A New Look at Segregation

A New Look at Segregation

“Segregation” is one of those buzzwords employed by social engineers and meant to stir up agita in white people who are led to believe they are complicit in some sort of crime and angst in blacks who are convinced they have been victims of discrimination. The term amounts to a shibboleth comparable to “McCarthyism” which is tossed around whenever some disloyal individual or group is caught acting disloyally.

In fact, as used today, “segregation” is less a crime of discrimination as it is a societal and geographical anomoly misused to suggest racial inequities. Those inequities exist, but not because of racism.

Thanks to the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the days of Selma and Bull Connor and George Wallace are long gone and in its stead are de facto racially imbalanced schools and communities which have as little in common with the cause of earlier civil rights struggles as Rosa Parks has with Condi Rice.

It may seem simplistic to say, “It is what it is” but, in truth it is what it is and always will be as it is until blacks adopt Bill Cosby’s rejected philosophy that blacks should take full responsibility for their lives instead of blaming whites and segregation for who and what they are, for where they live, and for where they work and where their kids go to school.

A scathing study on a Census Bureau American Community survey shows that Long Island ranks as the nation’s seventh most segregated of 50 major metropolitan areas, a situation which “experts” blame on “long-standing restrictive housing patterns” which “government officials say they’re trying to address . . . through fair housing laws.”

I say, Bully for them, even if they are ignoring segregation realities, namely the lack of education, the lack of stability in black families, and the resultant lack of sufficient financial resources to enable blacks to rise above their current statuses. Add to those Bill Cosby’s view . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3730)

Saggy Pants and Black History Month

Saggy Pants and Black History Month

The city fathers and mothers of Long Beach, CA, have taken it upon themselves to neaten up certain young Long Beach residents by insisting that they “pick ‘em up and keep ‘em up,” (“em” being their pants.)

More precisely, “Bishop William Ervin along with Carson City Councilman Mike Gipson are calling on black children and teens to ‘pull up their pants on their waist’ as a sign of respect during Black History Month.” As a white elder, that insistence is as perplexing as Black History Month.

What Bishop Ervin and Councilman Gipson seem to be implying is that young black boys and men–young black girls and women seem to know where their waistlines are–are somehow demeaning black history by exhibiting their underwear. That fashion statement, whatever the nature of that statement is, and that concern, are baffling since there are so many other black issues the bishop and councilman could be addressing.

Other words of wisdom offered for black youths by the Long Beach community include, “You can have the swag without the sag” and a reminder that “the [pants-uplifting] plan is not just for cultural purposes, but may have legal benefits as well: sagging pants are often used for profiling purposes by law enforcement agencies:” http://tiny.cc/xllys

The “cultural purposes” reference eludes me but the lesson is that you can swagger without the sagger and if you insist on the sag look, you risk being arrested during, before, and after Black History Month.

I doubt many black youths are being arrested for saggy pants but untold numbers are being arrested for burglaries, robberies, aggravated assaults, rapes, motor vehicle thefts, gun possession, etc.

It’s unfortunate that Ervin, Gipson, and the other community leaders didn’t see fit to caution them on that aspect of life . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3682)

Outrages and Something Else

Outrages and Something Else

There are outrages and then there are outrages.

If you want outrage, more specifically cause for outrage, then take former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin who has been the subject of incessant attacks ever since Sen. John McCain chose her for his VP running mate in 2008.

Demonstrating its gut fear of Palin and what she represents, decency and Christian values, America’s left has been on a media-supported vendetta against her from Day One with charges of ineptitude, stupidity, and worse. Those charges have been led by such proven inept and stupid MSM commentators as Keith Olbermann, Katie Couric, and Chris Matthews and have been supplemented by snide comments from White House operatives.

Eager to let the Left know they’re in the fold, Leno and Letterman also rarely let a night go by without Palin jabs which titillate their audiences into paroxysms of laughter.

Still, sometimes, indeed often, liberals go beyond the pale in their attempts to derogate and demean Sarah Palin.

“30 Rock” actor Tracy Morgan went there on national television. With Alec Baldwin as a co-star on that show, it’s almost understandable that Morgan would be repulsive but he even exceeded that low standard when he said Sarah Palin was “good masturbation material:” http://tiny.cc/8r39f

I wonder how the MSM and the White House would have reacted to that line had it referred to Michelle Obama instead of to Sarah Palin.

On a different note which relates to Tracy Morgan, the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision of the United States Supreme Court upholding segregation under the separate but equal premise was overturned by the another landmark decision fifty eight years later, Brown v. Board of Education. “Brown” ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the ruling which launched the civil rights movement in America.

Fifty seven years down the line, McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, PA effectively threw out “Brown” and reinstituted a limited form of racial segregation. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3511)