Santorum Was Right

The NAACP is attacking Rick Santorum, accusing him of singling out blacks for receiving federal benefits. They are calling his remarks “inaccurate and outrageous.” Santorum, speaking about entitlement reform said: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money – I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”

Personally, I don’t want to make anybody’s life better by giving them somebody else’s money. I personally want to see everybody seize the opportunity that exists, to go out and earn money. That’s my opinion. That said, I have no quarrel with what Santorum said, and my reasons are simple. First of all, his comments may have been blunt, but they weren’t unfair or inaccurate. We are continuously bombarded with the mantra that blacks are suffering disproportionately. Everything the NAACP, The National Urban League, and every tow-bit politician says when referencing blacks is a lament pursuant to how many blacks are incarcerated, uneducated, unemployed, broken homes, mistreated, and discriminated against juxtaposed to everyone else. The plaintiff cry is always more money and more whatever is needed to make the lives of blacks more sustainable. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that racism is to blame, if Oprah Winfrey’s new television channel doesn’t soon stop tanking. (Sarcasm intended)

My point is twofold. First, they cannot have it both ways. They cannot constantly carp that which I just referenced, and then be upset when someone offers a solution they don’t like and/or someone disagrees with them. The second is that they are ignoring the real problems.

Specific to the elephant in the middle of the room that they are ignoring, in 2007 I wrote the following syndicated column. As you can probably imagine, I was excoriated on black blogs and from the mouths of liberals who are analogous to uncleaned pissoirs on a hot, humid day. I stood my ground then and I stand my ground now. I’m right and I don’t care what they say. And my advice to Rick Santorum would be not to apologize, because if he does, they will immediately marginalize him. If he doesn’t know how to respond to them, then I suggest he give them my number. I’ll explain why they should shut up and stop prostituting race as currency to further their diabolical agendas.

Slavery: A Crutch For Blacks (WND.com; 1/30/07)
Virginia state Del. Frank Hargrove, R-Hanover, may not have been politically correct when he addressed a proposed resolution calling for Virginia to apologize for slavery, but in the purview of this essayist he was far from incorrect.

Hargrove was correct in saying: “The present Commonwealth [of Virginia] has nothing to do with slavery … nobody today had anything to do with it,” and “it’s counterproductive.” But it was his final comment – “I think personally our black citizens should get over [slavery]” and “by golly we’re living in 2007″ – that needs repeated voicing.

His opening comments created a tempest in a teapot, but it was his ending comments that should make his critics hang their heads. It is 2007 – at what point do we move on? How much longer – how many more centuries will blacks dine on the Barmecidal dinner of “it’s because of slavery”? What tangible bit of difference will such an apology make in the everyday lives of blacks? More to the point, how many blacks go to bed praying for an apology for something they have only read about? I submit that slavery can be a primary cause of disaffection for blacks, but only because they use it as a crutch, not because it has any relative bearing on said individuals’ lives today.

A sponsor of the bill, Donald McEachin, D-Henrico County, claims the proposed measure “is meant to be a resolution that is part of a healing process, a process that still needs to take place even in 2007.” Maybe King Salim Khalfani, head of the Virginia NAACP, didn’t get that memo because his words, “You’re damned right [whites] owe an apology” and “[whites] need to repair the damage,” in no way sounds like a warm, fuzzy, kum bay yah, we’re all in this together soliloquy to me. They sound as brutish and confrontational as McEachin’s comments sound deceitfully disingenuous.

Blacks do not own the market on past suffering and injustice – yet today, blacks disproportionately (we are led to believe) suffer the effects of a rocky beginning in America. I submit alleged suffering has nothing to do with slavery, but rather, everything to do with one’s mental outlook and approach to life’s consequences, based in large part on decision making.

The owner of my favorite Italian restaurant arrived in America in the mid 1960s. He had no money and spoke not one word of English. His first job was in a New York pizzeria, and it took long years of struggling to overcome his lack of money and English skills – but he always “believed that in America he could be more.” Korean friends opened a produce stand in the worst part of the city. They lived in the back of the store, but today, their children attend prestigious Ivy League universities.

In 1851, Irish immigrants arrived in New York aboard “coffin ships,” so named because, on the average, 15 percent or more of the immigrant passengers on those ships died at sea. They lived in the worst slums ever imagined – yet within 20 years they had transformed themselves. Italians and Jews suffered similarly. Yet they transformed themselves by taking low-paying and often dangerous jobs. African immigrants arrive here today from some of the poorest communities on earth, yet in less than one generation, they have transformed themselves.

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The reason for same is easy – it is because they come/came here prepared to take advantage of the American dream. Blacks, who have been here for centuries, are stuck on trying to extort an apology for something no one alive for at least a century has been involved with, and even then, not everyone participated in.

I once wrote, “America is not responsible for the accouchement of slavery” (July 15, 2003). I now add to that: Slavery has become the crutch of those inspired to underachieve, not achieve, cause for resentment of those who do achieve, and/or to be used as currency for those seeking to achieve based on immiseration.

“The average white person” doesn’t owe blacks special dispensation – in fact, no white person does. Blacks owe it to themselves to stop trying to extort benefit out of the past and grasp the overwhelming opportunity of the present. Slavery has nothing to do with not having better homes, better jobs or better lifestyles – but purpose and goals do. Low graduation rates have nothing to do with slavery – but purposefully failing, so as not to be “white,” and nonexistent parents do.

If McEachin wants an apology, he should start by looking in the mirror – that is to say, he should apologize for being so offensively wrong-minded. He, and those of his ilk, should apologize for misleading blacks through bitterness and resentment.

I suggest that those eager to exact an apology start with Anthony Johnson or his modern-day ancestors. I suggest they revisit his 1654 court case in Northampton, Va. I further suggest that those eager for an apology send a letter of request for same to their nearest mosque or imam – and not just for 9-11 – because no group has played a more prominent role in the African slave trade than Muslims.