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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive.
Editorial: 7/16/99
If you know Latin, I've got a job for you. We need a new national motto. Right now, of course, it's "e pluribus unum"--out of many, one. We need someone who can translate the phrase "we're stuck with each other" into Latin and put it on every public building. Let's take the last couple of weeks in the zany world of race relations as an example. First off, young Benjamin Smith gets some guns and drives across the heartland, killing two people--one black, one Korean--and wounding nine other non-whites. Then the group he was linked with, the World Church of the Creator, also has a couple of California members suspected of torching synagogues and killing a gay couple. Then the NAACP throws a fit because there aren't any blacks in leading roles in the upcoming TV season. Al Sharpton leads a highway blockade in St. Louis demanding more minority jobs. Chicago's top cop recommends four officers involved in killing two unarmed black civilians be fired. Two of the cops are black. The mayor of Detroit's son is pulled over in a white suburb. He claims it was "DWB"--driving while black. The mayor of Atlanta vows to fight a lawsuit to stop affirmative action. The New York Times studies why black teens do poorly in school, and finds it's because many fear "acting white". So it goes. A close look at the week in one city might help get to the point of why the two dominant racial groups in the United States don't like each other. St. Louis is sort of America's definition of the average. It's the most studied American urban area besides Newark, so it can provide us a look at race relations along the 50th percentile fault line. The Sharpton-led protest shuts down an interstate demanding more black highway jobs. Most whites on call-in shows say it's extortion. A white St. Louis police officer waits for a ruling on whether he'll be charged with murder in the death of a burglary suspect. To blacks, a racist killing. To whites, a cop doing his job. And in the city, four young black people are murdered, by other young black people. No one says much of anything. African-Americans make up about 14 per-cent of the U.S. population. Yet they commit a little fewer than half of all the murders, and are victims of a little more than half of all homicides. To blacks, it's evidence of the corrosive effects of racism and poverty. To whites, it's evidence that lower-class blacks are out of control. Both arguments are partly right. The pathologies of the African-American underclass are all too plain at inner city schools and in inner city streets across America. The poverty in those communities is often created by whites who fled and took their cash with them. But the communities are also often fertile ground for demagogues who use poverty as an excuse for bad behavior, and who claim racism is the cause of everything from gang violence to bad haircuts. And the future? Most African-American criminals victimize other African- Americans. When black criminals attack whites, it's usually--according to the FBI-- for money. When whites attack blacks, it's usually because of race. So it seems a large number of black folks are commiting collective suicide, and a large number of white folks are glad to play Dr. Kervorkian. The future doesn't care about either, quite frankly. For one thing, in some parts of the country--Los Angeles and Miami, for example--the black-white debate is already irrelevant. Hispanics will be, in about three years, the largest minority group in the United States. And because of their numbers, it will be them, not African-Americans, who set any minority concerns agenda. Of course, by the year 2050 whites will be less than 49 per-cent of the population, so maybe there's a reason white popular culture is already run by rap, hip-hop, and the black sensibility. What better time to practice acting like an angry minority than while you're still the majority? Two items, unfortunaely, tell the story. That New York Times survey of why African- American teens, even ones from middle-class households, mostly do worse in school than whites had a chilling conclusion. While the sociologists yakked about it, every black teen interviewed mentioned the exact same thing first--that they were afraid of being perceived as "acting white" or "selling out" by getting good grades. Then, there's the new survey showing that the gap between blacks and whites when it comes to computer use and the Internet keeps growing. Not knowing anything about computers doesn't necessarily doom you in the 21st century. But it'd be like never learning how to drive--it tends to limit your choices drastically. The basis for preparing for the future is education. And the basis for education is competent teachers, students who don't disrupt class, and parents who care enough to become involved. And the basis for achieving that, in cities across America, means whites and blacks need to get over themselves. White Americans need to stop their racist whining about blacks. Get over it. They're probably not going to mug you or marry your daughter, and they're the only immigrant group who ended up on these shores against their will, were freed from bondage, and then were told they couldn't vote, travel freely, or eat at restaurants. Black Americans need to stop their whining about racism. Most white Americans don't spend enough time thinking about you to even be racist and it's not white Americans with nine-millimeters and crack destroying many black communities. Remember--the future is uncertain, competitive, frightening, and exhilerating. It's also where your children will be living. It's also color-blind. |
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