Tag Archives: Race and ethnicity in the United States Census

This Sort Of Thinking Might Be Part Of The Problem

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How many of you reading this work forty hours a week? Fifty hours? How many of you would like to work less and have more free time, but you are encumbered by such nuisances as needing a place to live and liking to eat? Well, take heart, a college professor has an interesting observation on this whole ‘work ethic‘ thing.

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about a quote from Pennsylvania State University-Brandywine professor Angela Putman.

The article states:

Pennsylvania State University-Brandywine professor Angela Putman recently asserted in an academic paper that the notion “if I work hard, I can be successful” is merely a product of white ideology, reports Campus Reform.

Angela Putman conducted a study to critique and examine “ideologies within college students’ discourse that are foundational to whiteness.” Her resulting conclusion published on Thursday was that “meritocracy”, or the belief that people should rise based on the fruits of their own labor, is a “white ideology.” In her mind, this “white ideology” is unfortunately widely accepted in academia.

But, Professor Putman argues that professors can change this “ideology” by teaching students “how racism and whiteness function in various contexts, the powerful influence of systems and institutions, and the pervasiveness of whiteness ideologies within the United States.”

So according to this lady, the idea of meritocracy is “white ideology.” Interesting. It is really interesting that one of the few workplaces in America that is truly a meritocracy is the National Football League (NFL). According to the census, as of 2016, 13.3 percent of America’s population was African-American. In the National Football League, 67 percent of the players are black. The NFL is one of the true meritocracies in America and is largely composed of African-Americans. How in the world is the NFL meritocracy an example of ‘white ideology.”

The article further reports:

Putman believes that it is somehow a bad thing to teach students personal responsibility. Emphasizing a collectivist mindset, Putman puts forth the idea that Americans are falsely “socialized to believe that we got to where we are… because of our own individual efforts.”

This “ideology” she says, perpetuates whiteness and racism throughout society. Once students learn more about “white ideology,” they will hopefully “resist perpetuating and reifying whiteness through their own discourse and interactions,” and challenge systemic “manifestations of racism and whiteness.”

Until students learn the hidden dangers of believing in the value of hard-work and a positive attitude, “whiteness ideologies may be reproduced through a general acceptance and unchallenging of norms, as well as through everyday discourse from a wide variety of racial positionalities.”

We need to remove students from this professor’s classroom. What she is teaching them is not only divisive–it is harmful. She is essentially destroying the work ethic of her African-American students. The black culture is such that it handicaps black students immensely–if a black student does well in school, he is considered an “Uncle Tom.” How do we expect these children to succeed unless we are willing to change the culture of their communities? It is bad enough that schools in low-income black neighborhoods often do not have all the supplies and textbooks that they need, but no one should be adding to their problems by telling them that they are victims.

Irony?

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Diversity?

hamiltonIn case you are wondering what this is all about, Vice-President-elect Mike Pence took his family to see “Hamilton” Friday night. He and his family were booed as they entered the theater and lectured on diversity by the cast of Hamilton as they left. The whole episode was inappropriate and classless. The man wanted to take his family to a play–he did not need to be harassed.

There is a bit of irony in this situation. In March of this year, CBS News posted the following headline:

Broadway Union Takes Issue With ‘Hamilton’ Casting Call For ‘Non-White’ Performers

The article reports:

One critic said “Hamilton” takes a story that “valorizes dead white guys” and replaces it with black, Latino and multi-ethnic performers playing America’s founding fathers.

But as the blockbuster musical looks to expand to other cities, the casting notice with its call for “non-white” performers looks problematic to civil rights attorney Randolph McLaughlin.

“What if they put an ad out that said, ‘Whites only need apply?’” said McLaughlin, of the Newman Ferrara Law Firm. “Why, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians would be outraged.”

McLaughlin believes the ad violates the New York City Human Rights Law, which makes it unlawful “for an employer… because of the actual written or perceived… race of any person, to discriminate.”

“You cannot advertise showing that you have a preference for one racial group over another,” McLaughlin said. “As an artistic question – sure, he can cast whomever he wants to cast, but he has to give every actor eligible for the role an opportunity to try.”

That is also the policy of Actors Equity, the Broadway union, which says, “…producers agree that auditions for all productions… will be conducted in such a manner as to provide full and fair consideration to actors of all ethnicities.”

…The city Commission on Human Rights said it has not received a complaint about the ad, and would not say if it is investigating.

In recent years, the city has fined restaurants for advertising for “busboys” and “waitresses” instead of “bus help” and “wait staff.” In this case, a source told CBS2’s Aiello the commission would likely work with the “Hamilton” production team to help it comply with city law if it takes issue with the ad.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!

Why National Sovereignty Matters

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On Tuesday The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent report released by the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on African Descent.

The article reports:

In January, the U.N. group had applauded the U.S. for its progress since the Jim Crow era, but argued America was still ruled by white supremacy. “[I]deology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today,” the group said at the time. “The dangerous ideology of white supremacy inhibits social cohesion amongst the US population.”

…The chairman of the group, Ricardo Sunga of the Philippines, also condemned the rising “xenophobia and Afrophobia” of America’s presidential campaign in an interview with reporters Monday, without mentioning Donald Trump by name.

While this UN group may want reparations to become law, the measure is strongly opposed by Americans. The latest poll on the matter revealed that 68 percent of Americans are opposed to reparations for slavery.

It is interesting to me that the report focused on the United States. Slavery was a worldwide practice through the mid-nineteenth century. The main perpetrators of the slave were African Muslims. Somehow they are not being asked to pay reparations. I also find the attack on Donald Trump (although he was unnamed) interesting. It is a matter of public record that when Donald purchased his club in Palm Beach called Mar-a-Lago in 1985, he insisted on accepting Jews and blacks even though other clubs in Palm Beach to this day discriminate against blacks and Jews. How does that represent white supremacy or Afrophobia?

The problem in the black community has nothing to do with white supremacy or racism–it has to do with Great Society programs initiated in the 1960’s that destroyed the black culture.  It was President Lyndon Baines Johnson who stated, “I’ll have those n—–s voting Democratic for the next 200 years” as he confided with two like-minded governors on Air Force One regarding his underlying intentions for the “Great Society” programs. Those “Great Society” programs ruined the family structure in the black community. Thank God for the mothers in that community that have fought to raise successful children. The black community has given us some amazing men and women–Thomas Sowell, Dr. Ben Carson, Judge Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, etc. However, they are the exception rather than the rule. Until you change the culture of the black community, the gifts and contributions that the black community can make to American culture will not be realized.

To demand reparations for past sins is not a way to bring people together–it is a way to reward people with things they did not earn. Giving people money they did not earn is not helpful–it creates dependency. Also, how many people in America are alive today who have owned slaves? How many people in Muslim countries currently own slaves? Why did the UN report overlook those countries?

This Might Be Part Of The Problem

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Last Monday The New York Post posted an article about some of the required reading required of college freshman in a number of American colleges this year. The students are required to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.” The book deals with the author’s fear and hatred of police and white political power structures. This is not a book that will encourage law-abiding, successful college graduates. This is a book that will encourage racial division, class envy, and a skewed view of America and how it works.

The article reports:

Coates promotes the view that blacks are helpless to improve their situation given the white supremacy they face. In Coates’ world, whites cannot erase the stain of racism and instead many strive to control black bodies through violence. Coates’ book gives intellectual weight to the just-released platform by a Black Lives Matter-affiliated group, which stresses how “the interlinked systems of white supremacy, imperialism, capitalism and patriarchy shape the violence we face.” (It also claims the United States “is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people.”)

The first problem with seeing the world through this lens is that it isn’t true. As liberal political analyst Nate Cohn has pointed out, outside the South, President Obama received a larger share of the white vote in 2012 than either of the two previous Democratic presidential nominees.

But Coates’ thesis is contradicted by Coates himself. In his previous book, “The Beautiful Struggle,” he chronicled his life growing up in Baltimore. It documented the senselessness of black-on-black crime, the lack of proper parenting. There are no racist police or teachers in sight.

“Lexington Terrace was hot with gonorrhea. Teen pregnancy was the fashion,” he wrote. “Husbands were outties. Fathers were ghosts.”

“The Beautiful Struggle” fit into a narrative of “culture of despair” that, at that time, liberal sociologists Melissa Kearney and Kathryn Edin used to explain the continued prevalence of high black teen birth rates. But times have changed, and that sort of analysis is considered akin to blaming the victim. Better to highlight, if not exaggerate, black victimization. And with the proper lens, a modest number of police killings of black men serves this purpose.

It is truly sad that this book won the National Book Award for nonfiction.

The article further reports:

Besides providing a diversion, the use of Coates’ venomous book as freshman reading, taught by English instructors, is dangerous. First, it gives the book’s claims credibility. This in a campus atmosphere where, as Nicholas Kristof lamented in his New York Times essay “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance,” criticisms of Coates’ perspective inevitably will be dismissed as the complaints of ignorant racist apologists.

How much are parents paying for their children to be taught this trash? America is far from perfect, but there are many people of all races who have risen to leadership positions in both the public and private sector. To focus on the problems in America without celebrating the successes does not give the students a balanced picture of the country. That focus also encourages a victim mentality that will prevent the students from reaching their full potential when they graduate.

 

Common Sense Rears Its Head

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Breitbart.com posted an article today about a Los Angeles Times reporter who was surprised to find Latinos who are supporting Donald Trump for President. Robin Abcarian attended a Donald Trump rally in Fresno, California, and was surprised to find Latino supporters of Trump there.

The article reports:

It turns out that many of them are American citizens or legal immigrants who care about the country’s borders, and share the same views as fellow conservatives Republicans on a variety of issues.

His rhetoric about Mexicans doesn’t bother you, I asked?

“It’s about illegal aliens!” Jennings said. “Mom and I can’t go to Canada and just squat and get benefits. We couldn’t go to Mexico either without the proper paperwork. They’d put us in jail!”

…

“I’m Mexican,” Aderhold said, “and I understand that Mexicans do the farm labor, but there are a lot of legal ones. That’s how they should do it, the way my parents did.”

Note that these people were here legally. The people who have come to America legally do not want to see our borders erased–they want other people to stand in line and do things legally as they did. It is not a surprise to hear that many of them are supporting Donald Trump.

Punishing Achievement While Rewarding Mediocrity

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Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an editorial about an area of discrimination we rarely hear about. It seems that our elite universities have been discriminating against Asian-American students.

The editorial reports:

The percentage of Asian-American students at Harvard and other elite universities has held suspiciously steady for two decades at about 18%, while the number of college-age Asian-Americans has increased rapidly. In May the coalition (a coaltion of sixty-four organizations) asked the civil-rights arms of the Education and Justice Departments to investigate why Asian-Americans, who make up about 5% of the population but earn an estimated 30% of National Merit semifinalist honors, aren’t accepted to Harvard in numbers that reflect these qualifications.

Sixty-four organizations filed a complaint with the Education Department. The Education Department dismissed the complaint, stating that there is pending litigation on the matter. (One suit was filed by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina).

The editorial further points out:

A similarly narrow ruling next year could give Harvard and other top schools license to maintain de facto quotas. Asian-Americans need to score 140 points higher on the SAT than white students to be considered equal applicants on paper, and 450 points higher than African-Americans, according to independent research cited in the complaint.

Why are we preventing our best and brightest from entering our best schools simply because of their race? I thought there were laws against discrimination based on race. This kind of activity does not help anyone. Students with the lower scores may not be equipped to handle the academic workload at these elite schools.This really must be discouraging to the students who have achieved the high scores.

The editorial concludes:

Meantime, the Asian-American coalition says it will continue to push back, potentially broadening the complaint. Quota-like admissions also seem to exist at Yale, Princeton and elsewhere, and the feds won’t have litigation as an excuse to look the other way. But if the Obama Administration finds another excuse, as it probably will, Asian-Americans will need the Supreme Court to end their exclusion.

Racial discrimination should never be acceptable regardless of who it is aimed at. I hope the Asian-American students sue the pants off the schools that are doing this and then use the money to provide scholarships to Asian-American students in their communities.

Texas Isn’t Turning Blue

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Breitbart.com posted an article today about the Democrats plan to turn Texas blue by bringing in a large number of Hispanic voters. It doesn’t seem to be going the way they planned.

The article points out:

“The popular thinking is that the change in the American population portends bad news for a Republican Party that’s still heavily dependent on support from those older, whiter voters,” Bump states. “Our thinking: What better place to track how that evolution might occur than Texas.”

The report compares the 2000 and 2012 presidential election results and compares them to Hispanic population density in Texas. It concludes that while there was a close link between the density of a county’s Hispanic population and its support for Democrat candidates, the voting pattern for that county did not change as the county became less white and more Hispanic.

Most voters are aware of their immediate surroundings. Texas has experienced fantastic economic growth under Governor Rick Perry. Hispanics living in Texas have shared in that growth. The Hispanic population has not embraced Democrat principles–they are acting as intelligent voters.

The article concludes:

The Post (Washington Post) article states “On average, support for the Democratic candidate dropped 10 percent by county between Gore and Kerry. It increased 5 percent between Bush and Obama, and then dropped another 13 percent between 2008 and 2012. Between 2000 and 2012, cities and the border areas voted consistently more Democratic. But the central, emptier part of the state got a lot more red.”

The vague trends led the Post to conclude, “All we can do is look at how the state evolves over time. Over the past 10 years, the population shift was subtle and the voting change barely noticeable. In 2000, Al Gore won 24 of the state’s counties. In 2012, Obama did better. He won 25.”

The Obama-encouraged wave of Hispanic immigrants may not create a Democrat party majority for the foreseeable future. The people coming here may have other ideas.

Losing Our Foundation In America

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Herman Cain‘s website posted a story today in its Best of Cain section about a hiring clause in the teachers’ contract in the Ferndale Public Schools in Michigan.

The article quotes the clause as follows:

Special consideration shall be given to women and/or minority defined as: Native American, Asian American, Latino, African American and those of the non-Christian faith.

Wow. White Christian males and white Christian females were legally being discriminated against.

The article further reports:

We (and a lot of other people, starting with Michigan Capitol Confidential) get results. The Ferndale Public Schools have quickly backed down and, with the full cooperation of their teachers’ union, will remove language from their contract that gives preference to those “of the non-Christian faith” in hiring.

The article questions:

When did people start using the terms Native American, Asian American and African American? Certainly not in the 1970s, when in these ethnic groups would have been referred to, respectively, as Indian, Oriental and Colored (or possibly Negro). If Ferndale was using the terms in this sentence in the 1970s, it was way, way, way ahead of the curve. I suppose it’s possible that they updated the terms for more recent contracts, but if that’s the case, then it means they read the sentence in question, which means they can’t possibly claim they didn’t know about the language favoring non-Christians.

I’m glad they’re changing the language, even if it’s only because public exposure is living them with little choice, but it’s not making things better when they lie about how and when it got there in the first place.

It always pays to read the small print.

 

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Your Tax Dollars At Work

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I have written a number of articles on the Pigford Settlement. (type ‘pigford’ in the search space above to read details). When Andrew Breitbart broke the story in 2010, he was attacked by pretty much everyone. Well, Andrew has been vindicated–by the New York Times of all people.

Breitbart.com reported on Friday that the New York Times reported that U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has likely enabled massive fraud in the Pigford series of legal settlements, in which black, Hispanic, female and Native American farmers have claimed to be victims of past discrimination.

The cost of the settlements could exceed $4.4 billion, with lawyers expected to gain more than $130 million in fees,

The article at Breitbart reports:

As president, Obama continued to support payouts for new groups of claimants while abandoning a review process that had been used to fight fraud. The aim was “buying the support” of minorities, according to the Times, while middlemen created a “cottage industry” in defrauding the government.

That’s our tax money that is being paid out in order to buy support for someone we may not necessarily support. Great.

The article further reports:

Much of the fraud was enabled by the Clinton and Obama administrations, and by members of Congress seeking to reward special interests. Then-Sen. Obama sponsored new Pigford legislation in 2007, while Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) threatened in 2009 to lead protests against the administration if it did not bend to the wishes of Hispanic claimants. 

Meanwhile, whole families, including young children, filed claims for past discrimination to reap $50,000 each in cash payouts. As yet, Congress has failed to investigate Pigford.

As Americans we have two choices–go broke as the tax man takes more and more of our hard-earned dollars or elect people to government who have some respect for the money the taxpayers work hard to earn. Ultimately, it is up to us.

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Economic Woes Affect Population Movement

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Michael Barone posted an article at Townhall.com today explaining how the current economic recession is affecting population trends in America. One example cited is the migration to California which began during World War II and ended during the 1980’s. Since 1990, Americans have been leaving California. The only thing that has kept the state’s population growing at the national average has been Mexican and Asian immigration.

Mr. Barone reports in the article:

My prediction is that we won’t ever again see the heavy Latin immigration we saw between 1983 and 2007, which averaged 300,000 legal immigrants and perhaps as many illegals annually.

Mexican and other Latin birthrates fell more than two decades ago. And Mexico, source of 60 percent of Latin immigrants, is now a majority-middle-class country.

Asian immigration may continue, primarily from China and India, especially if we have the good sense to change our laws to let in more high-skill immigrants.

But the next big immigration source, I think, will be sub-Saharan Africa. We may end up with prominent politicians who actually were born in Kenya.

The state that is currently growing is Texas. One in twelve Americans now live in Texas. Texas has taken steps to attract businesses and people–it has enacted tax and tort policies to make the state business friendly. If the state governments are the laboratories for the federal government, we can learn a lot from Texas.

 

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It Sounds Like A Good Idea– But It Just Doesn’t Work

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Yesterday Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner posted an article about the recent dust-up about Elizabeth Warren‘s American Indian heritage. I live in Massachusetts and this story has been rather widely reported here.

The point of concern is not whether Elizabeth Warren is Native American or not–I really don’t care. The question is whether or not someone who may be 1/32 Native American can use that fact to be given special consideration when applying for education or employment opportunities.

The article notes:

Let’s assume the 1894 document is accurate. That makes Warren 1-32nd Native American. George Zimmerman, the Florida accused murderer, had a black grandmother. That makes him one-fourth black, four times as black as Warren is Indian, though the New York Times describes him as a “white Hispanic.”

What’s wrong with what Warren did? Capehart seems to understand that. “The implication in these stories is that Warren used minority status to advance her career,” he writes.

Well, yes. When she was hired, Harvard Law School had just denied tenure to a female teacher and was being criticized for not having enough minorities and women on its faculty.

Of course Harvard and Warren say her claim to minority status had nothing to do with her being hired. And if it did, no one is going to say so. Nothing to see here, just move on.

Quotas really don’t help anyone actually succeed–they may open a door for someone, but if a person is not academically qualified to take advantage of an opportunity, opening a door for that person does not help anyone–it simply puts an unqualified person in a position that a qualified person could fill. We need to remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “A man should not be judged by his skin color but by the content of his character.” A person should be given opportunities based on his (or her) abilities, not race or sex. 

America has made some serious mistakes in the way certain groups of people have been treated. As Americans, we need to acknowledge that, stop doing it, and learn from our mistakes. We can’t redo the past, and discriminating against the majority of Americans will not change the past.

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How Americans Are Misled By The Dominant Media

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The American Thinker posted an article today detailing how the dominant media manipulated the American public in its reporting of the killing of Trayvon Martin. The article gives a very specific and detailed account of the techniques used–I strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article, although I will try to sum it up here.

The article cites the basic narrative:

The Trayvon narrative can be summarized as follows: a black child was walking innocently through a gated community after buying some candy at a store, when a white racist stalked and murdered him for no reason but his color.  The police, who are also racists, let the white man go free.

This narrative is similar to those used in previous racial disinformation campaigns:

  • 1987 – White racists have raped a young black girl and left her in a trash bag.
  • 1996 – White racists are burning down black churches across the South.
  • 2005 – White racists at Duke University have raped a black woman.

Like the Trayvon narrative, the earlier narratives were untrue.  However, they remain widely believed as a result of the massive media coverage used to bring them to national attention.

The article also points out that in the news coverage of the events in Florida Trayvon Martin was referred to as Trayvon and George Zimmerman was referred to simply as Zimmerman. The article also points out that when the media reported that Trayvon Martin was killed in a gated community, readers (and listeners) were left with the impression that it was an upper class white neighborhood, when in truth it was a mixed-race middle class community. The words you use to describe something as basic as a neighborhood can add a whole other dimension to a story. That is what was done here.

Creating unnecessary racial tension is not smart. People who are neighbors are quite capable of living in peace if allowed to do so. The kind of reporting we have seen in the death of Trayvon Martin is not helpful to anyone.

 

 

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Some Of The Truth Comes Out

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Yesterday Mother Jones posted a story that should give all of us pause in trying to find the truth in the case of the murder of Trayvon Martin. It seems that some of the information we have been given by the major media has been seriously edited.

The article at Mother Jones posted an example of really bad reporting by NBC:

According to the Today show, here’s what George Zimmerman said to a 911 dispatcher as he was trailing Trayvon Martin last February:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.

Mother Jones posted the full transcript:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

I think this changes the story signficantly.

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