WND Weekly: There's gold here if you want it

© 2011

Blacks like Malik Zulu Shabazz and the New Black Panther Party favor themselves as liberationists. In their minds they are doing noble work lambasting the white man. But what those like him and a small legion of black “it’s because of racism” writers are unable to reconcile is the great and ever increasing number of Americans of color who, despite all the accusations of racism and white machinations, are doing quite well – many extraordinarily well. In fact one can legitimately argue that blacks are disproportionately unemployed because they are disproportionately unprepared.

Shabazz, Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, John Conyers, D-Mich., and reparationists are quick to point out that Africans were brought here 400-plus years ago, and America was built on their backs. Specific to that point, America was built on the backs of a lot of people from many different groups. But of all the many groups responsible for the building of our country, blacks – despite the pandering, the race-based affirmative action programs, quotas, reduced and relaxed examination standards, set-asides, race-based loan programs, diversity programs, race-based voting districts and black elected representation on every level – 400 years later, are still crying that they’re not getting a break, they’re not equal, and they’re disproportionately represented pursuant to negative outcomes.

But not everyone is suffering from such debilitating lipomas of the mind. We always hear about blacks such as myself, but what about those whom we seldom, if ever, hear about. Last week I had a conversation with a young man who owns his own cab. He was from Haiti, and it was interesting to hear his political point of view. Suffice it to say, he grasped what so many – who put more emphasis on skin color than time of day – do not.

The young man beamed as he told me: “That’s what’s so great about this country – America. You hear people complain all the time about the white man – but you know, we have a black president. People complain. They always talk about race, but at what point do [black] people here understand what they have? They don’t have it like this anywhere else.”

As we talked, he said that while things had happened here in the past, it is different today. His pride was unmistakable when he said: “I tell you, man – I love America.” That young man gets it. He understands and embraces the opportunity that everyone has in America. He isn’t today a big Obama supporter, even though he voted for him the first time. He’s against the bailouts, stimulus spending and health-care reform. His perspective is that Obama wasn’t ready for the job of president when he was elected, but that he might do better if he got another term – even though he wasn’t sure he would vote for him again, because he’s bothered by Obama’s inability to tell the truth.

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It’s an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand, we evidence a person of color who came here from another country, who loves his new country and is interested in all America has to offer and all that one can become here. On the other hand, there are those who boast of having a 400-plus year ancestry here, while claiming they have nothing to show for it, or at the very least, little to show for their time here. Ignore for a moment the lament is being perpetrated by those who cry racism at every turn all the way to their bank.

I enjoyed my conversation with that gentleman, but as I headed back home, two thoughts haunted me. The first was that here was a gentleman who came here with nothing, who had worked and clawed his way to where he was able to lease his own cab. He wasn’t about skin color; he was about how to get ahead. And then there are those who live to scream racism, those who at the drop of a hat call those who don’t subscribe to victimology Oreos, Uncle Toms, house niggers, and worse. I thought about those who voted for Obama because he was black and believed that, as such, he would “pay their mortgages and buy them a car.” Then I thought about those who prospered using race as currency.

The question is, where would we be if everyone followed the example of this young man and other successful persons juxtaposed to blaming white people for all of their ills? Where would blacks be if dishonest and deceitful liberals didn’t acerbate things by playing the “white people owe you and conservatives are going to prevent you from getting it” card? Legislators pass bills designed to make people government dependents. Schools teach revisionist history and foment anarchical heterodoxies. And whites are bullied into silence as they are accused of being unfair and insensitive unless they are liberal, socialist, or homosexual.

The question people of color should ask themselves is, who do they most want to model after: the young gentleman I spoke to who was working his way to a future of self-reliance, or those who wait for handouts while complaining about the way they’re treated – for 400-plus years?