In an email to supporters of his Campaign for Working Families today, Gary Bauer wondered why African Americans are still so upset about racism and continue “falling through the cracks” when “every major goal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been reached.”
In the email — “Will Holder Persecute George Zimmerman?” — Bauer laments that discussions on race can’t happen in America because “it inevitably degenerates into another round of bashing non-minorities and an indictment of America’s past sins.” Social services, “‘gangsta’ culture” and a lack of patriotic education, Bauer claims, are the real culprits for problems in the black community.
I wish we could have a real national conversation about race. But whenever the left calls for such a discussion, it inevitably degenerates into another round of bashing non-minorities and an indictment of America's past sins.
There is a lot we could legitimately discuss. For example, is racism growing among blacks? According to a recent Rasmussen poll, a plurality of blacks (31%) believe most blacks are racist, while only 24% of blacks believe most whites are racist. How does one explain that?
Why is it that every major goal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been reached -- from voting rights to non-discrimination in housing and employment -- yet so many minority children are falling through the cracks, educationally and economically?
Why is the "gangsta" culture so prevalent in minority areas and why don't urban politicians condemn it?
What is causing the massive breakdown of the black family? It can't be the legacy of slavery. As Dr. Walter Williams has rightly observed, "The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, what Jim Crow couldn't do, what the harshest racism couldn't do. And that is to destroy the black family."
Of course any conservation about race in America must begin with this truth: God created us all in His image and that is the basis of our equality. "All men are created equal," as the Declaration of Independence says, and are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." That is the basis of our dignity and worth. Just think, if we were actually teaching that in our schools!
