Many blacks and their white liberal allies demand the removal of
statues of Confederate generals and the Confederate battle flag, and they are
working up steam to destroy the images of Gens. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E.
Lee and President Jefferson Davis from Stone Mountain in Georgia. Allow me to
speculate as to the whys of this statue removal craze, which we might call
statucide.
To understand it, we need a review of the promises black and
white liberals have been making for decades. In 1940, the black poverty rate was 87 percent. By 1960,
it had fallen to 47 percent. During
that interval, blacks were politically impotent. There were no anti-poverty
programs or affirmative action programs. Nonetheless, this poverty reduction
exceeded that in any other 20-year interval. But the black leadership argued
that more was necessary. They said that broad advancement could not be made
unless blacks gained political power.
Fifty years ago, there
were fewer than 1,000 black elected officials nationwide. According to the
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, by 2011 there were roughly
10,500 black elected officials, not to mention a black president. But what were
the fruits of greater political power? The greatest black poverty, poorest
education, highest crime rates and greatest family instability are in cities
such as Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland, Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta, Baltimore,
Cleveland, Philadelphia and Buffalo. The most common characteristic of these
predominantly black cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by
Democratic and presumably liberal politicians. Plus, in most cases, blacks have
been mayors, chiefs of police, school superintendents and principals and have
dominated city councils.
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During the 1960s, black and white
liberals called for more money to be spent on anti-poverty programs. Since the Lyndon
Johnson administration’s War on Poverty programs, U.S. taxpayers have forked
over $22 trillion for anti-poverty programs. Adjusted for inflation, that’s
three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution.
Despite that spending, the socio-economic condition for many blacks has
worsened. In 1940, 86
percent of black children were born inside marriage, and the black illegitimacy
rate was about 15 percent. Today, only 35 percent of black children are born
inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 75 percent.
During the 1960s, black and white
liberals called for more money to be spent on anti-poverty programs. Since the Lyndon
Johnson administration’s War on Poverty programs, U.S. taxpayers have forked
over $22 trillion for anti-poverty programs. Adjusted for inflation, that’s
three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution.
Despite that spending, the socio-economic condition for many blacks has
worsened. In 1940, 86
percent of black children were born inside marriage, and the black illegitimacy
rate was about 15 percent. Today, only 35 percent of black children are born
inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 75 percent.
The visions of black civil rights leaders and their white
liberal allies didn’t quite pan out. Greater political power and massive
anti-poverty spending produced little. The failure of political power and the failure
of massive welfare spending to produce nirvana led to the expectation that if
only there were a black president, everything would become better for blacks. I
cannot think of a single black socio-economic statistic that improved during
the two terms of the Barack Obama administration. Some have become tragically
worse, such as the black homicide victimization rate. For example, on average
in Chicago, one person is shot every two hours, 15 minutes, and a person is
murdered every 12 1/2 hours.
So
more political power hasn’t worked. Massive poverty spending hasn’t worked.
Electing a black president hasn’t worked. What should black leaders and their
white liberal allies now turn their attention to in order to improve the
socio-economic condition for blacks? It appears to be nearly unanimous that
attention should be turned to the removal of Confederate statues. It’s not only
Confederate statue removal but Confederate names of schools and streets. Even
the Council on American-Islamic Relations agrees. It just passed a resolution
calling for the removal of all Confederate memorials, flags, street names and
symbols from public spaces and property.
By the way, does the statue of Union Gen. William Tecumseh
Sherman qualify for removal? He once explained his reluctance to enlist former
slaves, writing, “I am honest in my belief that it is not fair to our men to
count negroes as equals … (but) is not a negro as good as a white man to stop a
bullet?” It’s difficult to determine where this purging of the nation’s history
should end.
Walter E.
Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George
Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about
Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
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