IF IT WORKS, SUPPORT IT
CurryforAmerica.com
The April 19 Jason L. Riley article which appeared in the Washington Post concerning Robert L. Woodson Sr., President of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, reminds me of the days when he and I travelled in the same circles. Back then Woodson was carrying the same torch for the under-privileged self-reliant that he carries today. I thought it was just a matter of time before some President -- Democrat or Republican -- snatched him up and made him Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. I was wrong. He was too focused on elevating the standard of living of the poor and insisted on too much independence of action.
Then as now he sees things through a single lens. If charter schools work, if they produce a better product than public schools he supports them; If they don’t work or produce a better product, he believes we should abandon them and do something that works; If faith based programs work in saving those addicted to drug and alcohol abuse, he thinks we should support them. If they don’t work, get rid of them; if home schooling works, support it. If it doesn’t, outlaw it; let me add that if same sex families produce the best adjusted, most well rounded children, outlaw traditional families. Then, as now, few people of influence paid much attention to him.
Woodson is right when he says that, “We’ve created a poverty industry, turned poor people into a voting commodity. And the race hustlers play a bait-and-switch game ... that only helps middle income blacks.” But many black civil rights groups, which are supposed to be helping underprivileged young blacks gain their footing, have instead become the model for disadvantaged whites who have adopted the black rap, hip-hop, whining- victim life-style. The result is that both black and white disadvantaged American families have slipped into a tailspin of vulgarity, decay and decadence.
There was a time when the middle class was the model for the underprivileged to follow in aspiring to be like them. Those days are gone. Now many of the middle class are adopting the grievance industry ways of the underprivileged. This is because the federal government has taken away their self-reliance and replaced it with unearned government hand-outs.
It used to be that men were the head of the American family and they provided whatever was needed to pay the bills, discipline the children and generally keep the family on track. Now, half of America’s families are headed up by women and men are getting a free ride. All they do is make babies. But they don’t set an example for their children to follow and they don’t culturally or financially provide for their children and families. Once men and women divided family responsibilities, now in the name of female equality women are forced to assume most family responsibilities while their men and husbands slip by contributing little or nothing to their family’s life style or upbringing.
To make matters worse, the government is teaching our children not to work or not to value the benefits of work and not to accept responsibility, but to abandon work and responsibilities in favor of accepting government hand-outs. Fortunately many who are forced by circumstances to live in financial poverty refuse to live in poverty of the soul, mind and spirit. These motivated, enlightened few continuously claw their way up the mountainside that leads to a good, solid middle class way of life.
Meanwhile civil rights panderers try to blame all black anti-social behavior on white racism, but black anti-social behavior isn’t driven by white racism. Whites don’t teach blacks how not to speak and act with intelligence and dignity; they don’t dumb down black children and they don’t teach young black men the gospel of how not to excel. Whites don’t control the NAACP, Rev. Al Sharpton, or Rev. Jesse Jackson nor any other national black organization. These maintain their positions of power and amass great wealth by exploiting the poor and by absolving themselves and the black community, church, and family of all social and cultural responsibility.
Robert Woodson would spit in the face of these racial scavengers. Not only have they corrupted the black race, but they are corrupting white America as well. What makes it even worse is that white governmental and political leadership knows what is happening but does nothing to stop America’s cultural and racial decay and corrosion.
Fortunately there are still a few Robert Woodson’s left in the nation who haven’t given up the fight and still believe there is hope for America.