~ Jason L. Riley, Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed
Showing posts with label Civil Rights Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Civil Rights Act. Show all posts
Oct 1, 2020
Jason L. Riley on the challenges facing the black underclass
The sober truth is that the most important civil rights battles were fought and won 4 decades before the Obama presidency. The black underclass continues to face many challenges, but they have to do with values and habits, not oppression from a manifestly unjust society. Blacks have become their own worst enemy.
Jul 2, 2020
Fred Reed on the failure of the Civil Rights movement
The coup de grace in our ripening decadence is the current uprising purportedly, though implausibly, over racism. But never mind. The causes don’t matter. The deal is done.
Still, it is interesting to recognize that the protesters are, perhaps deliberately, confusing the incapacity of blacks with systemic racism. In truth, America has made the greatest effort ever essayed by one race to uplift another. Reflect: In 1954 an entirely white Supreme Court unanimously ended segregation. Later it found the use of IQ tests by employers illegal because blacks scored poorly, then found “affirmative action,” racial discrimination against whites, legal (hardly oppression of blacks, this). An overwhelmingly white Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Voting Rights Act the next year. A white President sent troops to Little Rock to enforce desegregation. There has been an enormous flow of charity to blacks: Section Eight Housing, AFDC, Head Start, hiring quotas, set-asides, sharply lowered standards in police and fire departments. We now have free breakfasts for black children, then free lunches, in addition to outright welfare. In aggregate they resemble a distributed guaranteed basic income. Which is interesting.
These measures sprang from the best of intentions. Most I think should continue. I for one do not want to evict blacks from public housing or have their children go hungry. Yet none of these programs has had its desired effect. The crucial academic gap has not closed, crime remains horribly high, illegitimacy verges on universal. This is a great shame. Blacks are decent enough people, likable if they don’t hate you, and phenomenally talented. But it hasn’t worked.
~ Fred Reed, "A Country Not Salvageable," The Unz Review, June 24, 2020
Still, it is interesting to recognize that the protesters are, perhaps deliberately, confusing the incapacity of blacks with systemic racism. In truth, America has made the greatest effort ever essayed by one race to uplift another. Reflect: In 1954 an entirely white Supreme Court unanimously ended segregation. Later it found the use of IQ tests by employers illegal because blacks scored poorly, then found “affirmative action,” racial discrimination against whites, legal (hardly oppression of blacks, this). An overwhelmingly white Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Voting Rights Act the next year. A white President sent troops to Little Rock to enforce desegregation. There has been an enormous flow of charity to blacks: Section Eight Housing, AFDC, Head Start, hiring quotas, set-asides, sharply lowered standards in police and fire departments. We now have free breakfasts for black children, then free lunches, in addition to outright welfare. In aggregate they resemble a distributed guaranteed basic income. Which is interesting.
These measures sprang from the best of intentions. Most I think should continue. I for one do not want to evict blacks from public housing or have their children go hungry. Yet none of these programs has had its desired effect. The crucial academic gap has not closed, crime remains horribly high, illegitimacy verges on universal. This is a great shame. Blacks are decent enough people, likable if they don’t hate you, and phenomenally talented. But it hasn’t worked.
~ Fred Reed, "A Country Not Salvageable," The Unz Review, June 24, 2020
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Jun 22, 2020
Bill Bonner on the progress of black Americans since the Civil War
For a hundred years following the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, Blacks continued to make progress – more or less like every other immigrant group – learning skills, entering the professions, setting up their own businesses, and closing the gap between themselves and Whites.
But then, do-gooders and world-improvers began to use Blacks in a novel way – with disastrous consequences.
In 1964, came the War on Poverty, which gave money to Blacks – but only if they didn’t marry and didn’t work. It also created a new, cronyfied Black elite – who figured out how to game the $21 trillion poverty/racism industry, getting jobs, grants, and special privileges for “minority” enterprises.
Then, in 1971, the War on Drugs brought a whole new level of violence, as gangs fought for market share. Drug laws put millions of Blacks behind bars… nurturing a criminal culture and making it harder than ever for many to get jobs in the normal economy.
And then came the funny money.
Over decades, it shifted manufacturing jobs overseas (it was easier and cheaper to buy things from overseas with fake money than it was to make them here). This, along with minimum wages, kicked the bottom rung out from under the laboring classes – Black and White.
And in 2009, the Federal Reserve kicked its program of money-printing into high gear… with a massive transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes to the top 10%.
And if that weren’t enough, as mentioned above… the Fed has now gone all out… with huge bailouts to Wall Street, in which very few Blacks participate. Overall, by our estimate, in the last 90 days, the typical Black got only 1/33rd as much fake money as the top 10%.
~ Bill Bonner, "On Juneteenth, a Conversation on Reparations," Rogue Economics, June 19, 2020
But then, do-gooders and world-improvers began to use Blacks in a novel way – with disastrous consequences.
In 1964, came the War on Poverty, which gave money to Blacks – but only if they didn’t marry and didn’t work. It also created a new, cronyfied Black elite – who figured out how to game the $21 trillion poverty/racism industry, getting jobs, grants, and special privileges for “minority” enterprises.
Then, in 1971, the War on Drugs brought a whole new level of violence, as gangs fought for market share. Drug laws put millions of Blacks behind bars… nurturing a criminal culture and making it harder than ever for many to get jobs in the normal economy.
And then came the funny money.
Over decades, it shifted manufacturing jobs overseas (it was easier and cheaper to buy things from overseas with fake money than it was to make them here). This, along with minimum wages, kicked the bottom rung out from under the laboring classes – Black and White.
And in 2009, the Federal Reserve kicked its program of money-printing into high gear… with a massive transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes to the top 10%.
And if that weren’t enough, as mentioned above… the Fed has now gone all out… with huge bailouts to Wall Street, in which very few Blacks participate. Overall, by our estimate, in the last 90 days, the typical Black got only 1/33rd as much fake money as the top 10%.
~ Bill Bonner, "On Juneteenth, a Conversation on Reparations," Rogue Economics, June 19, 2020
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