Tag Archives: Work ethic

Sunlight Is The Best Disinfectant

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Yesterday I posted an article about a chart on The National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) website. The chart was essentially an accusation that the things that form the foundation of American culture are racist. Things such as a work ethic, the family unit, manners, respect for authority, self-reliance, delayed gratification, etc. Denigrating those values is not helpful to our social framework, nor is it a good thing to put in front of our children as fact. I wasn’t the only person upset that this chart was totally inaccurate and paid for with taxpayer money. Evidently someone was upset who knew how to get results.

Last night, Fox News reported that the chart had been removed from the website.

The article reports:

The National Museum for African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has removed its controversial chart on whiteness from one of its webpages, telling people on Thursday that it didn’t contribute to a “productive conversation” about racial issues.

“Since yesterday, certain content in the ‘Talking About Race’ portal has been the subject of questions that we have taken seriously. We have listened to public sentiment and have removed a chart that does not contribute to the productive discussion we had intended,” the museum said in a statement.

Fox News reported yesterday that some described the chart as racist since it categorized things like “decision-making” and “delayed gratification” as part of whiteness.

The museum’s graphic broke the “aspects and assumptions of whiteness” into categories such as “rugged individualism” and “history.” For example, under “future orientation,” the graphic listed “delayed gratification” and planning for the future as ideas spread by white culture.

The article continues:

For instance, that information includes potential microagressions that could be committed by White people. “Acts of microaggressions include verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults toward nonwhites. Whether intentional or not, these attitudes communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages,” the site reads.

It also tells readers that “if you are white in America, you have benefited from the color of your skin.” The website also maintained a video from “White Fragility” author, Robin DiAngelo — whose book has been touted as a go-to in the wake of protests against racism ignited in part by the death of George Floyd.

According to DiAngelo, white people have a hard time admitting their privilege. The portal reads: “Dr. Robin DiAngelo coined the term white fragility to describe these feelings as ‘a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves.’ Since white people ‘live in a social environment that insulates them from race-based stress,’ whites are rarely challenged and have less of a tolerance to race-based stress.”

So according to this, if I encourage a child of another race to do better in school, that is a microagression, but if I encourage a white child to do better in school, that’s okay. Can you see where this is going? This was a probe. Had the chart not been exposed, the museum would have pushed its racist (yes, this is racist) agenda even further. The message in this chart (dismissing the value of the family unit, dismissing the value of a good work ethic, dismissing the idea of self-reliance, and delayed gratification) if followed will lead to a life of poverty and dependence. Consider the fact that the key to Democrat political victories is a permanent underclass that will continue to vote for the promises made be Democrats.

I am glad that the chart was taken down. I am saddened that there are people in leadership positions that believe the ideas expressed in the chart. The chart is a recipe for failure–not for success. It is not a message we want to teach any of our children.

Ruining The College Board

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David Coleman has been the President of the College Board since 2012. David Coleman was one of the people responsible for developing the Common Core standards. He has now brought his total misconceptions of what works in education to the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), long used as an indication of a student’s ability and possible clue to how well they would do in college.

Yesterday The New York Times posted an article that reported the following:

The College Board, the company that administers the SAT exam taken by about two million students a year, will for the first time assess students not just on their math and verbal skills, but also on their educational and socioeconomic backgrounds, entering a fraught battle over the fairness of high-stakes testing.

The company announced on Thursday that it will include a new rating, which is widely being referred to as an “adversity score,” of between 1 and 100 on students’ test results. An average score is 50, and higher numbers mean more disadvantage. The score will be calculated using 15 factors, including the relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s neighborhood.

The rating will not affect students’ test scores, and will be reported only to college admissions officials as part of a larger package of data on each test taker.

The new measurement brings the College Board squarely into the raging national debate over fairness and merit in college admissions, one fueled by enduring court clashes on affirmative action, a federal investigation into a sprawling admissions cheating ring and a booming college preparatory industry that promises results to those who can pay.

Below is a picture of what constitutes the adversity score:

The American Thinker quoted Tucker Carlson, who noted the following about the idea:

It’s kept a secret. “Trust us,” in effect, they say. There is no appeal possible. And as a black box whose inner workings are secret, it becomes an ideal vehicle for engineering the racial results admissions offices desire.

It is easily gamed – fake addresses, even possible income manipulation (by claiming a lot of depreciation, for instance, the way that Donald Trump reported negative income in the 1980s)

And it provides perverse incentives, rewarding victim status, not achievement. Parents who start out with no advantages and work hard to provide a better life for their kids will now be handicapping them if they have high incomes and live in nice neighborhoods with good schools.

Obviously if you are a middle class parent living with the father of your children in a respectable neighborhood, the answer would be to divorce your spouse and move to Detroit. That is obscene.

It might also be a good idea to consider the consequences of this new program–how will children who do not have good SAT scores but have great adversity scores do in college? What will be the drop out rate? Will they understand the classes they are taking? The way to achieve diversity in colleges is to change the culture in communities where the work ethic has been lost. There are many first-generation Chinese children living in New York City in poverty that are gaining admission to the top schools in the city because their parents have taught them to work hard in school. Rather than risk putting students in college that are academically unprepared for what they are going to face, shouldn’t we simply encourage a cultural change in poor communities that rewards hard work in school. It can make a difference–Ben Carson is a shining example of a child growing up poor with a single parent who lacked education that taught her children the value of education. Let’s lift people up instead of making excuses for them because of where they grew up.

Recycling Bad Ideas

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Hot Air posted an article today about Democrat Presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Both candidates have stated that they would be in favor of reparations for black Americans.

The article reports:

Last week, Senator Kamala Harris of California agreed with a radio host’s recent suggestion that government reparations for black Americans were necessary to address the legacies of slavery and discrimination. Ms. Harris later affirmed that support in a statement to The Times…

Ms. Warren also said she supported reparations for black Americans impacted by slavery — a policy that experts say could cost several trillion dollars, and one that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and many top Democrats have not supported…

“We must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination in this country that has had many consequences, including undermining the ability of black families to build wealth in America for generations,” Ms. Warren told The Times. “We need systemic, structural changes to address that.”

I would like to suggest that this might not be a winning issue. The article notes that last year Rasmussen found 70 percent of Americans opposed to reparations for slavery.

How would reparations be a positive thing? The money would have to come from somewhere. The people who paid increased taxes to pay reparations would resent it. Also, what about people in families that were not here during slavery? Also, how would you prove that a black person had ancestors who were slaves? How about reparations for the soldiers who fought against slavery? How about reparations for the Native Americans for the way they were treated? How about reparations for the Japanese interred during World War II? How about reparations for the Irish indentured servants who were treated badly?

As you can see, this would be the beginning of a journey down a very slippery slope. How about we make sure that all people of every color are treated equally under the law and given equal opportunity? How about we work to change the culture in low income communities of all colors to encourage intact families, a culture of learning, and a strong work ethic? Encouraging those three things would do more to increase the wealth of poor black communities than all the reparations in the world ever could.

 

This Is A Real Bill

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Yesterday PJ Media posted an article about H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. First of all, taking money from a person who earned it and giving that money to a person who did not earn it is called robbery. You can give it nice names, but that is what it is. What about reparations for the indentured servants who came to America? What about reparations for the Irish, Italians, and other ethnic groups that were mistreated when they came to America? This is truly ridiculous. It is a shame that some people are taking it seriously. Many Americans’ ancestors weren’t even  here during slavery, why should they pay reparations for something they were never part of? How many Americans lost their lives fighting to end slavery? Are they entitled to anything?

The article reports:

The legislation seeks to “address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.”

“It’s a commission to study the issue of what was the economic impact of the work of slaves and how does it translate in the 21st century. And what we want to do is to build a narrative, a story of the facts and out of that be able to access how we repair some of the damage,” Jackson Lee said during a recent interview after her speech at the annual Legislative and Policy Conference organized by Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.

“When you look at urban blight, when you look at schools in inner cities and rural communities that are not at the level of excellence that they should be, when you look at support for [historically black colleges and universities], all of that will be part of understanding that whole journey and that whole economic journey,” she added. “And it is interesting that these magnificent buildings were built by slaves, obviously with no compensation. That is not what we are asking for; this bill is to have a commission to hear from people all over the nation.”

How about instead of paying reparations, you begin a program to put fathers back in the homes of families of all races? How about you work on the black culture that says getting an education is a ‘white’ thing? How about you teach children of all races that they have to earn what they get–no one is simply going to give them things? How about you put strict work requirements on welfare and food stamps and limit the number of generations that can collect those benefits? How about we bring back the work ethic instead of the ‘gimme’ ethic?

 

Making Welfare Work

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The budget for food stamps and other public welfare programs has gotten totally out of hand both at the state and the federal level. There are many people who have learned how to take advantage of the welfare system over the years, and the problem has been how to separate those who truly need assistance from those who don’t. Well, it seems as if the State of Maine has found at least a partial answer to the problem.

CNS News reported the following yesterday:

A Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesman tells the Associated Press that 12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 – a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March.

More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state’s food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage‘s administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements.

The article further reports:

State Rep. Scott Hamann (D –South Portland) has introduced a bill that would direct the administration to seek a waiver for certain counties with high unemployment or a lack of jobs.

The measure may not gain support from LePage’s administration. HHS spokesperson David Sorensen says, recipients only need to volunteer for 24 hours a month to comply with the requirements and the administration believes there are enough opportunities even in the most economically depressed regions.

No one wants to deny food to the needy, but the time has come to realize that there are people who are taking advantage of the various welfare programs available. The government really does not help anyone by giving them food without requiring them to work (unless that person is truly disabled in some way). The action that Governor LePage has taken will encourage the work ethic that has been lost in America since the Great Society laws were passed by Congress.

 

After They Are Done Destroying The Family, The Government Is Going To Destroy The Family Farm

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Clint Farm tractor

Image via Wikipedia

I did not grow up on a farm. I am not sure I have ever been on one (other than school trips and a friend who has a barn and various animals). However, I am aware that the food in the grocery store comes from farms–many of them family-owned. The attack on the family farm through the estate tax is obvious–many family farms are land-rich, but do not have the liquid assets to pay off estate taxes–many of those families have to sell the family farm to pay the estate taxes. Now there is a new attack on the family farm and the culture and work ethic it represents.

Townhall.com reports that a new sweeping set of rules proposed by Hilda Solis, Secretary of Labor, will change the dynamic on the family farm.

The article reports the proposed changes:

  • Prohibit children under 16 who are being paid from operating most power-driven equipment, including tractors and combines. Some student-learners would be exempted from the ban on operating tractors and other farm implements, but only if the equipment has rollover protection and seat belts.
  • Bar those under 18 from working at grain elevators, silos, feedlots and livestock auctions and from transporting raw farm materials.
  • Prevent youths 15 and younger from cultivating, curing and harvesting tobacco to prevent exposure to green tobacco sickness, which is caused by exposure to wet tobacco plants.
  • Prohibit youths from using electronic devices such as cellphones while operating power-driven equipment.

Solis believes that some farm work is “too hazardous for children to be engaged in.”  How she knows this is anyone’s guess since she apparently has never lived or worked on a farm, nor do we find any evidence that she has children of her own. 

My experience is that the children who grow up on farms learn a lot of things other than how to drive a tractor. They learn to contribute to a family business. They learn the value and satisfaction of a job well done. They learn a work ethic. Many of the jobs this law would prohibit those under 18 from doing are the jobs those children do to earn money to go to college. Parents are the best judge of what equipment their children are able to operate–not the government.

 

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