Racists Crying Racism

 First, a little history.

Back in December we posted “Tourist in Your Town Charleston Style“. That post related the story of a family who engaged in a picture taking tour of downtown Charleston on Christmas Day when a black male with a handgun tried to stop their car in the street.

A regular reader, who seems at times to claim affiliation with the militant Black Panther Party posted a comment to that article. He posts comments to a lot of articles. Sometimes he comes across as reasonable. Other times, not so much. Here is his comment left on the above article.

Johnathan Thrower:

Maybe if we start doing this in the black community to the Koreans, Whites, Asians, Jews, Arabs and all other foreign business owners, we could drive these sorry bloodsuckers of the poor out and establish black-owned businesses in the community that help the dollar circulate in the community in these poor areas downtown so that we can help eliminate poverty, which will subsequently help the economic depravity that exists in the are. And as the economic conditions increase, crime will increase. Once we start turning our guns on the right people and driving them out the hood and putting our militant well respected, intelligent brothers and sisters in charge. We can give the people what they really need. The militant, I don’t give a fuck attitude is great and we need that, however, it’s directed in the wrong place. But once we get it right, we are gonna drive these uncle tom Negroes and the enemy out of our communities and start protecting our elders, children and women, we will not need the CPD or NCPD because we will start policing our own communities. When the BPP started patrolling our communities and putting together programs, the whiteman was so scared he started putting FBI agents in these organizations to infiltrate and cause confusion. Apparently this is what he likes, at least some of them, because if he really wanted to see crime desist in the black community, he would have let the panthers peacefully patrol the communities and handle the drug issue. Instead of trying to destroy the cause of liberation. So brothers keep your guns but don’t turn them on each other and don’t kill your own kind. Understand the cause of black liberation and operate with the vision of black empowerment. With your guns in hand and law in your back pocket. Time to drive out all foreign invaders and set up the “NEW BLACK WALLSTREET.” That’s called BLACKONOMICS .

A number of readers have engaged with Johnathan, but it is impossible to argue with someone who will not acknowledge the truth and blames every problem in the black community on white privilege and racism. He also automatically assumes every person who doesn’t see the world as he does is white.

On 4 January we posted “Who Will They Blame Next?“. In that post we addressed the issue of leaders and role models in the black community blaming others for the continuing violence rather than calling out the criminals and encouraging decent folks in the community to assist police or turn them in. The business leader we highlighted stepped up and responded. We appreciate the fact he engaged in the discussion. Unfortunately, he resorted to the ever present “racism” argument in an effort to make his point.

Phillip Gourdine’s response:

You have to sometime look at the bigger picture they like to say that alot of angry black people out here i guess when malcom X and Martin Luther King was speaking they where angry black men to…It might be that when alot of people try to get jobs who maybe have done wrong in there past… also if you dont do wrong some people still cant find a job no opportunity to eat and when a man can’t eat lets be real…what will the mind tell them to do…If the preacher on the pulpit can’t eat what would he do….I’m not saying all crimes are based upon that.. but alot of them are…As a positive role model in the community that is fighting my way to prosperity walking into the mayors office, city of North charleston, certified in the federal government. .did my paperwork they ask me for..but they still giving me the run around almost a year later..so to charleston thug life is America really a great democracy or is it really a great hypocrisy

Our response to Phillip:

Hi Phill,

Good to hear from you!

You don’t seriously believe only black folks are victims of incompetent government employees or government red tape and bureaucracy, do you?

Everyone is angry at the moment. Black people don’t have that market cornered, that’s for sure. We are sick of hearing the violence in the black community blamed on “I can’t get a job”. Plenty of whites, Hispanics and Asians haven’t been able to find a job, either. Maybe you haven’t seen the stats or the news stories that put the lie to unemployment statistics published by the government or the stories about the millions of people of all races who just gave up on finding employment due to the economy.

The thing is, we aren’t seeing those whites, Hispanics and Asians every day in the news shooting up their own neighborhoods or the bars they frequent. And don’t think the violence in the black community, perpetrated mainly on other blacks, is only occurring in the Lowcountry. It is a nationwide epidemic.

Folks can’t get a decent job because they have a criminal record?? We find it hard to be overly sympathetic about that problem. In case you haven’t noticed, the message of “don’t get in trouble or it will cost you in the future” has been pretty prevalent in our society for decades thanks to television. Even if their parents didn’t tell them, the message was there.

The problem is people believe they should be handed everything simply because they want it. Want to reconstitute your image after a conviction? You have to start at the bottom. You work the morning shift at McDonalds, then the evening shift at Burger King. You bust your ass to rebuild your reputation. From there you move up to higher paying jobs elsewhere based on the excellent references you build through hard work. That ladder can be steep even for folks with no criminal record, but it can be climbed. Nowadays, it seems everyone expects to start at least half-way up without putting in the time or the work necessary to get there.

If you want to have a serious discussion we can do that. Before that can happen you have to leave the plantation where you have been told black people can’t do anything unless they have government support, or that black people are killing black people at unprecedented rates because of, *gasp*, racism in the past. Once you shrug off those fallacies you can look at the problem with new eyes and bore right to the root.

Johnathan chimed in with his usual response blaming the black crime problem on….betcha can’t guess….racism. We wonder if his reference to the movie “Idiocracy” was a Freudian slip? If you haven’t seen it yet, give it a go and think about where we are headed.

Johnathan Thrower’s response:

Charleston thug life, your riposte reaks with idiocracy and malarky. The reason why the Asian and white community isn’t riddled with crime is because they havent been targeted as fiercely and fervently as blacks have. Imagine you were running a race, 40 yard dash, and I get a 4 second head start. Would it be a plausible to assume that if I lost I am somehow less athletic, ill prepared, or lacking due diligence in my work ethic? The same analysis applies to the plight of the Black community. After whites have benefited from every possible know law dating from the founding of this country to now (to give whites the benefit of the doubt, lets say the end of the Jim Crow Era). How can you possibly state that because the so called playing field is now even, blacks should be happy. After whites have benefited from centuries of government handouts under the guise of free labor and segregation, how dare you say that blacks feel entitled to handouts and free government programs. How the hell do you think whites accumulated the mass portion of the wealth of this day. You have received the benefits of these racist laws and the implementation thereof and now you talk about how you had to climb and start from the bottom. Get the fuck out of here! As a people you have received 400 years of free slave labor and handouts. If you don’t believe me, paste this link to visit the 15 major corporations that benefited from slavery http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/26/17-major-companies-never-knew-benefited-slavery/. It’s very pathetic and disheartening how ignorant charleston thug life is in saying that blacks feel entitled. You are egregious and offensive in your rationale. I could go on all day on this subject. I could put up an argument so fierce and profound that I would have all your bloggers confounded and discombobulated at the affront given.

CTL’s response:

We are having trouble making sense of your faulty allegory, but we understand your basic argument. “It’s racism”. Your own fervent and rabid racism blinds you to the truth. As does your assumption that everyone with a different view who is arguing with you is white and a beneficiary of what you call white privilege. As long as you automatically make that assumption (a serious error here, btw) any argument you put forth is invalid.

In your eyes, the playing field will never be close to even. What is it going to take to assuage your self-assumed victim status? Should we send all the descendants of white Europeans back to the countries of origin of their ancestors? And don’t forget those evil Jews! They allegedly stole an entire country for their own, so we can ship every Jew in America over there. While we are at it, maybe we should check the family trees of every black person. If they had a slave owning ancestor (yes, blacks owned slaves in this country) or an ancestor from Africa who captured and sold their own people into slavery, we can send them packing, too.

What about those Asian and Arab shopkeepers you hate so much and want to drive out of black communities? They didn’t get many breaks other than being granted refuge in this country, yet they continue to build their businesses through hard work, in spite of the racist hatred projected upon them by those like you who seem to resent the fact that no black entrepreneur stepped up and opened that business. According to you, we should just shut them down, ship those people out, and give those businesses to black folks to run because at some point in time in this country some black people you don’t know were slaves and there was segregation and racism.

All of those groups (and more) suffered through decades of discrimination in this country. You don’t hear them bringing it up when they fail. They just double down and work harder. They don’t expect preferential treatment and government set asides because their ancestors were treated like garbage after clearing Ellis Island.

Of course, these are general comparisons. We do have Asian, white, Hispanic, and many other ethnic centered gangs and criminals in this country. Every culture has it’s criminal class. The obvious difference here is you don’t routinely hear those other ethnicities blaming their criminal behavior on racism, past or present.

 As long as you continue to claim racism as the sole justification for failure and criminal behavior in the black community you will never make any progress. As long as the community continues to condone criminal behavior and protect the perpetrators based on some false notion of racial loyalty, nothing will change. You have resorted to that race-based argument so often, and for so long, you and your liberal plantation masters have inculcated generations of black folks to believe they cannot make it on their own through hard work and dedication because nothing is their fault and the government can make it better. Every failure is the fault of evil whitey and the government can make it better. Every criminal act is the direct result of racial hatred directed at blacks by everyone else in the country and the government can make it better. If you keep propagating that racist propaganda your beloved communities will continue to suffer.

So, which position is racist?

1) Study hard, work hard and make your own success.

2) Don’t worry, we know you can’t make it on your own so we will feed you, house you, clothe you, and keep you from having to put yourself out by working hard to improve your current condition.

Seems like that second position would be the most racist and offensive to any person with common sense. But then, none of us ever settled for anything less than the best we could do. Sure, we are not rich. You could call us solidly middle class. Well, until the Socialists currently in power started redistributing our “wealth”. Now we are fighting a slow but steady slide into poverty.

Four hundred years of slavery? Typical racist mantra. As usual, you fail to note that slavery in the U.S. was abolished in 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified. You can thank the Republican party for that, by the way. Considering the British are credited with introducing slavery to the colonies in 1619 we would have to say your mathematical error is rather egregious, but it is a common fallacy perpetuated by black racists. Segregation and Jim Crow were ended in the 1960’s. Once again, thank a Republican. Well, not today’s Republicans. They tend to be Democrats with a different name now.

Who fought the termination of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation? Hate to tell you, but it was the Democrats. Which causes us to wonder why blacks are so fond of them as a political party. All they did to earn your votes was legislate perpetual handouts which ultimately destroyed the fabric of black society in America. And they did this just to stay in power. Hey, it worked, considering the Democrats have controlled Congress for approximately fifty of the last sixty-five years. Now do you see why we say you are stuck on the plantation of your Democrat slave masters?

According to historical sources, the total number of slaves in the U.S. from the 1600’s to the 1800’s tops out at four million and plenty of blacks on both sides of the Atlantic were active and willing participants. You also failed to note that at last count, approximately five million people on the African continent are slaves today. That slave trade has been going on there for untold centuries and is still big business today. But, that is just another inconvenient truth. 

So, what has any of that to do with blacks in America in the 21st century who have the same educational and societal opportunities as everyone else? According to you, injustice is a trust fund and is passed from generation to generation. You spread that ideology like a disease and black children grow up believing it and passing it on to their children. The fallout from this is the view that paying attention in school and getting good grades makes a child “too white” and that child gets shunned by their black peers. Encouraging children to fail based on some farcical notion that education is racist is the greatest injustice. Are we going to continue hear the cry of past racism as an excuse in 2100? 2200? 2300?

Other people discussing and pointing out problems in the black community are “racist” and these people should be silenced. Even when some of those people are black they are held out as “Uncle Toms” and ridiculed for not really being black. General Colin Powell was an “Uncle Tom” when he worked for Bush 41. Well, that is effectively what your current President called him in 1994. Liberals rejoiced in headlines like “Uncle Tom Powell Stumps for Massah Bush“. Once he came around to the liberal point of view he was hailed as a hero of black America.

Most of this discussion resulted from our posts on the murder of two black mothers and the shooting of a third. Unless and until the black community finally sees the truth that they have the power to better their own communities, nothing will change. The argument that black criminals are killing black mothers (and other black criminals) is because white people are racist and we must be quiet about it and not help police clean things up is nothing more than a circular argument. Engaging in that argument only ensures the black community will continue to be victimized by the criminal element that argument encourages them to protect.