Sylvester Brown’s column today was titled: Blaming blacks is popular with some, but it’s perilously naive. An alternate could be I’ll be blaming whites for the next 210 years. Juan Williams wrote a book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America–and What We Can Do About I (which I haven’t read – yet) that echoes a lot of Bill Cosby’s laments and self help advice for poor blacks.
Sylvester does what he so often does – misunderstand and mischaracterize: “This diatribe – that the black man is inherently flawed, violent and savage – is older than the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.” If that were so, why are Mr. Cosby and Mr. Williams offering advice to blacks? If the black man were inherently flawed, violent and savage, why would they say if you stop a couple of behaviors and start a couple of others, you’d be much, much better off? How could the advice, which applies equally well to poor whites, “begin with getting a high school education, not having children until one is twenty-one and married, working hard at any job, and being good parents” be so offensive to some?
Sylvester says: “The “blame blacks” message appeals to many whites because it deflects accountability.” Hmm, what does the blame white message do, Mr Brown? And really, if you think whites really are this mass of institutional racism, why entrust us with the responsibility for black success? Seems kind of, well, stupid, doesn’t it?
