Bob Klahn -> All wrote:

 EH>> Do You Need An Obama To Believe?

 EH>> By LARRY ELDER | Posted Thursday, November 06, 2008 4:30 PM
 EH>> PT

 EH>> "Does Obama's victory, as a black man, make you feel that
 EH>> you can do anything?" Someone asked me that on election
 EH>> night.

 BK>  A black woman told me that night, "My grandfather was born a
 BK>  slave, my parents grew up under Jim Crow, and I have lived to
 BK>  see a black man elected president of the United States."

It's all about feelings with you, eh?

 BK>  She had tears in her eyes. She had been crying for a long time
 BK>  after the announcement of the election being called for Obama.

And?

 EH>> It is a caricature of America that, pre-Obama, major
 EH>> obstacles blocked achievement. It is equally a caricature
 EH>> that Obama's win suddenly creates opportunity that did not
 EH>> exist before.

 BK>  It is true that Obama's win probably does not create much
 BK>  opportunity that did not exist before. It is also true that
 BK>  there are still obstacles that block achievement.

There are obstacles for everyone regardless of skin color.

 BK>  The median salary for a black person with a high school diploma
 BK>  is equal that that of a white high school dropout. The median
 BK>  income for a black bachelor's degree holder equals that for a
 BK>  white high school graduate. For a black master's degree holder
 BK>  the median income is equal to that of a white bachelor's degree
 BK>  holder. It's only at the PHD level that the salaries equalize.

That isn't the fault of any perceived racial obstacles.

 BK>  The unemployment rate for blacks is twice that for whites.

 BK>  The infant mortality rate for blacks is twice that for whites.

 BK>  Above from the statistical abstract of the US.

Did you look at why that might be? Did you investigate beyond the statistics?

 BK>  Aprox 23% of crimes of violence in this country are committed by
 BK>  blacks, according to the DOJ's report Criminal Victimization in
 BK>  the United States.

They are 12% of the population.

 BK>  Yet aprox 33% of those arrested for serious crimes are black,
 BK>  according to the FBI, and over 50% of those in prison are black.

Look at the reason they are in prison. I.E. what type of crime they
committed. You will find that those crimes were of a very violent nature.

Again, you can't just look at raw statistics and make a case.

 BK>  Yes, black people do face obstacles greater than whites face.

And you like it that way.

 BK>  ...

 EH>> So this penniless boy, living in the Jim Crow South as the
 EH>> Great Depression loomed, started knocking on doors. He
 EH>> finally got a job running errands and tending the yard for

 BK>  ...

 EH>> private employer of blacks. He traveled all over the
 EH>> country, making a mental note of California because, he
 EH>> says, its beauty and warm weather seemed open and inviting,
 EH>> and the people seemed more fair.

 BK>  ...

 EH>> My father arrived in Los Angeles and went from restaurant
 EH>> to restaurant to find work. "Sorry," he was told,
"you have
 EH>> no references." "Sorry, you have no
credentials." "Sorry .
 EH>> . ." He, of course, knew why.

 BK>  And you still don't get it. Do you think Elder's father was so
 BK>  much smarter that he knew why he wasn't finding work, but black
 BK>  men today don't?

Argue with Larry Elder over that. I posted the article.

 EH>> He went to an employment office. The woman said, "We have
 EH>> no openings." My dad said, "I'll sit until you do." He sat
 EH>> in that office from opening until closing for a day and a
 EH>> half. Finally, the woman called him to the desk and said:
 EH>> "I have a job. It's for a janitor. Do you want it?"

 EH>> My dad worked at that job for nearly 10 years, while
 EH>> working a second full-time job for nearly as long and
 EH>> cooking for a white family on the weekends. He somehow
 EH>> managed to go to night school to get his GED and save
 EH>> enough money, while in his 40s, to start a small cafe near
 EH>> downtown Los Angeles.

 EH>> He ran the cafe, which provided my brothers and me weekend
 EH>> and summer jobs, until he was in his 80s. One day, my dad

 BK>  ...

 EH>> So, yes, Obama's historic victory makes a statement about
 EH>> the long, hard, bloody journey. Obama makes people believe.
 EH>> Some of us always did.

 BK>  There are those who say many whites see blacks as a monolith. It
 BK>  seems there are some blacks who see blacks as a monolith. Larry
 BK>  Elders seems to be one of them. He seems to think, because
 BK>  things worked out for him they will work out for all blacks who
 BK>  follow his path. He forget's his fathers advice he quoted in
 BK>  that article.

Good grief, you are dense.

 BK>  He quoted his father as telling his older brother to think for
 BK>  himself. What he doesn't seem to understand is, thinking for
 BK>  yourself means you will make mistakes, and mistakes should not
 BK>  be a condemnation to perpetual failure. Yet when you face more
 BK>  obstacles than others, that is exactly what it can be.

Larry Elder's father didn't let that stop him.

 BK>  I have posted this before, I do wonder what this man would say
 BK>  today. With the attitude of the whites in Fidonet who believe
 BK>  all black failure is due to blacks being failures I suspect this
 BK>  has not changed.

What on earth are you talking about?

 BK>  **************************************************************************

 BK>  From a prominent black Federal official in the late '80s.

 BK>    ''There is nothing you can do to get past black skin. I don't care
 BK>  how educated you are, how good you are at what you do -- ((if you are
 BK>  black)) you'll never have the same contacts or opportunities, you'll
 BK>  never be seen as equal to whites.

 BK>  **************************************************************************

That didn't stop Larry Elder's father and it didn't stop Barack Obama.

Ed

-- 
"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is
to fill the world with fools." --Herbert Spencer

"The republican is the only form of government which is not
eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."
-- Thomas Jefferson

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