Many
whites are ashamed, saddened and feel guilty about our history of slavery, Jim
Crow and gross racial discrimination. Many black people remain angry over the
injustices of the past and what they see as injustices of the present. Both blacks and whites can
benefit from a better appreciation of black history.
Often overlooked or ignored is the fact
that, as a group, black Americans have made the greatest gains, over some of
the highest hurdles, and in a shorter span of time than any other racial group
in history.
For example, if one totaled
up the earnings and spending of black Americans and considered us as a separate
nation with our own gross domestic product, we would rank well within the top
20 richest nations. A black American, Gen. Colin Powell, once headed the
world’s mightiest military. Black Americans are among the world’s most famous
personalities, and a few black Americans are among the world’s richest people
such as investor Robert F. Smith, IT service provider David Steward, Oprah
Winfrey, and basketball star Michael Jordan. Plus, there was a black U.S.
president.
The
significance of these achievements cannot be overstated. When the Civil War
ended, neither a slave nor a slave owner would have believed such progress
would be possible in less than a century and a half — if ever. As such, it
speaks to the intestinal fortitude of a people. Just as important, it speaks to
the greatness of a nation in which such gains were possible. Nowhere else on
earth could such progress have been achieved except in the United States of
America.
The
issue that confronts us is how these gains can be extended to about one-quarter
of the black population for whom they have proven elusive. The first step is to
acknowledge that the civil rights struggle is over and won. At one time, black
Americans did not enjoy the constitutional guarantees as everyone else. Now we
do. While no one can deny the existence of residual racial discrimination, racial
discrimination is not the major problem confronting a large segment of the
black community.
A major problem is that some
public and private policies reward dependency and irresponsibility. Chief among
these policies is the welfare state that has fostered a 75% rate of out of
wedlock births and decimated the black family that had survived Jim Crow and
racism. Keep in mind that in 1940 the black illegitimacy rate was 11% and most
black children were raised in two-parent families. Most poverty, about 25%, is
found in female-headed households. The poverty rate among husband-and-wife
black families has been in the single digits for more than two decades.
Black
people can be thankful that double standards and public and private policies
rewarding inferiority and irresponsibility were not a part of the 1920s, ’30s,
’40s and ’50s. If there were, then there would not have been the kind of
intellectual excellence and spiritual courage that created the world’s most
successful civil rights movement. From the late 1800s to 1950, some black
schools were models of academic achievement. Black students at Washington’s
Dunbar High School often outscored white students as early as 1899. Schools
such as Frederick Douglass (Baltimore), Booker T. Washington (Atlanta), P.S. 91
(Brooklyn), McDonogh 35 (New Orleans) and others operated at a similar level of
excellence.
Self-destructive behavior that has become acceptable, particularly that
in predominantly black schools, is nothing less than a gross betrayal of a
struggle, paid with blood, sweat and tears by previous generations, to make
possible today’s educational opportunities that are being routinely squandered.
I guarantee that blacks who lived through that struggle and are no longer with
us would not have believed such a betrayal possible.
Government should do its job of protecting constitutional rights. After
that, black people should be simply left alone as opposed to being smothered by
the paternalism inspired by white guilt. On that note, I just cannot resist the temptation to
refer readers to my “Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon,” which
grants Americans of European ancestry amnesty and pardon for their own
grievances and those of their forebears against my people so that they stop
feeling guilty and stop acting like fools in their relationship with Americans
of African ancestry.
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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