More La Shawn Barber

You may recall my recommendation of La Shawn Barber's blog. I checked it today to see what, if anything, she had to say on the Alito hearings. I didn't get far. I stopped to read this post and just had to put it up here:

How Not To Be Poor

How much does racial discrimination explain? So far as black poverty is concerned, I’d say little or nothing, which is not to say that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. But let’s pose a few questions. Is it racial discrimination that stops black students from studying and completing high school? Is it racial discrimination that’s responsible for the 68 percent illegitimacy rate among blacks?

“How not to be poor” is classic Walter Williams. When I first started writing my little column, I wrote about the same things and got plenty of hate mail for the trouble. What should be common sense is often viewed as “self-hatred” by black liberals. I argued that blacks’ biggest problem was their own behavior, which is true for any other human being.

I’d get e-mails with questions like this one, usually from black women who called themselves taking me to task: “You mean to tell me you don’t think racism still exists?”

I’ve never said nor even implied such a thing, but “racism” is so inconsequential to black people’s lives in 2005 as to be laughably negligible. Given the extent of social pathology in certain “black communities,” I can’t tell you how embarrassing it is to hear black men in expensive suits blaming immoral behavior on “racism.” It’s archaic, tired, shameful and unimaginative. It bores me to tears as they prattle on about “racism,” as if white people have that kind of power over blacks. We’re teaching our children that if they fail, blame the white man.

So how can one avoid poverty? You’ve heard them before, but here’s a rundown of a few general factors in case you’ve forgotten:

• Graduate from high school.
• Get married before you have children, and stay married.
• Work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage.
• Avoid engaging in criminal behavior.

The second and fourth are especially problematic in urban areas. Incidentally, removing the stigma against out-of-wedlock pregnancies was probably the worse thing to happen to black people. Whenever I meet a black child with a residential biological father, I’m in awe. Expectations are quite low.

Black liberals often claim that government schools stink because of racism, although some of those same schools have outrageously high per pupil expenditures. You’ve been sold a bill of putrid goods if you believe bad urban government schools are a “civil rights” problem (It is NOT), and Williams agrees with my assessment. He writes:

Washington, D.C. public schools, as well as many other big city schools, are little more than educational cesspools. Per student spending in Washington, D.C., is just about the highest in the nation. D.C.’s mayors have been black, and so have a large percentage of the city council, school principals, teachers and superintendents. Suggesting that racial discrimination plays any part in Washington, D.C.’s educational calamity is near madness and diverts attention away from possible solutions.

Come to think of it, the District of Columbia is a black-run city with a black mayor. Blacks are everywhere in the D.C. government, and high up, too. They’re also scandal-prone, the latest being City Administrator Robert Bobb, who’s apparently done some unscrupulous hiring. Well, how much can you expect from a city that re-elected crack smoker Marion “*itch set me up!” Barry as mayor and recently re-elected him to the D.C. Council? Stupidity, not racism, has everything to do with the subpar performance of this black-run city.

It’s pitiful, really, that the blacks tasked to run things often turn out to be crooks, and not very smart ones at that.

I must say that government services have improved under Anthony Williams. One thing I’d suggest is training employees to be polite. (There was a time when such training wasn’t necessary.) For instance, the Department of Motor Vehicles is full of sour-faced black women who either hate their jobs specifically or working in general. At this point black liberal readers are usually up in arms when I write such things about other blacks, especially with white people reading. Dirty laundry, and all that. But it’s true, and more importantly, they know it’s true. One or two polite black women don’t make up for the majority who aren’t. Nice try, though.

Back to Williams. He writes:

Bill Cosby had the courage to speak out against individual irresponsibility. Surely those who profess to have the best interests of blacks at heart should be able to summon the courage to do so as well.

I’ve got the courage, Mr. Williams. People can balk all they want, but it is right conduct, pride, and decency that will improve conditions of “poor” blacks, not loose living, grievance-shopping and welfare checks.

Related posts:

• Dead Last!
• D.C. Bureaucrats Can’t Find School Superintendent

Posted by La Shawn @ 7:45 am