Black and Proud of It (or Where to Now?)

As the title suggests I’m black and proud of it. Not because of some movement that grew out of disenfranchisement with the white establishment in the mid to late 60’s, but because I live in a nation that is at least willing to give me a chance based on my ability to be a productive citizen regardless of my skin color, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual preference or gender.

Sounds politically correct, doesn’t it? Don’t let that fool you. I am the product/recipient of a lot of sacrifices, struggles and landmark judicial decisions whose sole aim was to make sure that the American dream didn’t pass by any of Lady Liberty’s children. Yet, I’m reminded on an almost daily basis that race (and the aforementioned categories) still plays a role in our lives, like it or not.

I’ll start with the Tea Party activists since I think that they are the best hope for this country in a lot of ways. Much has been made in the news of someone in the crowd shouting a racial epithet (the N word) at several members of the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) as they walked from their offices to the Capitol to participate in the health care debate. It strikes me as funny that:

1.      They weren’t using the customary underground transit system or automobiles to make this trek.

2.      They picked (and I would dare say timed) their route so that it would coincide with the protest outside the capitol.

It’s unfortunate that someone in the crowd would resort to this sort of name calling, but it is a fact of life. What I cannot understand or forgive these black leaders for is the willingness to see if they could try and stir up some sort of reaction from the crowd just by their very presence. This isn’t Selma, Montgomery, Tupelo or anywhere else in the Deep South where racism was running rampant. It is the seat of our national government and they are elected officials, sent there by their constituents to conduct the business of government (an oxymoron, I know).

The Tea Party has been among the most vocal groups (or network in this case) that has been critical of the direction that our government is taking. Regardless of whom the chief executive is (in this case he happens to be black), he is still one of the faces most Americans can readily associate with when they think of the Federal Government. It is because of this that he will be among those most likely to feel the wrath of an unhappy electorate. To categorize the crowds at these protests as right wing zealots, Republican shills, racists, homophobes or any other moniker that can be hung on them, is to be in denial of their true purpose there. Republican, Democrat, Independent, black, or white, I’ve seen them in the crowd while I’ve been watching coverage of the protests, and have heard their stories and reasons for being there. You’re going to tell me that a black man is going to participate in a protest with a group that would have nothing to do with him? Let’s get real here!

As with everything we’ve seen on the political front, it comes down to power, authority and influence. If the general public can be made to believe that these people are not representative of what’s going on in this country, then those in power have a tool at their disposal that can be wielded any time they see fit. That tool of course, would be popular opinion. Blacks are no different, we are told that one party could care less whether we live or die. We are told that we need to vote along certain lines, because it’s in our best interests. We are continually told both overtly and covertly that we need to be beholden to one group, party or ideology since this is our best hope when it comes to making progress which has been denied us for so long.

The problem here is that nothing could be further from the truth. Sure we’ve struggled, but so have other groups. Look at Asian Americans, here is a group of immigrants (albeit of differing national origins) who were exploited as railroad workers, or stuck in internment camps during the Second World War, but yet they have a disproportionately large number of success stories compared to other ethnic groups in this country, including whites. Why is that? Could it be that, unlike post Civil Rights Era blacks, they still have a sense of community, they are willing to make sacrifices for the good of their children and families; they put a high priority on the value of a good education?

My three children graduated from a high school located in a St Louis suburb. A large number of their school mates were bused in from the city to attend school in our district under the VST (voluntary school transfer) program. A lot of these kids were in no way prepared for the academic rigors of a high school with college preparatory and AP (Advanced Placement) tracks and quite a few of them didn’t seem all that interested in making the best of their situation (i.e. trying to get an education). One has to wonder (albeit not for very long) why the State of Missouri took away accreditation from the St Louis City school system. I’m not saying that these kids didn’t deserve a quality education, lord knows that all of our kids do, I’m just disappointed that they chose to fritter their time away over the course of a seven hour day instead of doing the things that matter when it comes to getting ahead in the world.

Those that decry what has happened to inner city schools and claim that more money for education is the only way we’re ever going to fix things are missing the point. The city schools spent more per pupil than any of the suburban school districts did, but look at what happened. I’m not an educational expert, nor do I have the faintest desire in becoming one, in fact my wife will even tell you that I could have done a better job of seeing to our kids’ education. My point here is that far too many people (especially the so called experts) think that there is some “magic bullet” solution that can be applied to fix the problem, but neglect to look at the underlying causes, kind of like continually finding water in your basement and fixing the roof when it’s your foundation that’s cracked.

What affects the black community can be broken down into three areas in my humble opinion:

1. Identity Politics
2. Demagoguery
3. Cronyism

In fact I will go out on a limb and say that no society or culture has progressed very far or survived for very long while these forces are running rampant. Latin America and Africa come to mind for starters, with Venezuela and Nigeria being the poster children for their respective continents. Here are two nations that have had the blessings of wealth bestowed upon them through an abundance of oil, yet squander their earnings on things that do nothing for their people. Why?

Identity Politics. When you set out to demonize a particular group, or pit one group against another, you’re playing identity politics. In Nigeria the result is sectarian strife based in no small part on who should be the recipients of the petro dollars being generated. In Venezuela it’s going after everyone who doesn’t agree with the current regime, or those “meddling” foreign powers. In America, race or socioeconomic backgrounds (class warfare) normally rear their ugly heads.

Demagoguery. When one seeks to gain power or popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people, he or she is guilty of demagoguery. We need to look no further than El Jefe himself, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. In Nigeria, it would be split between the leaders of the factions fighting for the oil wealth. Here at home that honor would be bestowed upon the Reverends Jackson, Sharpton, Farrakhan, and Wright. If these are men of the cloth, then I most certainly do not like the cut of their collective jib.

Cronyism. No explanation needed. Again we turn to our boy Hugo and his friends who are sucking the country dry. Check out Maria Conchita Alonzo’s letter to Sean Penn on his misplaced sense of loyalty (and dare I say reality). If you’ve ever stumbled upon a Nigerian phone, or bank scam, you’ve seen the result of what years of corrupt government does to the mores and work ethic of a country’s citizens. Otherwise productive, intelligent people stooping to such lows because of a bleak economic picture at home, and a government incapable of doing anything to stop them since it still needs to put its own house in order. With us, it comes down to getting a seat at the table, and that can’t be done without bringing followers with you. The more folks you bring with you (i.e. influence), the more prominent your place at the table.

I cannot tell you the number of times where I have had my political convictions questioned by my fellow blacks because I wasn’t in lockstep with them on certain issues. As good consumers we’d never think about blindly purchasing a product without first checking to see if there were any worthwhile alternatives/competitors. It’s kind of like sticking with a Sony when the Toshiba across the aisle got better reviews and costs much less. With blacks and politics, that’s exactly what happens. Black leaders know this and play it for all it’s worth. Any attempt to remove the blinders is met with stinging rebukes, criticism, and of course the obligatory attempts at character assassination.

When the black community finally finds within itself the willingness and ability to conduct a fairly objective self-examination, then things will improve for blacks as a whole. Then and only then, will all of those cruel realities of the world at large have finally sunk in and a realistic course of action can be charted to judiciously navigate through the minefield that is race in America.

The Media and the Court of Public Opinion

What do Trayvon Martin, the fitness of airline flight deck and cabin crews, and Climate Change have in common? The Mainstream Media.

In each of these cases the MsM has been at the forefront of convincing the populace that the view of the world that it chooses to espouse is the only one out there.

In the Trayvon Martin case, the media has been leading the charge to arrest the shooter, George Zimmerman and possibly have him charged with a hate crime along with, at the very least, manslaughter. It has gone out of its way to paint Zimmerman as a gun happy, self-appointed, racial profiling, neighborhood watch Nazi. It has tried to take what little circumstantial evidence that has become available in the public domain and turn it into a noose to put around Zimmerman’s neck. The Sanford Police Department and State Attorney’s Office, much to their credit, have been loathe to take the bait and have promised to see this case through to its logical and legal conclusion.

The recent Jet Blue incident where the Captain had a yet to be determined episode which caused a Vegas-bound aircraft to divert to Amarillo Texas, is just the latest in a string of events where airline crewmembers have presumably gone off the deep end in the past year. The media has turned it into a flight safety issue and conflated it with pending legislation on flighttime and duty limitations and minimum pilot qualifications. What does this mean? Possible psychological evaluations for crewmembers, where if you have anything which puts you at risk for becoming mentally unstable or may have shown signs in the past of any sort of episodic behavior, your career could be cut short.

Global Cooling, no make that Global Warming, no make that Climate Change, has been at the forefront of the world’s consciousness since Al Gore’s Academy Award winning film “An Inconvenient Truth”.  We are continually bombarded by the facts about why we are in an era that will make or break us if we do not take action to stop, or at the very least, arrest the amount of greenhouse gases we are pumping into the atmosphere. Sea level rises, loss of habitats, mass extinctions and the like are thrown into a witches brew of doomsday scenarios, the better to scare us into compliance with what those touting the message (and those who are behind the curtain pulling the strings) want.

A free and unfettered press is supposed to be one of the cornerstones of a democracy, that is, if it has any hope for long term survival. What has occurred in this country in the past 40 years however, is that we have a press that has lost its objectivity and has become incapable of remaining neutral in any argument that has the potential to shape (or reshape) our society and the world in general. It has, in fact, become complicit in supporting one side over the other, much to the detriment of the people it is supposed to serve. Ideals such as truth, blind justice, common decency, and courtesy have been swept aside to make room for partisan agendas.

A look at the three examples listed above should give everyone an indication as to what has been unfolding.

The only people who know what happened in the Trayvon Martin case are George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.  Young Mr Martin is dead and as the saying goes, dead men tell no tales (the science of forensics notwithstanding). We have been treated to security videos leaked from the Sanford PD showing Mr Zimmerman being brought in for questioning with no apparent/visible injuries, despite having claimed that he had been set upon by the late Mr Martin and roughed up to the point that his nose had been broken and bloodied, and there was a gash in his skull where it had been banged against the ground in the scuffle. The media and the race pimps (who have been adding to the narrative) had a field day with this. The only problem is the fact that the police report told a completely different story. Zimmerman had received medical attention at the scene (i.e. cleaned up). One of the officers also remarked that he looked pretty beat up and the back of his shirt was grass stained and soaking wet (it had been raining that evening). Then there’s the fact that a certain cable news network, that shall remain unnamed (but is affiliated with a certain bird of bright plumage), sought to sully Mr Zimmerman’s reputation by cutting and pasting a discussion he was having with a 911 operator to make it seem as if he was intentionally profiling young Mr Martin. The actual unedited taped conversation reveals Mr Zimmerman doing nothing more than answering a series of questions from the operator.

Damn those pesky little facts!

No one knows exactly what happened to the Jet Blue Captain, except that he had been acting erratically just before the flight and that his behavior only started to go downhill as the flight progressed. The investigation into what happened to him, just as with the Martin case, will be done behind closed doors (as has always been the case, so as not to prejudice the outcome). But that has not stopped the press from deciding that crewmembers should not be allowed to set foot in an aircraft without some sort of psychological evaluation being conducted on their fitness to fly. Being a pilot is a high stress job, given the fact that you are responsible for the safety and security of not only yourself but dozens, if not hundreds of folks. Any mistake that could possibly end your life would do the same for your charges in the back. Consider the fact that you have to be medically cleared to fly twice a year, depending on what seat you’re in. Consider the fact that you are going to have to get evaluated twice a year, both in a simulator, as well as in the aircraft. The level of scrutiny that you have to endure on a routine basis is not for the timid and takes a special breed. But none of that interests the media, they only see a problem and as far as they are concerned, that problem needs to be fixed.

Climate change has gone by other names in the past. During the 1970’s, scientists warned us that we could be entering a new ice age based on the amount of carbon dioxide we were pumping into the atmosphere. They dubbed the phenomenon Global Cooling. During the first decade of this century, scientists warned us that the greenhouse gases we were pumping into the atmosphere would lead to a warming effect that could bring on all sorts of disastrous consequences. They dubbed it Global Warming.  They presented us with all sorts of data to prove their point. The gold standard of research institutions was the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University in England. The same CRU whose leaked (not hacked) emails gave the public a glimpse into the chicanery that was being foisted on it. To add insult to injury, the winters in Europe and North America were more harsh than usual during the same timeframe. The Global Warming moniker was dropped and the Climate Change label was quickly adopted. The media trumpeted the message to the public like a mythical siren luring a sailor to his doom on the rocks. Granted, there has been evidence that we are undergoing some sort of climatological change, but whether it is man caused or just another phase in a system we have yet to understand, has become the real argument, but you would think that by the way those who believe we are the cause of it all (and their foils in the media) are acting, that the science is settled and anyone who would deny the truth must also think that the Earth is flat.

I don’t know about you, but I revel in being a creature of intellect and not emotion (much to my spousal unit’s consternation). It’s the one thing that helps me remain a skeptic in the case of arguments where questionable logic is being thrown about, especially when the object of the argument is to get one to react on an emotional level and not on an intellectual one. As a military officer I watched people get taken advantage of, not out of a sense of duty, but out of a sense of loyalty or obligation. Our emotions can be taken advantage of, but not our intellect.

The media and its sideline supporters seek to make the arguments they put forth emotional in nature. Since they cannot win the argument by intellectual means, they have sought to do so by exploiting the most vulnerable part of our humanity, our emotions. As with Pavlov’s dog, they know that a certain stimulus, having been applied over a predetermined period of time, will produce a desired result. The problem comes when the ridiculousness of what they’re attempting to do starts to overshadow their own argument. It is then and only then that the blinders will start falling from the eyes of those who have been bamboozled by their illogical ramblings and machinations. The more ridiculous their antics become, the more obvious it becomes to an even greater swath of the populace.

Winning in the court of public opinion only lasts as long as you can hold the attention of your audience. Once you’ve lost that, it’s all over but the shouting.