Posted by
OnceAlwaysaMarine on Saturday, March 29, 2008 2:44:32 PM
In light of the current controversy surrounding the revelation that Barack Obama has maintained a long-time association with the radical, and racist/ Anti-American pastor Jeremiah Wright, myself being a black man of fifty-four years as a citizen of this great land, am sick and tired of so-called African-American leaders, and the condescending liberal left, apologizing for the failure of us as black citizens to rise above our self-fulfilling prophecy of low morality and community standards.
It is amazing to me how pervasively embedded is the notion, which is constantly being drilled into the collective psyche of American society, that black Americans are somehow handicapped, or worse, incapable of achieving success in various areas of society. What I would like to speak to now is our insistence that we are somehow incapable of achieving academic success in the classroom; that reading is too hard, speaking proper English is too hard, and standardized tests are absolutely too hard for us to learn to do well on. These myths have become endemic in our community. This argument, it seems, over the past thirty-five plus years has metastisized into a permanent plank in the Democrat Party's presidential election campaign platform. The notion that we remain such a racist society that our black children can't even learn their ABCs like other folk's kids is an insult and does more to support and cement racist attitudes against blacks than it ever will do to engender anything close to "affirming" us a social equals.
Democrats, liberals, the "politically correct", and "enlightened" media pundits have been race-baiting ever since I can remember, and that they are still able to be effective at it, even as we begin the twenty-first century, is a cause of great consternation for me. Ever willing to offer an excuse for the failure of black children to achieve at the same academic levels as other groups of students, they continue to promise government intervention and assistance in exchange for the African-American vote. Democrat candidates and legislators are all too eager to assume the mantle of being regarded as the voice of the "down-trodden". Countless liberal Democrats, with the blessings of many in the African-American community, persist in helping to perpetuate the notion that blacks are somehow at a disadvantage to compete and that we remain in need of perpetual assistance in the way of lowering test requirements, etc. The wholesale acceptance of this notion in American society, especially when it is so enthusiastically embraced by activists in the black community and by well-intentioned, if condescending, liberals, is in itself, largely responsible for our ongoing failure to assimilate into mainstream society. If we, as members of this society, want to see true "affirmative action", it is time for us to take the action of affirming ourselves and our ability to succeed; rejecting this self-fulfilling notion of disability based on race, and yes, racism.
A major proponent of the dumbing-down of college entrance exams is an organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Fair Test: The National Center for Fair & Open Testing. In answering its own question: "How Is The ACT Biased?" It uses as one example:
"Biased language: Idiomatic terms such as "ball and chain" (to indicate a married partner) and "straight out of the horse's mouth" may not be familiar to many test takers, particularly those whose first language isn't English, causing them to choose wrong answers."
To quote a phrase recently coined by Hillary Clinton, while insinuating that America's top Army general in Iraq was a liar: "It would take a willing suspension of disbelief" to accept this as the reason for poor African-American performance on college entrance exams. According to 2006 statistics posted on the website: www.insidehighered.com , African-American students, as a group, scored significantly lower in every catergory, on both the ACT and SAT, than did students of every other racial or ethnic group, including: Whites, Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and American Indians. Even though our first and only language is English, African-American students scored lower than Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, other Hispanics and American Indians on both tests in Critical Reading and Writing on the SAT, and, English and Reading on the ACT. African-American students, as a group, came in dead last in every category of testing on both tests. Perhaps our students would fare better if these tests were prepared using "Ebonics" or "Gangsta' Rap" idioms.
Every problem, including black unemployment, education, rampant drug and alcohol abuse, crime, poverty, and an epidemic of syphilis and AIDS seems to have one answer, according to our so-called leaders and their Democrat heroes; more government entitlements, more government intervention, and more government spending on welfare programs. In this mindset, it must be assumed that black lives cannot be improved by our asserting our individual freedom and taking on personal responsibility. Ascribing to the neo-slavery that is a product of the entitlement, and victim, mentality, we have unwittingly embraced a destructive and racially inferior stereotypical image of ourselves for these past several decades. Rather than continue in the ethical and legitimate use of Affirmative action, which put forth the ideal that I can do the work if given a chance, we have adopted a bastardized version which says: "I can't do it, so lower the standards." To quote from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' recently published autobiographical book, My Grandfather's Son, a statement he recalled his grandfather saying to him when he was a young black student, and one we would be better served in repeating to our own children: "I can't is dead; I know 'cause I helped bury him."