UNDER-APPRECIATED BLACK CONSERVATIVE SCHOLARS

Walter E. Williams, professor of economics, George Mason University, does not think that the problems that the Black community is now experiencing are a product of slavery, Jim Crow, or even systemic racism, but of welfare programs:

• A major part of the solution should be the elimination of public and private policy that rewards inferiority and irresponsibility. Chief among the policies that reward inferiority and irresponsibility is the welfare state. When some people know that they can have children out of wedlock, drop out of school and refuse employment and suffer little consequence, one should not be surprised to see the growth of such behavior. The poverty rate among blacks is about 30 percent. It’s seen as politically correct to blame today’s poverty on racial discrimination, but that’s nonsense. Why? The poverty rate among black intact husband-and-wife families has been in the single digits for more than two decades.

According to Williams, political correctness has even undermined largely black schools:

• Education is one of the ways out of poverty, but stupid political correctness stands in the way for many blacks. For example, a few years ago, a white Charleston, South Carolina, teacher frequently complained of black students calling her a white b—-, white m—–f—–, white c— and white ho. School officials told her that racially charged profanity was simply part of the students’ culture and that if she couldn’t handle it, she was in the wrong school.

Failing to hold students accountable for anti-social behavior corrupts the school diminishes the possibility of obtaining a good education.

According to Williams, over-indulgent liberal policies have de-motivated blacks by holding them to lower standards:

• Many whites are ashamed and saddened by our history of slavery, Jim Crow and gross racial discrimination. As a result, they often hold blacks accountable to standards and conduct they would never accept from whites. A recent example is black students at colleges such as NYU, UC Berkeley, UCLA and Oberlin demanding racially segregated housing. Spineless college administrators have caved to their demands. These administrators would never even listen to a group of white students demanding white-only housing accommodations. These administrators and other guilt-ridden whites have one standard of conduct for whites and a lower standard for blacks.

White guilt holds blacks to a lower standard, approving their racial prejudices while penalizing whites for the same. This can only serve to further exclude blacks from white society.

Williams claims liberal policies have also made academic excellence more unattainable:

• Black people can be thankful that racist forms of double standards and public and private policies rewarding inferiority and irresponsibility were not broadly accepted during the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. There would not have been the kind of intellectual excellence and spiritual courage that created the world’s most successful civil rights movement.

Instead of coming to grips with the negative impact of liberal policies, the liberals have instead invented alternative explanations for black failure, including "white privilege" and "systemic racism." What happened to the ideal M.L. King strove to achieve - to judge, not by skin color, but by character?