High Hopes For Connerly To End Race Dependency

by Kathryn Jean Lopez - November 18th, 2007 - Townhall.com

Believe it or not, we have come a long way regarding race in America. Though blacks have gone from being discriminated against in the law to being victimized by laws intended to help them, there have been positive changes. Ward Connerly, head of the American Civil Rights Institute, hopes to make more changes next November -- by breaking black Americans free from the chains of dependency.

Racial preferences are "the last thing that connects black people to the era when blacks were dependent on the government," Connerly told me earlier this month. With an eye toward nailing the coffin shut on black victimization by the government, he is calling his Election Day 2008 campaign, "Super Tuesday for Equal Rights." On that day, he is hoping for a victory over racial preferences in referendums in Nebraska, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Oklahoma. According to Connerly, victories on these ballots could mark "the end of an era."

Actually as great as this would be, to predict it as "the end of an era" is at least a little bit of hyberbole. It will still be a great day and could at least be called "the beginning of the end."

The article goes on:

Bill Cosby, in his book with Alvin F. Poussaint, "Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors" (Thomas Nelson, 2007), encourages individual responsibility and "no more excuses." Cosby and Poussaint point out that in 2002, there were 1.2 million black-owned businesses in the United States, which marked a 45 percent increase in five years. More than ever, this is a land of opportunity.

That is the real goal. The American Dream. What I want is to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to realize that Dream. That has always been the reason America is great. America is the place where each person can have his own dream and make it come true.

The problem is that the same people who are selling the race warfare rhetoric of affirmative action are the people selling the class warfare rhetoric of welfare and socialism. A government that can satisfy your dreams is a government that can take them away. Your dream cannot be a dream of having government provide for you. Your dream has got to be that you have the opportunity to provide for yourself.

The prerequisite for all dreams is education and opportunity. We have to make sure that government gets back to helping people acquire those, rather than having a government that gives welfare and dependency. It is when you use education and opportunity to provide for yourself that you reach what Bill Cosby calls Victory. It is the only victory worthwhile.