WHERE WE ARE NOW
For the past 50 years, the Left, a/k/a Democrats/liberals/progressives, have received 82% to 95% of the black vote. During that same 50 year period, the black community has experienced a catastrophic deterioration as a direct result of the policies imposed by the Left.
Race Hustlers
A term coined to describe those individuals of a particular race who project themselves into the media spotlight as spokespersons whenever there is an alleged racial incident which involves their race... [to] exploit a racial situation to serve their own interests. [Emphasis added.] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Race%20Hustler
The phenomonen is not new. A past hero, Booker T. Washington:
There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays …I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public. [Emphasis added.] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington
The tactic described has become more successful in the the past 50 years. Witness Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, Sheila Lee Jackson, Black Lives Matter, the Black Congressional Caucus and the Obama presidency.
And the stakes have become higher for the Left.
If the Democratic Party lost just 30 percent of the black vote, it would mean the end of the liberal agenda. ... blacks must be kept in a perpetual state of grievance in order to keep them as a one-party people in a two-party system. [Emphasis added.] http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2014/12/31/liberals-use-of-black-people
And, so far, despite the disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality, it has worked with the electorate still compliant. The insightful Glenn McCoy makes the point in one drawing.
BETTER ALTERNATIVES - LIVING BLACK HEROES
Prominent black individuals, who have worked for their achievements, have written and spoken cogently on the harm caused by the Left's agenda: the adverse impact of welfare, the destruction of the black family, abortion, same sex marriage, blocking school choice, unemployment rates, attacks on religion, and abdication of personal responsibility. Unlike Barack Obama, most grew up in the black experience.
Three to lead-off
Thomas Sowell grew up in Harlem. He is an economist at the Stanford's Hoover Institution:
Anyone who is serious about evidence need only compare black communities as they evolved in the first 100 years after slavery with black communities as they evolved in the first 50 years after the explosive growth of the welfare state, beginning in the 1960s.... Most black children were raised in two-parent families prior to the 1960s. ... today the great majority of black children are raised in one-parent families...You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization -- including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain -- without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large. Behavior matters and facts matter, more than the prevailing social visions or political empires built on those visions. [Emphasis added.]
... the teachers' unions ... among the biggest donors to the Democrats. ... are bitterly opposed to [charter] schools , and Democrats do what the teachers' unions want...As long as blacks vote automatically for Democrats, ... it is all but inevitable that the education of black children will be sacrificed in the public schools, ...a good education is the key for the next generation to advance.
Walter Williams grew up fatherless in Philadelphia. Now an author, humorist and Economics Professor at George Mason University, Williams in his youth embraced "liberal" programs. He found he could not support his views with evidence. Critical of minimum wage and affirmative action as detrimental rather than helpful to blacks, he concluded that other allegedly benevolent policies were anything but:
If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn’t develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. First, weaken the black family, …preach that today’s weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. ... The poverty rate among blacks is 36 percent. Most …found in female-headed households. …The black illegitimacy rate is 75 percent, and in some cities, it’s 90 percent. ... Along with the decline of the black family comes anti-social behavior, .... a report [found] common to all 25 [most dangerous] neighborhoods …their makeup is … 'Black' or 'Mostly Black.' … According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. [Estimated] that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks...[Emphasis added.]
Star Parker is the founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education [CURE], a public policy think tank promoting market-based solutions to fight poverty. Parker was on welfare for seven years and had multiple abortions before realizing the system was destroying blacks. She traces the problem back to the 60s: Unfortunately, the war on poverty that Johnson embraced was little more than a bamboozling of African Americans. .... Fifty years and $22 trillion dollars later, the black family has been decimated by a system that encourages single parenthood and absentee fathers. Black wealth has eroded ...Urban violence ... with blacks eight times more likely to be murdered than whites. Black unemployment is a national disgrace, hovering at more than 30% for black youth... the black poverty rate has hardly moved. ... What did happen was the collapse of black families ..after the start of massive government intervention ... a tripling of single-parent black homes since the 1960s....At the time of the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, 55 percent of blacks were married. Today that number is down to 32 percent... less than 40 percent of black babies were born to unwed mothers. Today it is over 70 percent... about 10 percent of black children lived with an unmarried parent. Today it is over 40 percent. Meanwhile, some 60 million unborn children have been killed, about a third of which were black babies. ...particularly sad that black Americans, who attend church with greater frequency … sign on to the party of meaninglessness and nihilism, the party of abortion, homosexuality and socialism......
http://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2016/04/20/the-liberal-war-on-black-men-n2151201/page/full
And still more
Impressive accomplished individuals echoing those sentiments are legion. They refuse to accept the Left's false narrative.
Clarence Thomas was born in poverty to descendants of American slaves and did not experience regular meals and indoor plumbing until he lived with his grandparents. He held positions in the government, culminating in his appointment to the Supreme Court. He no longer has the freedom to comment as do others on the list but he made this point in the Left’s vicious effort to keep him off the court:
This is …a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured … rather than hung from a tree.
Carol Miller Swain grew up in a shack without running water. She became a professor at Princeton and Vanderbilt and an author. She criticized social programs that rather than helping the poor actually kept them in poverty:
Sowell… wrote a book about the consequences of preferential racial policies that made me think…What you see taking place in our society with the destruction of history and monuments and with the language codes, all of that is straight out of George Orwell…
Kevin Jackson. Jackson's father served time in San Quentin for armed robbery; his mother died when he was seven. Jackson is an author and commentator and wrote the book The Big Black Lie: I've had to defend myself against charges of being a race traitor,,,Against what race? The human race? The left has wielded racism like a dirty nuclear weapon and destroyed blacks ….You need to be self-sufficient …and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We don't need federal programs…
Alan Keyes was the fifth child of an Army family. A Reagan appointment, he served in several diplomatic positions with the United Nations. Black Americans make up 10 or 11% of the population, but they account now for something of 40 to 45% of all the abortions. This is a privileged position that I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would aspire to….
Keyes is unfairly characterized as a ‘perennial unsuccessful candidate’, implying his entry into Illinois and Maryland senatorial races was self- aggrandizement. Rather it was Keyes stepping up to do a job no one else wanted - to present a Republican alternative in those elections. Please read his inspiring words in the wikiquote site.
Larry Elder was raised in South Central Los Angeles. He is a lawyer, author, and talk show host: Obama cannot brag about -- his economic record for blacks. Under his watch, black poverty is up. Net worth is down… ‘labor force participation rate’ was the worst since its inception in 1972…
David A. Clarke Jr., Sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, and former U.S. Ranger paratrooper: These progressive policies have hit the black community like a nuclear blast ...until we reverse this government dependency, that's what creates all of this and it encourages it by the way, along with some questionable lifestyle choices. http://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2016/08/18/sheriff-david-clarke-speaks-truth-n2206514?
Ryan Bomberger His mother was raped yet gave him life and the gift of adoption. He was adopted at 6 weeks of age and grew up in a multi-racial family of 15. Co-founder of The Radiance Foundation (TRF), he is a broadcast media designer, producer, columnist, public speaker and author of, Not Equal: Civil Rights Gone Wrong: Abortion is a human tragedy no matter the race, but nowhere in America is it more prevalent than in the Black community, where nearly 40% of all pregnancies end in induced abortion. http://www.theradiancefoundation.org/ryan/
Lurita Doan Her father ran a business school for black students. She served in the Bush Administration: The consequences of a growing and prolonged unemployment within the minority community, combined with preferential legislation, create a dangerous racial cocktail of time, idleness and increased expectation of entitlements…. increase national racial tensions based upon no expectations and a permanent dependency upon the federal government [Emphasis added.]
Crystal Wright Her parents experienced segregation. Owner of public relations firm, she authored Con Job: How Democrats Gave Us Crime, Sanctuary Cities, Abortion Profiteering, and Racial Division.
Democrats …. have made black Americans poorer, dumber and more criminalized... Black people keep voting against their interests, and I would argue the Democrat party is literally killing black Americans, from the womb to the streets.
Ben Carson His mother, though under-educated herself, pushed her sons to read and believe in themselves. He became director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and now serves as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] …all that you have to do is look what's happened since the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson. We’ve spent $19 trillion and we have 10 times more people on food stamps, more people in poverty, more broken homes, out of wedlock births, crime, incarceration. Everything is not only worse, it’s much worse. You’d have to be kind of stupid to look at that and not realize that that’s a failure and to say we just didn’t do enough of it.
Allen West His father and older brother were both career military officers; his mother a civilian employee of the United States Marine Corps. He is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and a political commentator. He authored Guardian of the Republic Yes, the dirty little secret that no one wants to admit is that Baltimore, and so many other urban areas and inner city communities in America are a reflection of the abject failure of liberal progressive socialist policies as advanced by the Democrat party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_West_(politician)#Post-congressional_career ; https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Allen_West_(politician)
Stacy Washington Daughter of an Army police officer and a budget analyst, she enlisted and served as a USAF weapons system analyst in Operation Desert Shield. She is TV personality and commentator If low black achievement was really an issue of being held back by systemic white racism how could blacks from foreign lands ever immigrate and succeed in America? The short answer is they could not…[it] is a distraction that prevents the solution: truly addressing societal ills that stem from poor personal choices.
Demetrius Minor is a preacher and a talk show host. He is the author of Preservation and Purpose: The Making Of A Young Millennial and A Manifesto for Faith, Family and Politic, and on the national advisory council of Project 21, a public policy group initiative of the National Center for Public Policy Research, which exists: to promote the views of African-Americans whose entrepreneurial spirit, dedication to family and commitment to individual responsibility has not traditionally been echoed by the nation's civil rights establishment." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_21
Stacey Dash Growing up, her friends were hustlers, hookers, and gang members. She is an actress and political commentator: The school system has become a part of this huge government machine, governed by people who aren't close to the situation. …I believe in small government…. We need to be united, and we all need to understand that we're all capable of achieving the American dream….but that has to be something that is self-realized. https://www.amazon.com/There-Goes-Social-Life-Conservative/
Shelby Steele His father worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). A columnist and documentary film maker, he authored The Content of Our Character. Affirmative action encourages a victim-focused identity, achievements... “Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn't come before.... the social victim comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative.
Jason Riley American journalist, he wrote Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.
… before the major civil rights victories, … the black poverty rate fell from 87 percent to 47 percent. Yet between 1972 and 2011 -- , after ... the implementation of Great Society programs -- it barely declined, from 32 percent to 28 percent, and remained three times the white rate …By 2013 Mississippi had more black elected officials than any other state, but it also continued to have one of the highest black poverty rates in the nation….black welfare dependency rose, as did black teen unemployment, black crime, and black births to single mothers.
Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, better known by their stage names Diamond and Silk, biological sisters from North Carolina, are video bloggers and YouTube personalities.
For many years the Democratic Party has promoted agendas that most Americans did not agree with. ... How is it that a person can cross our borders illegally,—they broke the law when they did it—we give them food, we give them housing, we give them medical. …they work our … jobs, they get our … money but they pay no …. taxes. … How can anyone be okay with that? …Black people, please understand. Your vote is your power. It's time to take your power back. Because you been suppressed, oppressed and depressed for too long by voting for the same system that has rendered you absolutely nothing. [Emphasis added.]
Bishop Harry Jackson is founder of the High Impact Leadership Coalition (HILC), We thought that the average American understood the scriptural basis of our thinking and knew why we were right on the redefinition of marriage and gender issues, We were wondering, even five years ago, why our people weren't responding to the clear and present threat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_R._Jackson,_Jr.
Ludmya "Mia" Love was born to Haitian parents who spoke only French when they arrived in the United States. Elected to Congress, advocating personal responsibility and reduced government dependency, she lamented the government’s support for abortion, referencing Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider: Every time we kill a child through abortion, we kill our potential. Every time we kill a child, we, all of us suffer. We lose a little of ourselves and a whole lot of our future.We cannot accept what might have been if we allow an organization to convince women they have no choice but to abort the life and the potential within them….May we never ever allow our funds to pay for the death of young children. http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/28/watch-mia-love-bring-people-to-tears-at-the-march-for-life/
Alveda King, first of five children, niece of Martin Luther King; her grandfather convinced her mother not to abort her. She is the founder of Alveda King Ministries and a commentator. She had two abortions and is now a pro-life advocate, seeking to offer women alternatives to abortion. She has spoken out against same-sex marriage. It is statistically proven that the strongest institution that guarantees procreation and continuity of the generations is marriage between one man and one woman. ....... perhaps as many as 75 percent, of abortion clinics are in areas with high minority populations. Abortion apologists will say this is because they want to serve the poor. You don't serve the poor, however, by taking their money to terminate their children. ...Let's be honest about this; the liberal agenda with failed stimulus plans and government entitlement programs is crippling our economy and our quality of life...[if] black lives matter,... what about the babies in the womb?...If we have an honest discussion on whether the war on poverty should be fought with welfare or with economic growth in the private sector, Democrats will lose black votes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveda_King
Alfonzo Rachel [Zo] lived in hard spots. He is a musician, songwriter, actor and political commentator.
My objective is to create media that counters the narratives that keep us in a state of discontent, keep us bitter and divided, that influence the rejection of God and despising our republic…
Bishop E.W. Jackson, great-grandson of slaves, lived much of his life on the streets. He joined the United States Marines. After his service, he received a law degree from Harvard and studied theology there. He is a practicing attorney, a professor and also a preacher. He co-founded Exodus Faith Ministries, I had a crisis of conscience … it is difficult if you are a Bible-believing Christian to reconcile that to some of the positions that the Democrat Party has taken. Democrats now have fully embraced an abortion policy that amounts to infanticide. ... made the lesbian-homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda their vision for America…. They have shown a ruthless willingness to frighten black voters with outright lies about the plans of conservatives …. . Biden’s 'they gonna put y’all back in chains' was not a gaffe. It is part of the Democrats’ strategy of using fear to keep blacks as a captive audience.
Why so many? The list - young and old, women and men, of various backgrounds and professions- gives the lie to the Left's despicable claim that black conservatives are a few extremist kooks. Apologies to the countless others who deserve mention.
WHY "HEROES"
The poet May Sarton observed these days
One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.
These are heroes in that sense and much more. They speak the truth, knowing it brings them vicious vilification and lies:
'race traitor', 'Uncle Toms', or even 'House Nigger'...,
standard right-wing talking points about how Democrats had ruined America’s cities...
1960s 'hippie punching' mixed with Fox News disinformation and Trump propaganda'...
racial opportunists and mercenaries. Betraying the collective interests of black Americans ...
WHAT TO DO
The usual problem - how to break through the mass media barrier that refuses to air or print the views of Living Black Heroes who Matter.
Why not a succession of videos for the Black Entertainment Network [BET] of these spokespersons addressing the reality of the plight of black communities -videos constructed so smaller segments can be used for stand-alone messages. The wide range of personalities here would make electric viewing. They can show the dramatic evidence disclosed in Alexandra Pelosi’s devastating video of the welfare office clients - a must-watch 3 minute video taped in 2012 election - and say Look what we have let them do to us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFeAFDh6dzk
Our nation needs to see the truth.
Facts are stubborn things… Don't be afraid to see what you see…The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help...Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same…There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect…. My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out.