Friday, August 29, 2008

Racism

Racism is a touchy, touchy subject so first I'd like to list my credentials. When I was 16 years old I dated a beautiful black girl one year below me at a very tough high school. Riverdale High in Fort Myers was, at the time, inhabited by almost 2000 students most of which were either redneck hillbillies or black kids from the inner city. At lunch time, the black kids would all sit together on the floor against the wall while the white kids ate at the tables. I was the sole white face sitting on the floor among the crowd of black kids.

Anyway, when I dated this girl, no one liked it. I didn't care. I was crazy about her. I lost my virginity at this time. Previous to her I dated a Hispanic girl, Lara Fornea, who I loved very much. I remember my best friend at the time telling me that he would no longer be my friend if I dated her. I did anyway. He later said he respected me for that and apologized. Since those days, I dated maybe three Caucasian women. All the rest were minorities, and there were many.

Many of my heroes are minorities including people such as Prince, who I have loved since I was 12 years old, Bruce Lee who I have the utmost respect for and have followed closely for about 15 years now, Supreme Court Justic Clarence Thomas is a hero of mine because of what he has had to endure, and I have said over and over again that I would vote for Condoleezza Rice for President if she would only run because I think she is a genius and an honorable person. The same goes for Linda Chavez. Dinesh D'Souza is my favorite book author, and Michelle Malkin is my favorite blogger and columnist.

In pharmacy school my closest friends were all minorities. I actually had only one close Caucasian friend, the rest were only schoolmates and acquaintances really. My click was almost all Asian, and two of my closest friends were black, one was from Nigeria. I am currently married to an alluring woman of Chinese and Vietnamese decent, who received her doctorate along with me, and adore her two little girls.

One of the best pharmacy technicians I ever had was a great kid from Cuba named Osniel who I am still trying to hire in my current pharmacy to this day. I have friends at my place of work, Ana in particular, who I like very much. They are wonderful people.

Having said that, I have a real problem with some minorities in this country. I think illegal immigration is a larger threat to America than terrorism is (drugs, violent crime, bankrupt hospital system, welfare fraud, etc.). I think too many Hispanics (legal and illegal) have a harmful value system and culture, and I have a real problem with blacks committing a vastly disproportionate amount of crime in this country. Neither of these two groups hold dear a culture that values education much to a large extent, let alone patriotism or civility.

The out of wedlock birth rate among blacks in this country, and their high school drop out rate is sad and alarming. The amount of crime by illegal immigrants and their percentage as violent federal prisoners in our jails is scary. Illegal Hispanic crime gangs are committing rapes and murders of our citizens at a chilling level. The number of Hispanics on Medicaid and other government entitlement programs is stunning. And I could go on and on.

Excuses for this behavior are rampant, but all I can say is that if they cannot make it in America, then where? Between affirmative action, our catering to non-English speaking people, our leniency in the court and prison system, our sanctuary cities, our overly compassionate laws, etc. etc. there really is no excuse for any of this.

We even go so far as to make excuses for violent minority criminals. They had a tough upbringing, they suffered immense systematic abuses, they're victims of racism and discrimination, blah, blah, blah. So when they rape a teenage girl, or shoot a police officer, or riot in the streets of Los Angeles, we forgive them their sins and absolve them of any personal responsibility by saying it is not their fault. Kleptomania (because they grew up poor), pedophilia (because they were abused as a child), alcoholism (because life is tough), etc., etc. are all diseases brought on by someone or something other than the individual.

I have a question, however. Why isn't racism a disease? Consider this, you're 65 years old and you live in a small town. Twenty years ago it was a quiet, quaint, peaceful place to live where there had never ever been a single mugging, shooting, or homicide. Well, it was such a cheap place to live that all of a sudden a lot of minority people began to move into town to the point where they make up over 30% of the population. However, now you notice something...there is gang graffiti sprayed on the walls all over buildings on Main Street, the paper has daily stories about car jackings, muggings, and meth labs exploding. The murder rate has gone from zero over the previous 50 years to now over a dozen per year.

Now let me ask you something, how does one not become a racist after all of this? How do you not begin to generalize and even stereotype certain people in your community? How is a granny walking down the street, who sees a minority person coming the other way, not expected to be so frightened that she clings harder to her purse and decides to cross the street and walk on the other side? How is a cop not expected to racially profile? Think about that for a moment.

She is horrified to realize that she has become a racist. She was always so proud of being open minded. Now she sees differently. Can anyone blame her?

I am generalizing, of course. Many minorities are good people. By the way, nothing I have said hasn't been said by conservative minorities themselves such as John McWhorter, Michelle Malkin, Linda Chavez, J.C.Watts, and the list goes on.

Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote on the subject in pharmacy school.

What’s So Great About America?, by Dinesh D’Souza, is one of the best books to come to market in years. The author is a native born Indian (not American Indian) who became a U.S. citizen in 1991. As a member of a minority group, he has a unique outlook on American culture and values, and his comparison of America to other countries is intriguing. He also delves into a vast range of other areas including world history, colonization, education, multiculturalism, philosophy, and economics- to name just a few. It would be a challenge for anyone to read this book, and refute any of the premises made and conclusions formed. D’Souza has also written several other outstanding books such as Illiberal Education and The End of Racism.

Another excellent minority columnist is Michelle Malkin who, in her first book, Invasion, discusses the mass illegal immigration presently underway against America that jeopardizes our national security and very survival. Like D’Souza, Malkin’s immigrant origins provide her a unique perspective, and her reasoned analysis and logical examination of our nation’s immigration policy reveals that liberal laws governing immigration have actually aided and abetted terrorists groups seeking to destroy our way of life. Her conclusions are practically impervious to the emotional tirades of her ideological opponents, and, just like D’Souza, her references are impeccable. More outstanding books by minority writers include: Losing the Race and Authentically Black by John McWhorter who discusses the “self-sabotage in black America”, Black Lies, White Lies by Tony Brown, An Unlikely Conservative by Linda Chavez, Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality, by Thomas Sowell, and Showdown: Confronting Bias, Lies and the Special Interests That Divide America, by Larry Elder who analyzes the biases dominating campus teaching.

Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom have produced a book that should rock the
 nation. "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" is a brilliant 
analysis of what ails American education today. Though the Thernstroms will 
doubtless receive a certain amount of abuse for tackling this sensitive
 subject, no fair-minded person reading this scholarly and lucid book can 
fail to recognize their good faith. It is hard to imagine a more necessary 
book about domestic policy.

The Thernstroms deserve the title "civil rights activists" more than any 
other living Americans because they are outraged about the greatest 
obstacle to full racial equality: poor educational performance by black and 
Hispanic kids. They begin with an unflinching look at the data.
"Seventy-seven percent of white students today," write the Thernstroms,
"read better than the average black student. And conversely, only 23
 percent of blacks read as well or better than the average white."



In math and science, things are even worse. "The average black and Hispanic
 student at the end of high school has academic skills that are at about the 
eighth-grade level," they write.

"No Excuses" demolishes the conventional wisdom about the reasons for
 failing kids and failing schools. For example, the imagined difference in
spending between rich and poor neighborhoods turns out to be illusory.
 Schools with more than 50 percent minority students spent almost as much
 per pupil in 1989-'90 ($4,103) as those that were nearly all white
( $4,389). Even the differential between wealthy suburban schools and inner 
city ones turns out to be only about 5 percent. And black children who
attend wealthy suburban schools tend to perform below the level of poor 
whites on academic tests. So what to make of it?

 Hispanic students suffer from the recent immigrant handicap. But for 
blacks, the answer lies partly in the realm of culture. Black parents 
simply do not demand as much academic rigor of their children as whites and 
Asians. Black students who reported that they were "working just as hard as
they could" spent 3.9 hours per week on homework. For whites, the figure 
was 5.4 hours; for Asians, 7.5 hours. Black kids also spend more than twice 
as many hours a day watching television as whites. And when students were
 surveyed about the lowest grade they could receive without getting into 
trouble with their parents, Asians said A-, whites said B-, and blacks and 
Hispanics said C-.



The Thernstroms take the reader to
 a number of innovative charter schools in poor neighborhoods that are
 taking average kids from less than ideal homes (no "creaming") and
 producing highly successful pupils. 

Among the roadblocks to reform are teachers unions that strenuously resist
merit pay, competency tests, alternative certification and choice. "Unless 
more schools are freed from the constraints of the traditional public
 school system," the Thernstroms write, "the racial gap in academic
achievement will not significantly narrow, we suspect. Indeed, every urban
 school should become a charter. States must insist that schools meet
 rigorous academic standards, and student results on statewide
 standards-based tests should be the most important measure of success."

The motto of one of the schools the Thernstroms admire is "No excuses." It
is staggering to consider that so many have been content for so long to 
excuse the scandal of failing schools in America. This learned and deeply
 humane book shines a spotlight on them and points the way to a better 
future.


There was a time when it was unpardonable for a non-minority person to raise such discussions in the media. Thankfully, our nation has begun to turn the corner on this matter, and an authentic national dialogue on issues vital to the future of our nation is once again becoming possible. That is, of course, with the exception of many elite college campuses, where liberal thinking stifles the very freedom of speech once so strongly defended by our forefathers. It is ironic that so many institutions of higher learning are no longer open to free thinking or debate.

1 comment:

VonWolfen said...

Lara Fornea was three fourths Italian and one fourth Hungarian.