In a Wall Street Journal interview Shelby Steele echoes some of the same themes Glenn Loury did in the piece cited in my earlier post:
Mr. Steele again invokes his father, born in 1900. Whites didn’t feel “guilty†about blacks back then: “They didn’t give a damn about my father.†Shelby Steele Sr. taught himself to read and write, built a business, a family, a life. “Everybody in the neighborhood I grew up in in Chicago did that.†Blacks were making economic progress, Mr. Steele says, “until American liberalism came in under Lyndon Johnson and said, in effect, to black people, ‘We don’t really have any faith in you. We don’t believe you can do it on your own. We hurt you, so now we’ll make it better.’ †A downward spiral ensued in much of black America. The three houses Mr. Steele’s father fixed up and rented fell victim to blight. In the end, as he writes in “White Guilt,†“the family signed them over to their nonpaying renters for nothing, happy to be rid of the liability.â€
White America continues to determine the lives of black Americans, Mr. Steele says: “Patronizing black people is just a form of white decency,†burnished by concepts like systemic racism and white privilege. “ ‘We’re still in charge of your life,’ †white Americans say to blacks. “ ‘You do what we tell you.’ †And so, Mr. Steele says, “we’ve become slaves all over again. And we run around, coming up with words like ‘equity,’ trying to jack the white man up.â€
Those doing the “jacking” will do just fine; others not so much.
IMO a lot of today’s frenzy is because some have realized that the influence of black voters has already reached its peak and will decline from here forward. Hispanics will be increasingly important and, the “people of color” trope notwithstanding, many Hispanics see themselves as white and as the years roll on that will increasingly be the case. But Hispanics manifestly don’t feel the guilt or responsibility towards blacks that many white progressives profess.
“IMO a lot of today’s frenzy is because some have realized that the influence of black voters has already reached its peak and will decline from here forward.”
I understand the black hucksters like Jackson, Sharpton, West or Obama. There is money and power to be had in claiming victimhood for others and plying white guilt. I have never really understood, after years of manifest failure, the willingness of blacks generally to endorse the hucksters and embrace policies that Shelby accurately describes.
You may be right that the race card has run its course. If so, expect the Dems to discard the issue like a hot potato. On to other aggrieved parties in pursuit of power and filthy lucre. One can only hope that the larger black community can recover from 50 years of horrible policy.
Further, not only do Hispanics not feel the white guilt, the dirty little secret is that there is deep seated bias against American blacks.
That’s just the tip of the bias iceberg. Many blacks have biases against Jews, Hispanics, and Asians. Many Asians have biases against blacks. I’ve known Jews who had biases against anyone other than Jews and, of course, I’ve known whites who were prejudiced against non-whites, Jews, and Catholics.
As I’ve said before I had an extraordinary upbringing. We closest blood relatives other than my siblings and parents were Hispanic. My dad’s friends included many Jews and Asians. I was taught that among the worst sins you could commit was racial prejudice. I had black playmates.
Help is on the way!
Sheila Jackson Lee introduces reparations bill in new congress.
“Hundreds of years of Black blood spilled that basically fills the cup we drink from today,â€
https://www.kfornow.com/syndicated-article/?id=1275257