What’s Going On? – Part II Black Lives Do Matter, Problems Aplenty

A disproportionately high number of severe and intractable problems beset Black Americans. The survival of America’s experiment to establish a government on the proposition that all men are created equal may come to an end if Americans do not find ways to address those problems effectively. The drafters of the Declaration of Independence were aware that the word “men” included blacks.^[i] The vast majority of blacks are law-abiding, contributing members of society, but too many blacks are not receiving equal protection and treatment. Most of the unequal preferences intended to compensate for that lack of equal protection and treatment have not achieved the intended goal.

So, many of the grievances highlighted by Black Lives Matter are legitimate and in dire need of attention and address. Raising awareness of the problems and resulting complaints is a noble endeavor. Let’s identify some of those legitimate grievances and some others that are ignored or given short shrift by Black Lives Matter (“BLM”).

Compiling a comprehensive list of unique problems that blacks face in America would be impossible. Hopefully, the following will suffice to make the point that there are plenty of serious problems that need to be redressed.

Blacks are disproportionately likely to be:

• Suspected of being dangerous or up to no good,
• Defrauded, robbed, injured or murdered,
• Engaged by police,
• Negatively affected by law enforcement,^[ii]
• Be poor — even those who adhere to the same norms as whites,^[iii]
• Trapped in poverty by a welfare system that creates negative incentives to work,
• In poor health.^[iv]
• Raising children in single-parent families.
• Raising children in communities with debilitating customs and mores and relatively greater hopelessness,
• Living with the consequences of a welfare system that renders fathers unnecessary to a family’s economic well-being, if not an economic burden to the family,
• Denied access to effective schools,
• Unable to land an entry-level job (in large part due to minimum wage laws),^[v]
• Victimized by Affirmative Action preferences,^[vi]
• Deluded into believing that harmful disparities are the result of racism and positive disparities are the result of black DNA or black culture,
• Victimized by crony arrangements between elite politicians and corporations (“corruption”) who siphon wealth from the economy for their unproductive personal benefit — thereby draining job-creating vitality from the economy. Poor blacks can least afford such suppression of job creation and the preservation of higher prices of goods and services due to protection from competitors that such crony arrangements always provide to crony companies.
• Burdened with the soft bigotry of low expectations,^[vii]
• Debilitated by communities and schools that teach children that they are and will be exploited and oppressed by white people and to blame others for their allegedly inescapable plight, i.e., they are robbed of the motivation to learn what is needed to succeed.

Blacks confront unique obstacles to progress and success. Organizations whose mission is to address those unique obstacles constructively are much needed.^[viii] If such an organization was named “Black Problems Matter,” a retort by critics that “All Problems Matter” would be accurate, but it could reasonably be considered petulant.

The hearts of everyone of goodwill should ache about the unique problems facing poor blacks in America. Sadly, many of the issues listed are attributable to or exacerbated by policies advanced by well-intended politicians of all skin hues. Aggravatingly, too many of those problems are the result of policies promoted by self-serving politicians and race hustlers.^[iix]

Consequently, to a considerable extent, “others” are to blame for causing or exacerbating many of the problems that blacks experience, i.e., blacks are victims of indignities and bad policies adopted by governments mostly comprised of white people. Similarly, race hustlers and Black Lives Matter have and will continue to create problems for blacks. We’ll sort out some of that out in the following posts.

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^[i] Eleven of the 13 colonies wanted the following paragraph in Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration to be in the final document. “Glenn Beck uncovers the truth about slavery and America’s founders”

“[King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

^[ii] “Rand Paul: Conspiracy laws result in cruel prison sentences, particularly for Black Americans,” “Slowing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”—At What Cost?,” and “Crime, Punishment, and Fairness”

^[iii] “Why Are Black Americans at Greater Risk of Being Poor?”

^[iv] “Race and health in the United States” “African Americans have higher rates of mortality than does any other racial or ethnic group for 8 of the top 10 causes of death.[22] The cancer incidence rate among African Americans is 10% higher than among European Americans” and “non-Hispanic black adults had the highest prevalence of obesity (38.4%) overall, followed by Hispanic adults (32.6%) and non-Hispanic white adults (28.6%),” i.e., blacks have 1.34 times the prevalence of obesity as whites.

^[v]“Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder For Blacks To Succeed” by Jason Riley. pg. 127 “The Even and Macpherson study found that for white males ages 16 to 24, each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage has a decreased employment by 2.5%… ‘But among black males in the group, each 10% increase in the minimum wage has decreased employment by 6.5%.’ The effect on black workers [in Chicago] was so pronounced, wrote the authors, that “employment losses for 16-to-24-year-old black workers between 2007 and 2010 [a period during which the federal minimum wage was raised by 41%] could have been nearly 50% lower had the federal minimum wage remained at the January 2007 level.”

^[vi] “Thomas Sowell: Affirmative action is a wrong answer,” “Walter E. Williams: The Effect Of Affirmative Action on Poor Communities,” “Thomas Sowell: affirmative action creates academic failure & resentment’” and “The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action.” I am aware of articles that attempt to refute the damage done to students admitted on affirmative action grounds (e.g.,   “Are Minority Students Harmed by Affirmative Action?,” “Does Affirmative Action Create Mismatches Between Students and Universities?”). Note, however, these articles do not refute the claim, they nit pick details about some studies that found the problem.

^[vii] “Biden’s Bigotry”

^[viii] For example, the small fraction of that tiny number of racist Americans who have some power (e.g., racist police) deserve to be called out and condemned.

^[iix] @ThomasSowell – Aug 18, 2019

“Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists.’” and “Eric Holder: A more dangerous race-card hustler than Al Sharpton”