A Clash Of Generations In Black Community

by Joseph Williams - July 13th, 2008 - The Boston Globe

Though black voters turned out for Obama in record numbers during the marathon Democratic primaries, any erosion of that support could mean the difference in battleground states like Georgia and North Carolina.

"We don't need Jesse Jackson to be divisive," said Jerome Jenkins, 44, sipping a glass of wine at a downtown Washington cigar bar. "It's Barack's time. If the man's going to be president, let him be president."

By making the debate public, Jenkins said, Jackson feeds white-held stereotypes: "They'll say, 'Look at the blacks - they still can't get together,' " he said.

This is an amazing quote. What Barack Obama's candidacy is challenging is black-held stereotypes, not white-held stereotypes. One of those stereotypes is the belief that blacks must "get together" to succeed. Here in Eastern North Carolina that results in vicious denunciation of any black who strays from the Democrat Plantation. Any black who believes anything but their Marxist prescription of welfare and dependency will be publicly reviled as an "Uncle Tom". Blacks "getting together" is not the expectation of conservatives. It is the expectation of liberal Democrats. Liberals demand that the black community be monolithic in its support of the Democrat Party line.

To accomplish this, the standard technique is lies. I will never forget the incredible argument that I had with one of the most racist blacks here in Bertie County. I was told that a statement I made saying a larger percentage of Republicans voted for the 1964 Civil Rights bill than Democrats was a "(pejorative deleted) lie". He insisted that 90% of Republicans voted against the Civil Rights Bill. [Actually 82% of Republicans voted FOR the bill.] He demanded I "stop insulting" him by saying things "nobody would believe." He said to me, "You are a racist." "90% of Republicans are racists" was his final summation.

This article addresses the reality that most black leadership is concerned any honest discussion of the issues will fragment the black community and allow the very large part of the community that is conservative to stop voting Democrat. They fear the ability to keep affirmative action and welfare for blacks a part of the law of the land is dependent on continuing the belief that racism among whites is a serious problem and black leadership can deliver the black vote to Democrats.

Jesse Jackson's blackmail of large corporations is dependent on delivering this monolithic view. It is the reason that so much of black leadership reviled Bill Cosby for talking about accountability of those being helped to deserve that help. Black leadership insists that any discussion of the need for blacks to accept accountability for their own success will end their power and "harm blacks".

The real problem is the illusion that black individuals cannot excel in American society except on the issue of black grievance. However it is becoming clear that individual blacks can be honored by America, without it requiring they base their success on black grievance. "You can't succeed without us," the line of Jesse Jackson and black liberal leaders is disproved by the success of black geniuses like Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Juan Williams, Bill Cosby, Bishop Harry Jackson, Allen Keyes, and on and on.

America is still based on individual freedom and individual effort, not group entitlement.