America’s Blacks: “We’re Owed, You Aren’t”
American Thinker:
by Ed Kaitz
“The anger is real. It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”
- Barack Obama
Back in the late 1980s I was on a plane flying out of New Orleans and sitting next to me was a rather interesting and, according to Barack Obama, unusual black man. Friendly, gregarious, and wise beyond his years, we immediately hit it off. I had been working on Vietnamese commercial fishing boats for a few years based in southern Louisiana. The boats were owned by the recent wave of Vietnamese refugees who flooded into the familiar tropical environment after the war. Floating in calm seas out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, I would hear tearful songs and tales from ex-paratroopers about losing brothers, sisters, parents, children, lovers, and beautiful Vietnam itself to the communists.
In Bayou country I lived on boats and in doublewide trailers, and like the rest of the Vietnamese refugees, I shopped at Wal-Mart and ate a lot of rice. When they arrived in Louisiana the refugees had no money (the money that they had was used to bribe their way out of Vietnam and into refugee camps in Thailand), few friends, and a mostly unfriendly and suspicious local population.
They did however have strong families, a strong work ethic, and the “Audacity of Hope.” Within a generation, with little or no knowledge of English, the Vietnamese had achieved dominance in the fishing industry there and their children were already achieving the top SAT scores in the state.
While I had been fishing my new black friend had been working as a prison psychologist in Missouri, and he was pursuing a higher degree in psychology. He was interested in my story, and after about an hour getting to know each other I asked him point blank why these Vietnamese refugees, with no money, friends, or knowledge of the language could be, within a generation, so successful. I also asked him why it was so difficult to convince young black men to abandon the streets and take advantage of the same kinds of opportunities that the Vietnamese had recently embraced.
His answer, only a few words, not only floored me but became sort of a razor that has allowed me ever since to slice through all of the rhetoric regarding race relations that Democrats shovel our way during election season:
“We’re owed and they aren’t.”
In short, he concluded, “they’re hungry and we think we’re owed. It’s crushing us, and as long as we think we’re owed we’re going nowhere.”
A good test case for this theory is Katrina. Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and assorted white apologists continue to express anger and outrage over the federal response to the Katrina disaster. But where were the Vietnamese “leaders” expressing their “anger?” The Vietnamese comprise a substantial part of the New Orleans population, and yet are absent was any report claiming that the Vietnamese were “owed” anything. This is not to say that the federal response was an adequate one, but we need to take this as a sign that maybe the problem has very little to do with racism and a lot to with a mindset.
The mindset that one is “owed” something in life has not only affected black mobility in business but black mobility in education as well. Remember Ward Churchill? About fifteen years ago he was my boss. After leaving the fishing boats, I attended graduate school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I managed to get a job on campus teaching expository writing to minority students who had been accepted provisionally into the university on an affirmative action program. And although I never met him, Ward Churchill, in addition to teaching in the ethnic studies department, helped to develop and organize the minority writing program.
The job paid most of my bills, but what I witnessed there was absolutely horrifying. The students were encouraged to write essays attacking the white establishment from every conceivable angle and in addition to defend affirmative action and other government programs. Of the hundreds of papers that I read, there was not one original contribution to the problem of black mobility that strayed from the party line.
The irony of it all however is that the “white establishment” managed to get them into the college and pay their entire tuition. Instead of being encouraged to study international affairs, classical or modern languages, philosophy or art, most of these students became ethnic studies or sociology majors because it allowed them to remain in disciplines whose orientation justified their existence at the university. In short, it became a vicious cycle.
There was a student there I’ll never forget. He was plucked out of the projects in Denver and given a free ride to the university. One day in my office he told me that his mother had said the following to him: “M.J., they owe you this. White people at that university owe you this.” M.J.’s experience at the university was a glorious fulfillment of his mother’s angst.
There were black student organizations and other clubs that “facilitated” the minority student’s experience on the majority white and “racist” campus, in addition to a plethora of faculty members, both white and black, who encouraged the same animus toward the white establishment. While adding to their own bona fides as part of the trendy Left, these “facilitators” supplied M.J. with everything he needed to quench his and his mother’s anger, but nothing in the way of advice about how to succeed in college. No one, in short, had told M.J. that he needed to study. But since he was “owed” everything, why put out any effort on his own?
In a fit of despair after failing most of his classes, M.J. wandered into my office one Friday afternoon in the middle of the semester and asked if I could help him out. I asked M.J. about his plans that evening, and he told me that he usually attended parties on Friday and Saturday nights. I told him that if he agreed to meet me in front of the university library at 6:00pm I would buy him dinner. At 6pm M.J. showed up, and for the next twenty minutes we wandered silently through the stacks, lounges, and study areas of the library. When we arrived back at the entrance I asked M.J. if he noticed anything interesting. As we headed up the hill to a popular burger joint, M.J. turned to me and said:
“They were all Asian. Everyone in there was Asian, and it was Friday night.”
Nothing I could do, say, or show him, however, could match the fire power of his support system favoring anger. I was sad to hear of M.J. dropping out of school the following semester.
During my time teaching in the writing program, I watched Asians get transformed via leftist doublespeak from “minorities” to “model minorities” to “they’re not minorities” in precise rhythm to their fortunes in business and education. Asians were “minorities” when they were struggling in this country, but they became “model minorities” when they achieved success. Keep in mind “model minority” did not mean what most of us think it means, i.e., something to emulate. “Model minority” meant that Asians had certain cultural advantages, such as a strong family tradition and a culture of scholarship that the black community lacked.
To suggest that intact families and a philosophy of self-reliance could be the ticket to success would have undermined the entire angst establishment. Because of this it was improper to use Asian success as a model. The contortions the left exercised in order to defend this ridiculous thesis helped to pave the way for the elimination of Asians altogether from the status of “minority.”
This whole process took only a few years.
Eric Hoffer said:
“…you do not win the weak by sharing your wealth with them; it will but infect them with greed and resentment. You can win the weak only by sharing your pride, hope or hatred with them.”
We now know that Barack Obama really has no interest in the “audacity of hope.” With his race speech, Obama became a peddler of angst, resentment and despair. Too bad he doesn’t direct that angst at the liberal establishment that has sold black people a bill of goods since the 1960s. What Obama seems angry about is America itself and what it stands for; the same America that has provided fabulous opportunities for what my black friend called “hungry” minorities. Strong families, self-reliance, and a spirit of entrepreneurship should be held up as ideals for all races to emulate.
In the end, we should be very suspicious about Obama’s anger and the recent frothings of his close friend Reverend Wright. Says Eric Hoffer:
The fact seems to be that we are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about. Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own.
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they say white people owe you… why do white people owe you?
i’ve never understood that. because your great grandparents were MAYBE slaves? because every once and a while some scumbag will look at you funny because you’re black?
and because of that you don’t feel you have to work to even feed yourself?
then when questioned you say “you can’t understand, you’re not black”.
the cycle will never be broken until blacks let go of their resentment and decide they want more in the world.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:14 am“Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own.”
And that is why vehemence is all the moonbat treehuggers exhibit, because they have no facts to stand on.
Great article!
March 20th, 2008 at 11:41 amI watched Asians get transformed via leftist doublespeak from “minorities” to “model minorities” to “they’re not minorities” in precise rhythm to their fortunes in business and education.
Blacks do this same thing to each other. If a black man puts on a suit and studies hard, He becomes a white man in a black mans skin. An Oreo, ridiculed as a sell out.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:23 pmThat was a fantastic read!!!
March 20th, 2008 at 12:29 pm..and thus the race hustlers, liberal politicians, and a bloated entitlement bureaucracy are enabled and perpetuated. Sickening.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:36 pmMy friends … I invite you to COMPARE and CONTRAST the two views below … One says “Get the hell over it”, and the other says “Embrace it, keep it alive, even though most everyone who experienced it is for the worms now” … and which do you think gets more support from leaders in the “black community”?
- Barack Obama
———————————————————-
NAACP leaders stunned by remarks of prominent comedian
Posted: May 20, 2004
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38565
Cosby said: “Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids – $500 sneakers for what? And won’t spend $200 for ‘Hooked on Phonics.’ … They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: ‘Why you ain’t,’ ‘Where you is’ … And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. … Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. … You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!” … The Post said Cosby also targeted imprisoned blacks. “These are not political criminals,” he said. “These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] ‘The cops shouldn’t have shot him.’ What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?”
Now, if these two men of “color” were your ONLY choices for president of the United States, which would YOU feel confident casting your vote for?
But then, of course, WE are “typical white” folk …
I would imagine “typical black” folk would vote differently than “whitey” …
FUCK! I am so damn sick of this!
March 20th, 2008 at 12:38 pmYou blacks want reparations for being slaves?. You dumb-asses never were slaves.
Tell ya what…….go and find some black people who were slaves….that are still alive, then let them file suit with the confederacy for their “reparations”.
Basically, shit in one hand and wish in the other……….let me know which one gets full first. You practally own the welfare state, all manner of entitlements, and benefits that we whitey’s don’t get and and have been feeding off it long enough. there’s your “reparations”…….now sit down and STFU!
March 20th, 2008 at 12:52 pmStep right up to the Free Lunch Counter! Sit down, and fill up on a full serving of Nothing! Enjoy!
March 20th, 2008 at 1:41 pmIf they did file suit, they would be suing the Democratic Party because the GOP was formed to defeat slavery.
Oddly, the Democrats continue to hold these people as slaves.
The Clinton’s have used this people for years.
March 20th, 2008 at 1:52 pm600,000+ dead Americans in the Civil War. 360,000+ dead Union Soldiers. This is more than all the other American wars combined and white people owe you something? WTF is wrong with you ignorant, stupid, lazy motherfuckers that believe this bullshit. Who the fuck do you think helped free the slaves? Illegal aliens? Lincoln, a Republican and a white guy, must be rolling in his grave.
March 20th, 2008 at 2:18 pmThomas Sowell wrote a book awhile ago called, “Ethnic America.” He compared the economic performance to many factors. He began to determine if the economic performance of ethnic groups could be attributed to racial prejudice. He began by noting tha the top two economic groups in America were Jews and Chinese. Whites were in the middle of the pack and African Americans who trace their ancestory through the Carribean were doing better on average than whites. In the end, he stated that economic performance in a free country like America is based on three things: strong families, education, and entrepreneurship. Everything else is BS. The Vietnamese, the Koreans, and Hispanics will all pass the American Blacks until they pull their heads out and marry the women who have their childern, hit the books, and start a business.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:43 pmMy ancestors never had slaves. I don’t owe black people shit
March 20th, 2008 at 5:16 pmI had a slave once…or I thought I did. Then I married her and she turned out to be the hardest-assed kind of slave-master on the face of the fuckin’ globe.
March 20th, 2008 at 6:01 pmI think the government owes me the kind of life I should have had if I had never met her.
Fuck! Can I get a do-over?
Denghis:
Damn, that’s harsh. Been married 27 years, only because my wife appreciates my many faults and I hers. Kids - our oldest is a Marine SSgt, middle a nurse and youngest still in college. Not every match is meant to be, but master/slave relationship may not be the best way to begin.
drillanwr: Twenty five years ago, I definately would have asked you out, even though good looking intelligent women make me nervous. Feminine perspective on this dilemma, if you care to share yours. Daughter’s still waiting for Kurt to call
March 20th, 2008 at 8:00 pmQuinn, I’m just hitting 30 years with my six-foot-tall cat-o-nine-tail-wielding dominatrix.
Mostly I try to have fun when I talk about my wife, as long as she doesn’t get wind of it. I’m a coward at heart…
A thumbs-up and a strong handshake to the SSgt…and my best to the rest.
March 21st, 2008 at 5:11 amSeems the black people talked about in that stunning honest piece have a lot in common with the muslims here in the Netherlands;
They screw up themselves, only to blame others for their own mistakes.
When you approach a Dutch Muslim with their mistakesh he will also say; You own me!
Every time when I’m involved in a discussion about immigrants having such a bad live over here,
shit that is, I always counter with the same fact. How it is possible that we don’t have those problems with Asian immigrants.
Most of the times I’m completely ignored. The truth is real scary…..
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:03 am