racial animus there. Blacks and whites all behaved and dressed and behaved appropriately. The lines at the machines taking your money didn't care about the color.
But if you got in your car and drove 10 blocks to downtown, black men [mostly] young and old were being gunned down on a daily basis. Shootouts occurred on First Street where the dope was sold. Whites and most blacks did not go there. But it was predominantly black. And it was NOT caused by "white privilege". It was a result of people raised with no self-respect or respect for others. You just can't blame that on white people.
I know you'll report back to me, "You don't understand" or "You're leaving out something" or "You didn't think about this."
I stood in a Sams Club one day as four black guys walked in the front door, headed straight to where the cigarettes were, a call was made on the radio and the guy helping us at the front door said, "Wait a minute, get back." His eyes were following people but I couldn't really tell who it was. He was pushing us out of the doorway back into the store. I'm thinking, "WTF is going on?" About this time the guys come through with cases of cigarettes, walk out the door, put the cigarettes in the vehicles and drive off. I said, "Man, if you could just walk ten feet that tag is visible." He said, "We're not allowed to. Our orders are to get out of the way and let it happen and never try to interfere."
Today, of course, we have far more extreme versions of this. They just come in the store and take what they want, not just smokes. Walgreens is shutting stores down because they can't keep the shelves stocked. But what goes out the door isn't sold; it is stolen. Cops refuse to respond.
(This occurred in a town where the first person I knew to be killed by gun violence was a heroin dealer killed in a convenience store at age 13 in Little Rock. At age 9, he had been a popular drummer in bands around town, something of a prodigy, and I worked with a number of bands he was in. Good kid, bad parenting. In the ensuring years both his brothers were killed in violent deaths -- all white).
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
“The cost of business and shoplifting led Walgreens to shut 17 locations in San Francisco in the past five years — an “unpopular and difficult decision,” Jason Cunningham, regional vice president for pharmacy and retail operations in California and Hawaii, said at the hearing. The company still has 53 stores in the city.Theft in Walgreens’ San Francisco stores is four times the average for stores elsewhere in the country, and the chain spends 35 times more on security guards in the city than elsewhere, Cunningham said.At CVS, 42% of losses in the Bay Area came from 12 stores in San Francisco, which are only 8% of the market share, Brendan Dugan, director of organized retail crime and corporate investigations, said at the hearing.”
Are you actually blaming this escalation in criminal behavior on White Privilege and the horrible circumstances these black men endured? Because somewhere along the line, personal accountability, either by parents or by growing children, comes into play. You can't just blame everything on skin color.
Until we start properly identifying the pathology of this problem we aren't going to make progress in solving it. We have to stop looking at all black people and saying, "Poor guy, never had a chance." |
