Coming to America -- Reparations

One June 18, 2009, the U. S. Senate did what it seemingly does best: engaged in inanity and tripe. A resolution was passed that officially apologized for slavery and the Jim Crow laws that followed it. The measure was then sent to the House of Representatives. It is the typical emotion-driven symbolic nonsense liberals are known for. This apology will be heralded as some significant accomplishment and will give the sanctimonious Left (as well as some Republicans) the moral superiority they believe they possess.

This purely symblolic gesture will do nothing and is pointless. It is akin to someone around the block from me raping someone's daughter and the apology coming from me. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) knows this to be true because they refused to endorse it. In their thinking, an apology lets whitey off the hook. Only monetary reparations -- introduced yearly by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) since 1989 -- will wipe the slate clean.

However meaningless this apology, it is still a dangerous propostion. Such an apology could be used to open the doors to the ultimate goal of the those shakedown artists within the civil rights/grievance/racism industry: a cash settlement. When you apologize for something, you are admitting guilt. Though I could be wrong, I don't believe Sen. Harkin (D-IA) or any other denator ever owned a slave. Nor do I think any member of the CBC was ever a slave. So why an apology? My guess is to get the admitted wrongdoing on record and in writing so some sort of class-action lawsuit could be thrown together by the race-hustlers. The sad part is with President Obama, who loves to apologize for America and truly loves to spend money, reparations could happen. Nevermind that the entire issue is ludicrous on so many fronts.

I have never owned a slave, nor have I ever oppressed anyone of color. Born 96 years after the end of the Civil War, how in the hell am I even remotely responsible for an institution in which I (nor any of my family) never participated in? I had nothing to do with it. Should I even apologize? Not "No," but "Hell No!"

Legally, the entire reparations movement has no leg to stand on, though this will not stop the parasitic legal eagles with the movement from twisting the law and torturing logic and the language surrounding the issue.

First, slavery was not illegal in the United States until 1865 when the 13th Ammendmant was passed. There is not legal argument to be made for reparations because not a single law was broken.

Secondly, the current U. S. Government didn't exist until June 21, 1788 when the Constitution was ratified. Therefore, the government can't be held for liable for a situation created by Europeans.

Thirdly, the statue of limitations for filing a lawsuit has long expired. Courts can't grant relief because any suit brought forth is illegitimate.

Lastly, there comes the formula for any reparations. Who gets how much from whom? Many blacks are of mixed heritage. Our beloved leader is as much white as he is black, though he oddly prefers to claim the heritage of the deadbeat Kenyan father who abandoned him as opposed to the white Kansas mother who dumped him into her parents' lap to raise. In President Obama's defense, it is tough to decide which deadbeat you want to claim. Should whites who arrived in the country after 1865 be forced to pay also? Should blacks who are descended from black slave owners both pay and receive reparations? Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire through her won efforts. Should she get a check too?

Reparations is a hornet's nest that I am afraid will be opened before Obama leaves office. It could be the lynchpin that starts a culture war -- possibly a shooting one -- like we've never seen before.

In 2001, former Communist David Horowitz enraged the Left when he purchased ads in college newspapers across the nation. The ad, entitled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks Is A Bad Idea and Racist Too," destroyed the entire argument for reparations. Here are Mr. Horowitz's ten reasons:


Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too
By: David Horowitz
Wednesday, January 03, 2001



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Black Africans and Arabs were responsible for enslaving the ancestors of African-Americans. There were 3,000 black slave-owners in the ante-bellum United States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants too?

One
There Is No Single Group Clearly Responsible For The Crime Of Slavery

Two
There Is No One Group That Benefited Exclusively From Its Fruits

Three
Only A Tiny Minority Of White Americans Ever Owned Slaves, And Others Gave Their Lives To Free Them

Four
America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most Americans Have No Connection (Direct Or Indirect) To Slavery

Five
The Historical Precedents Used To Justify The Reparations Claim Do Not Apply, And The Claim Itself Is Based On Race Not Injury

Six
The Reparations Argument Is Based On The Unfounded Claim That All African-American Descendants of Slaves Suffer From The Economic Consequences Of Slavery And Discrimination

Seven
The Reparations Claim Is One More Attempt To Turn African-Americans Into Victims. It Sends A Damaging Message To The African-American Community.

Eight
Reparations To African Americans Have Already Been Paid

Nine
What About The Debt Blacks Owe To America?

Ten
The Reparations Claim Is A Separatist Idea That Sets African-Americans Against The Nation That Gave Them Freedom

For his explanations, the link is below.


http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=24317

A Gutter Culture

Outside of coarsening the culture further and celebrating the most negative of black stereotypes, rap -- "Drive-by music," as I call it -- adds nothing to Americana. The one benefit, I guess, is that it keeps potential criminals engaged in activities other than crime -- but then again, maybe not. The list of rappers who have run afoul of the law is a long one. In decades past, singers and musicians paid their dues by honing their talent in any venue that would allow them to play, often for little or no money. The road to rap stardom appears to be selling dope, getting shot and belonging to the Crips or Bloods. Take 50 Cent -- please -- for example. Curtis Jackson's path to mega-stardom included selling cocaine and getting shot nine times, something which gives him "street cred," a much valued commodity in the thug...er...I mean...hip-hop community.

One of the sadder aspects of rap's ascension has been the demise of "real" black music, one of the greatest things Black Americans have given the world. Black music -- "soul" or "R-n-B" -- has provided the entire world with some of the most talented people and greatest songs in the history of recorded music.

Rap has given us a soundtrack for prison.

I came of age in the 1970s, the "golden age" of black music. I loved the sounds of Earth, Wind and Fire, The Commodores, Al Green, Marvin Gaye and far too many others to list. This sort of music and these sort of stars are no more, replaced by the drive-by shooters in rap.

Sad.

At one time, American black music meant this --



or this --



Since the early 1990s, American black music has meant this --



or this --



Where is the dignity or class? Sorely lacking.

On Boxing -- Part 2

The best fight I ever saw (not live, of course) was in 1985 on closed circuit television (the pre-pay-per-view way for regular folks to see top fights) at the Ellis Auditorium (or was it the Cook Convention Center? Never mind. Both are right next to each other) in downtown Memphis. A fighter myself at the time, I got some comp passes to the fight. It was the mostbrutal two-plus rounds of fighting I had ever seen. The atmosphere was electric. One could tell the crowd was expecting something special,and they got it. When Round 1 began, both Thomas Hearns and Marvelous Marvin Hagler met in the center of the ring and threw bombs. It was apparent the fight would not go the distance. I got tired just watching these two go at it. Round 1 has been called the "best single round" of boxing ever. Rightfully so, I might add.





In the third, Hagler had to go for the KO because the fight was in danger of being stopped on a cut that he had suffered at the hands of Hearns's monster shots. It was a great fight that neither man deserved to lose. The "Hit Man" was born in Memphis, so many of the locals were pulling for him. I wanted Halger to win. I actually hated to see either guy lose this one. It was an outstanding fight.

The best fight I ever saw live was the Edison Miranda-Kelly Pavlik fight in Memphis in 2007. I had heard of Pavlik, but I had no idea he was the fighter he was. Miranda, I had heard, was a heavy-handed puncher, but he paled in comparison to Pavlik in either power, conditioning or toughness. Kelly has it all, and it was on full display on this Saturday night in Memphis, as the "Ghost" stole the show from the headliner, Jermain Taylor, who would lose his title to Pavlik a few months later.

The Marketing and Selling of Homosexuality

Homosexualists and their supporters like to present their "movement" as a grass roots movement, much like the black civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The movement is always presented as a "strugle" that ocurred as a natural repsonse to the bigotry -- or the word they invented, "homophobia" -- heaped upon homosexuals by a viciously-bigoted straight (read "normal") community.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The illegitimate homosexual rights movement is based on a lie (Kinsey's "10 percent" theory) that was further advanced with threats, intimidation and violence directed at the APA in the early 1970s.

The efforts and strategies of the last two decades have been nothing but a contrived and calculated propaganda campaign orchestrated by very smart and skilled opinion-makers in the homosexual community. It has been a very successful effort, one that has thousands of years of common sense and morality on its ear. But it has worked -- there is no doubt.

Dave Kupelian wrote in

The Marketing of Evil

in 2005. The premise of the book is that the political left, in order to get normal people to buy its ideas and policies, must repackage, market and "sell" their agenda to people because if their true intentions were known, no thinking individual would buy into it. Therefore, abortion becomes "family planning," and "atheism" is merely a "separation of church and state." No fetish of the Left has been morphed into normality and hard-sold to the public like homosexuality.

"There was a time," writes Kupelian, "when most Americans knew that homosexuals were not 'born that way' but rather had their normal gender-identity development disturbed and redirected through early childhood experiences. There was a time when we recognized on some level that unhealthy relationships with mothers and fathers could cause girls and boys to grow up with gender confusion...if not dealt with properly."

Of course this "time" Kupelian writes of was "a time when Judeo-Christian morality inspired the culture and the law of the land." Those days have disappered under a deluge of rhetoric and media-blitzes about "equality," "diversity," and "fairness."

While the Stonewall riot may be the beginning of the disturbing movement, it took, oddly, a catastrophic epidemic to "change" Americans' minds on homosexuality: AIDS. Homosexual activists cynically used this deadly disease to advance its agenda by painting homosexuals as "victims" of oppression.

ACT-UP, a homosexual group founded in the early days of the AIDS crisis, was the face of homosexuality for most of the 1980s and early 1990s. Their radical "in-your-face" tactics -- throwing condoms in packed church pews during Sunday services -- reviled most Americans. Traditional America understood that the message of ACT-UP was not merely one of tolerance, but one of forcing acceptance of homosexuality. "We're here, we're queer, and we're in your face!" was a common cry screamed by ACT-UP members and other homosexuals during the "street theater" they often performed. The implied meaning of the chant could not have been more clear: "You will accept homosexuality, whether you like it or not."

Of course, angry cross-dressers, transvestites, and leather-clad sado-masochists are not the best spokesmen to deliver a message of "We're just like everyone else." With AIDS still very much a mysterious disease in the mid-1980s, many Americans were scared to death of contact with the disease, and these sort of "ambassadors" did little to garner any sympathy for homosexuals. In fact, such people likely accomplished the opposite: scorn.

Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, two Harvard-educated homosexuals, understood that angry, radical, and militant homosexuals might not be the best messangers to have as the face of homosexuals in America.

In February 1988, Kirk and Madsen held a homosexual summit, of sorts, in Virginia, much like the politically active homosexual community did in Chicago in 1972. The purpose was to devise a strategy for the "movement." One hundred and seventy-five activists gathered to discuss a new "civil rights" approach, one that would move homosexuality into the mainstream. The efforts resulted in the 1989 book

After the Ball: How American Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s.

While most homosexualists saw AIDS as a disaster for the movement, Kirk and Madsen saw an opportunity: "As cynical as it may seem, AIDS gives us a chance, however brief, to establish ourselves as a victimized minority legitimately deserving of American's special protection and care...How can we maximize the sympathy and minimize the fear? How, given the horrid hand that AIDS has dealt us, can we best play it?"

Sounds like Kirk and Madsen are from the Rahm Emmanuel school of thought -- take advantage of every crisis.

Kirk and Madsen's book became the Bible for the movement, literally brainwashing America inside a decade. Kirk and Madsen understood incremental change; one might not get everything they demand in one sitting, but stay in the battle for the long haul, and eventually you will have everything you desire: "When you're very different, and people hate you for it, this is what you do:

first

you get your foot in the door, by being as

similar

as possible; then and only then -- when your one little difference is finally accpeted -- can you start dragging in your other peculiarities, one by one.

You hammer in the wedge narrow end first.

As the saying goes, allow the camel's nose beneath your tent, and his whole body will soon follow.

In other words, the freak-a-zoids of the tallywhacker political culture must be kept out of sight until the sales job is complete. Once you get a seat at the table, only then do you day, "Oh, by the way, I brought these people with me too."

Using the word "gay" was very purposeful and beneficial for the homosexual movement. "Gay, after all, is a synonym for happy," and it, in the words of Kupelain, "masks the controversial behavior involved and accentuates instead a vague but positive-sounding cultural identity..."

Kirk and Madsen also felt it important to emphasize "rights" instead of "acceptance." By using the term rights, the movement could plant the seed that homosexuals were somehow victims, denied basic rights of the Constitution. After all, the American people are very fair-minded group and will fight for everyone who is fighting for their full citizenship. The issue of homosexuality gets lost in the language of the debate.

Using their training -- Kirk, a researcher, and Madsen, an expert on persuasion tactics -- the two devised a three-step strategy to rid the nation of its fear of homosexuals: Desensitize, Jam, and Convert. In other words, propagandize the entire movement.

The strategy was a brilliant one. Densensitization means flooding the market with "gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible. If straights can't shut off the shower, then they may at least eventually get used to being wet." Desensitization also means talking up homosexuality, to the point that it becomes "boring." If homosexuality becomes, in the words of Kirk and Madsen, a "shrug of the shoulders," then the battle is half won.

Once homosexuality is a "shrug of the shoulders," the "jamming" ocurs. "Jamming," writes Paul E. Rondeau of Regents University, is "psychological terrorism" designed to silent any and all opposition. Americans are, by now, used to the protests that accompany any person saying anything critical of homosexuality. Carrie Prejean, Miss California, is just the latest person to invite the wrath of the homosexual community (and the Left) and their "jamming" (an accurate term to use with homosexuals).

"Convert," the final step in the process, is nothing more than converting people to your side. Once you convert, an enemy has been transformed into an ally.

Of course, the "conversion" of Black Californians didn't take, as in November 2008, they voted 70% in favor of Propostion 8. Black Americans are largely a church-going group of people. They are socially conservative on many issues, homosexuality being one of them. I imagine Black Americans are also a little tired of hearing the homosexual movement compared to their "real" movement." Apparently, Black Americans don not believe that being born with dark skin is akin or equal to the urges of one man to sodomize another.

How did this transformation occur in America in such a short period of time? Simple. Traditional Americans have been too busy to fight back. When your political activism is merely going to the polls on election day, it leaves 364 days of the year when you're not engaged. Homosexual activists are politically active every minute of every day. While the majority of Americans are busy with families, careers and personal lives, the homsexual is not. With no children and family to dominate his or her time and money, homosexual activists, armed with time, money and energy, wake up each and every day to work on the movement. And they won't stop until they have a decisive victory.

Dave Kupelian warns of where this movement is headed: "Their campaign will not end until Christians and other traditionalists opposing homosexuality are shut-up, discredited, and utterly silenced."

The future is clear, Homosexuals want a world where preachers are arrested on Sundays for hate speech when they deliver a sermon. Homosexuals want hate crime laws enacted that actually punish thought. How long before we hear demands in Congress for homosexual quotas in the work force? You know, every school, college, and business must look "like America," or, at least, San Francisco.

Diversity and Empathy Over Competence

President Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is a perfect example of the Left's lust with diversity -- only as it relates to ethnicity. Liberals and diversity-nuts view race as an accomplishment, even though the individual had nothing to do with it.

Ms. Sotomayor's nomination has been lauded by all the usual suspects in Obama's lap-dog media. Ms. Sotomayor's appointment has been heralded as a truly great thing by the Left. The "First Hispanic Woman" on the court reads headline after headline. She, it is said, will bring "empathy" to the court's decisions. Though the Constitution has been dead since it was written in 1789, I am certain Judge Sotomayor believes it is a "living, breathing document" that will shape her decisions, the type of document that say's discriminating against a black man is unconstitutional, but it is somehow okay to discriminate against a white male, like, say, Frank Ricci, a Connecticutt firefighter who spent $1,000.00 of his own money to study for a promotional examination. Despite having dyslexia, Mr. Ricci and seventeen other people passed the exam and earned the right to be promoted. However, no black applicant passed the test, so all of the passing scores were tossed out and no one got a promotion. A thinking person might come to the conclusion that the black firefighters shouldh have studied harder. That person would be wrong in this day and age where diversity trumps all standards and qualifications.

Ms.Sotomayor and her colleagues on the Second Circuit Appeals Court issued a one-paragraph opinion in rejecting Mr. Ricci's (and others) claim that he was discriminated against due to his white skin. Sixty percent of her decisions have been overturned by the Supreme Court, though not by the like-minded leftists on the court, including David Souter, who she will replace.

Welcome to 2009 America where every company, church, business, school, college and sandbox should "look like America" with carefully crafted quotas of every shade of humanity and every type of sexual deviance. Qualifications? That sort of nonsense is a white-Christian-hetereosexual-thing. Diversity is all that matters to the cultural Marxists of the Left.

Once confirmed -- and she will be confirmed -- expect Judge Sotomayor to render decision after decision to stick it to whitey whenever possible. After all, a "Latina woman" is much more capable than a white male.

The Bogus Homosexual Rights Movement

Question: When, pray tell, did the whims and thoughts of a godless thing like this above --

-- take priority over that of a Christian young lady?



Question (Part 2): How in the hell did America get to this point?

Answer (to both): Thirty-plus years of a relentless and savage assault on tradtional America by those in the homosexual mafia. Period.

There was a time when those fond of partaking in the "love-that-dares-not-speak-its-name" kept their heads low, stayed mute and lived in the shadows (and public restrooms) of society. But no more. Eight and a half years into the new millenium, the homosexual lobby has political clout far beyond its actual numbers in the population. It is an emboldened, brazen and extrememly vocal partcipant in the political process. Run afoul of angry homosexuals -- these people are anything but "gay" (i. e., happy) -- and run the risk of losing your livelihood.

Look no further than the reaction of homosexuals (and many other liberals) to the passage of Proposition 8 in California in November 2008. It was, and has been since, "Queens Gone Wild." The homosexual Lefts's "tolerance" has been on full display since the November 4 election when Californians dared to keep marriage as a union between one man and one woman (duh!): physical assaults, verbal attacks, blacklists, intimidation tactics, economic boycotts. Since the passage of Prop. 8, private citizens, businesses and churches who supported the measure have been targeted for intimidation, violence and boycott.

Examples of homosexual intolerance have been many, but none so blatant as that of El Coyote, a popular Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times
reported of homosexual activists goal of destroying the business because Maggie Christofferson, the restaurant's former manager and a Mormon, had donated $100.00 to the "Yes on 8" campaign. An angry gang of homosexuals, the newspaper reported, showed up one evening shortly after election day, creating mayhem and shouting "Shame on you!" to anyone who entered the restaurant. It took police in riot gear to quell the disturbance and disperse the "tolerant" liberal mob.

I was not the least surprised by such violent and intimidating tactics, for such have been the signature brew of homosexuals since the dawning of their bogus movement.

Possibly the biggest victory for the "Lavendar Mob" was the American Psychological Association's 1973 "vote" to remove homosexuality from its DSM -- the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I place the word vote in quotations to illustrate that this vote in no way indicated a full vote by the full membership of the APA. It was not. In fact, a distinct minority of psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the list; just 16% of its membership changed the DSM. There was no new medical/scientific research or breakthrough. The decision was purely political, brought on by the threats of violence and intimidation tactics of homosexuals.

The first attacks on the APA came in 1970, when the organization made the mistake of holding its annual convention in the homosexual capitol of America: San Francisco. The conference was continually disrupted by homosexual activists. Speeches were shouted down, and psychiatrists were ridiculed if they uttered one syllable against homosexuality.

Homosexuals would up the attacks in 1971, 1972 and 1973. Whenever the APA met, you could rest assure that Frank Kameny, a radical homosexual, and a horde of his like-minded deviants would show up also. In 1971, credentials for the conference were forged, allowing homosexuals access to exhibition areas and entry into panel meetings and discussions. Anyone who dared say "cure" and "homosexual" in the same phrase were pounced upon by the tolerant. The APA tired of the loud, unruly types so defined by Kameny, so they relented in December 1973, removing homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

Dismissing decades of actual research, the APA bowed to the political pressure of the homosexual lobby, giving it a victory it uses to this day to advance its agenda. Dr. Charles Socarides, an APA member critical of the decision, wrote in 1981 that the 1973 "APA decision served as the Trojan Horse" for the homosexual movement, "...opening the gates to widespread...change" and the ultimate goal of homosexuals: "normalizing homosexuality and elevating it to an esteemed status."

Americans are familiar with this newly acquired status: ludicrous hate crime legislation and othe anti-discrimanatory laws aimed at protecting the supposed sane man who dresses like a woman or opts to become a pseudo-woman.

Amid the various raids on the APA in the early 1970s, a collection of homosexuals gathered in 1972 at a Chicago church to design and lay out a platform of demands to present to the -- who else -- Democratic National Convention. Some 200 individuals from 18 states and representing some 85 organizations concocted 17 Federal and State "demands," many of which have already seen passage in parts of the country. Though the platform would be altered in 1987 and 1993, it has, remained largely intact. Demands dealing with discrimination in housing and employment are present on the list. Federal demand number seven was aimed at children: "Federal encouragement and support for sex education courses, prepared and taught by Gay women and men, presenting homosexuality as a valid, healthy preference and lifestyle as a viable alternative to heterosexuality." Oddly, or not, this demand sounds eerily like "Goal #26" of the Communist Goals read into the Congressional Record in 1963 by Rep. A. S. Herlong: "Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity ans 'normal, natural and healthy.'"

Ironically (or once again, not), number seven of the platform's State demands involves children also: "Repeal all laws governing the age of sexual consent." This litte tidbit certainly makes it clear the lust which homosexuals have attacked the Boy Scouts of America. They so want to lead pubescent boys on long weekend camping -- with no parents -- trips in the woods.

It is often stated that "10%" of the population is homosexual. This number comes from the "studies" and "research" of Alfred Kinsey, the zoologist turned "sex-scientist." Kinsey's work resulted in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, a tome based upon his alleged research. Kinsey conducted thousands of interviews for the book. Much of his work has been discredited since the book's release in the late 1940s. Scholar Judith Reisman began exploring Kinsey's work in 1981. She was particularly interested in "Table 34," a table on "toddler sex." Ms. Reisman looked deep into Kinsey's research and found it lacking. Kinsey's claim that "10-37%" of men had experimented with homosexuality was based on interviews with great numbers of homosexuals and ex-cons. The entire theory was skewed from the start, yet the 10% figure has become lore for homosexual activists and the Left. Meanwhile, the real percentage of those locked into the homosexual lifestyle is at 2-3% of the population, which makes the political victories of homosexuals all the more impressive.

Contrary to what homosexual activists and their liberal allies say, the homosexual movement is based on bad science, political intimidation and a cynical twisting of the language used by Martin Luther King. It is what it has always been, with one twist: a sexual deviance protected in many cases by federal law. Disturbing.

The Political Left -- Thought Police

Mel Brooks' 1974 classic "Blazing Saddles" could not be made in today's hyper-PC-sensitive environment. America can thank the political Left for this, for it is they who created political correctness and all its limits for speech and thought. Frankly, this hyper-sensitivity and PC worldview is the lone accomplishment of liberals the last 30 years. These people, like the title of a Tammy Bruce book, are the "new thought police." A person, especially if that person is a white heterosexual male, cannot think or say anything that runs contrary to the Left's social worldview. A person's entire life can be uprooted and destroyed by these despicable people if that person utters anything the liberals-in-charge-of-thought deem unacceptable. You are a racist, a sexist or their latest criminal-du-jour, a homophobe.

"Blazing Saddles" nearly violates each of the three in its opening scene alone, with the use of the "nigger" (a word so vile, it can't be said, but only referred to by it first letter -- the "N-word")and "faggots." Madeline Kahn plays a sexy German bombshell sent into the town to tame the new black sheriff. Of course, feminists (ulgy women and lesbians) would object because Kahn was using her feminine wiles instead of being some leader of industry -- or a lesbian.

The stifling culture we live in now, the one where everyone, but especially white males, fears discussing anything but the weather in mixed company is a creation of the cultural Marxists, the thought-control-crowd, also known as liberals, those supposedly open-minded sorts.

I long for the day of the First Ammendment: the right to say whatever you want. To the perpetually aggrieved, I simply say, "Grow up you pussys!" Oops, did I just commit a hate crime by addressing a protected "victim group?" My bad.

All You Need to Know About Islam

And to think we have people in this country who believe these savages are the moral equivalent to us.

On Boxing - The Heavyweights

While many young people of today enjoy the UFC and MMA spectacles, it is not my cup of tea. I am still a boxing fan and lover of the sport, both its past and present. My father was a fighter in the late 1950s and early 1960s, so I grew up on the sport. I came of age in the 1970s, when heavyweight title fights were on ABC with Howard Cosell at the microphone. The decade produced one of the greater ears of heavyweight boxing with the likes of Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton, Lyle and Shavers. While I don't buy into the current thinking that the heavyweight division is dead -- I believe the Russians, mainly the Klitschkos, have simply cleaned out the division, just as Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson did during their reigns as champ -- it is hard to argue that the current lineup of heavyweights is as exciting as the "disco" era's. Heavywieht title fights were big deals in the 1970s, and, fair or otherwise, such fights are not viewed as such in 2009.

I fought both as an a amature and pro with a certain amount of success. Though never world class, I approached the sport seriously and believe myself to have been a good fighter. (The old pug in me tempts me to say "still a good fighter.)

Boxing is the ultimate in competition: man on man, one to one, each matching wits, skills, endurance and desire.

In my nearly 48 years, I have had the good fortune to witness (never in person) many great fights and the careers of many great fighters. My own travails in the squared circle, I believe, give me a unique perspective on the fight game, an insight not available to the average fight fan. I have been there so to speak, though certainly not on an elite level.

Putting together "lists" and "Bests" in any venture of any type is fun and never-ending in the debate such creates. No one agrees with any one person on everything. And, like and asshole, everyone has an opinion. While some opinions may have more validity than others, it doesn't make the "other" any less wrong. An opinion is someone's thoughts. This is America, the home of free thought, right? At the moment, it is...but give Obama and his wrecking crew some time.

I will limit this edition of "On Boxing" to the heavyweights. Other editions will come in the near future, as great fighters of every weight class are explored. Feel free to disagree, even though you are so utterly wrong and terribly misguided.

BEST SINGLE PERFORMANCE

George Foreman's unlikely odyssey to regain the heavyweight crown began in 1987. It ended on a November night in 1994 when he knocked out Michael Moorer -- I only wish Foreman had knocked out the pontificating lard-ass Michael Moore -- to regain the title he had lost to Muhammad Ali in Zaire, Africa in 1974. Foreman had performed gallantly and well in a 1991 title loss to Evander Holyfield. His shot in 1994 was definitely his last chance to gain back the title.

By the mid-rounds of the fight, it was apparent that Big George would need a miracle to win the fight. It seemed as if Father Time had finally caught up to Foreman in the parking lot before the weigh-in. He was plodding, slow, one step behind at all times. The left-handed Moorer used movement, angles and a good work rate to run up a huge lead on points. I don't believe Foreman won a round in the fight. Moorer was pitching a shutout until the 9th round. Foreman had stuck to his plan: counter the left-handed Moorer with straight hands. In the 9th round, one had stunned Moorer, making him stationary, a prime target for the hard-hitting Foreman, who, even at 45 years of age, could still knock down a tree.

Watching the fight at home, I remember telling my roommate at the time that Moorer needed to keep moving and to stop standing still in front of Foreman. He obviously didn't listen to me or his corner. Maybe he couldn't move. As a result, Foreman was getting closer to finding his mark. In the 10th round, he did, landing a huge right hand flush on the chin of the champion, and the world had a new heavyweight champion.






The referee could have counted to 100 and Moorer wasn't getting up. Thirty-three at the time and feeling the word "old" getting closer, Foreman's shot caused me to jump off the couch like a teenager. It gave me (and many other old guys) hope. At 45 years of age, George Foreman won the heavyweight title of the world. Suddenly, all was possible, and, for me, age was just a number again. It would stay that way until I hit the dreaded 40. Maybe George could go out and win the belt again at 60; I need a pick-me-up.

What George Foreman accomplished in 1994 just might be the single greatest sports performance ever in any sport. No one was punching Nolan Ryan or Jack Nicklaus while they worked their craft in middle age.



BIGGEST FIGHT

During the 1980s, ESPN used to run a series called "Super Fights," a reruns of boxing's greatest fights in its entirety. Only one fight should have been called "Super Fight": Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali I in 1970 at Madison Square Garden. It was an event that went beyond sports. It was one of the first great battles of the "culture wars" that would define politics and society for the next three decades. Joe Frazier, unwillingly, was placed into the role of "culture warrior" for traditional America, the hard-hats and conservatives, while Muhammad Ali gladly accepted the role of standard-bearer for the counter-culture. A divided America was the backdrop for this fight. It was "good vs. evil," and the "good" and the "evil" varied, depending on your politics. Joe Frazier was a white man in this fight, if for only the duration of the fight. The nasty racial overtures of this fight would not be seen again until 1982, when Gerry Cooney, a "real" white guy, challenged Larry Holmes for the belt.

A nine-year old kid at the time, I listened to the fight on the radio. There were sold-out closed-circuit tv broadcasts (the forerunner to pay-per-view)all across the country. This was much more than a fight.

Set for 15 rounds, the fight was Muhammad Ali's third fight since he had been stripped of his title for refusing induction into the military. Joe Frazier had won thet title, but a good portion of the public, at Ali's urging, refused to recognize Frazier as the real champ because he had not beaten Ali to win the title. With Frank Sinatra snapping pictures for Life Magazine and a sold-out-and-decked-out-star-studded crowd in the Garden, Joe Frazier won a unanimous decision against Ali. His knockdown of Ali in the 15th round was icing on the cake or insult to injury -- once again, depending on your political views.




The fight would be the first of a trilogy the two men would have. Ther last one, the "Thrilla' in Manilla," would be the swan song for both men. Neither would ever be the same after Manilla, a brutal contest that sapped whatever skill the two still had in the tank.

No title fight to this date, in my view, has quite captured the public's eye like the first Frazier-Ali fight. It was the World Series, Super Bowl, Olympics and World Cup all rolled into one.



MOST OVERRATED

Mike Tyson, whom your talented writer shares a birthday with, burst onto the boxing scene in 1984 when he was just a teenager, and Sports Illustrated featured him on the cover of their magazine with the title "Kid Dynamite." The magazine literally introduced Tyson as the next boxing sensation with the caption of the "Next Heavyweight Champion." Tyson's fast and furious starts had already become legend, as he was knocking out opponents -- tomato cans all -- in devastatingly short manner. Tyson's black trunks, lack of socks and robe and permanent scowl gave him a scary demeanor and personna. Tyson's intimidation alone won many of his early (and later) fights before the bell even rang. His tender care for his pidgeons contrasted sharply with his demolition in the ring. His love and study of old Dempsey and Louis fight films endeared him to a boxing public in search of a new heavyweight idol. Muhammad Ali's retirement in 1981 (which should have come in 1975) had left a void in boxing, one that could not be filled by the very talented Larry Holmes, who ruled the heavyweights for seven or so years. Tyson would come to define boxing much like Ali did during his era.

But was Tyson really that good? I don't think so.

In his defense, Tyson did clear out the division, just as other champs in the past: Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Larry Holmes. Tyson could not help the opponents he fought; he could not "create" a Joe Frazier or Muhammad Ali. His 90 second destruction of Michael Spinks to unify the belts is the lone shining moment in Tyson's entire career.

James "Buster" Douglas showed the world how to beat Mike Tyson in Japan in the spring of 1990: keep a jab in his face, move, don't buy his intimidation and, most importantly, hit him back! Had Douglas not been considered a mutt and heartless fighter for most of his career, he would not have been the great underdog he was in this fight. Douglas had skills and could fight, but he wasn't a true pro, in that he was lazy and didn't take his career seriously for most of it. His mother's death prior to the Tyson fight may have had as much to do with Buster's win as any of the skill he possessed. His mom's passing seemingly gave Douglas the courage he lacked in other moments in his career. Whatever his foibles, Buster Douglas did manage to get his act togehter for one fleeting moment -- 27-plus minutes of a scheduled 12 round match -- in 1990. He exposed Mike Tyson. The emperor had no clothes, only bluster and hype. Mike Tyson was a bully, one who would quit against a quality opponent. Mike Tyson was a 5'9" heavyweight with limited boxing skills. Take away his intimidation, and Tyson was very mediocre, at best.







Buster Douglas was just the first to KO Tyson. Mike Tyson was knocked out by every decent fighter he ever faced. Evander Holyfield got to him twice. Lenox Lewis dominated him. Other lesser known fighters -- Danny Williams and Kevin McBride -- also took Tyson out.

Mike Tyson, a decent fighter who came into boxing at just the right time, would not make my top ten heavyweights of all time. He burst upon the boxing scene like a nova, only to exit it a late-night show joke and sad figure. I would say tragic, but tragic is not the proper word to describe a person who willingly threw it all away.

Pull Those Pants Up! Government as Daddy

One of the more laughable -- and the single most lasting -- contributions to America's culture by "hip-hop/prison/drive-by culture" is the ridiculous fashion of "sagging" -- wearing oversized, beltless britches so low that one's underwear, or worse, is exposed for the whole world to see. That this ridiculous practice is the rap world's lone contribution to Americana says volumes about the genre and the culture that spawned it.

A teacher in the inner city since 1991, there has not been a day go by that I have not had to tell some young man to pull up his pants, or, as I say, "Fix your hip-hop clown suit," or "Don't look like you're in prison, until you're IN prison." However I have said it, my words are often met with clueless looks and glances, as if I am speaking in German or of some foreign custom, like say, wearing a belt or the right size pants.

Teen fashions have always found a way to rile adults. It is part of the whole teen angst and rebellion phase that many teens get into. The sagging pants of 2009 is akin to the greaser look of the 1950s, the beads, sandals and general filth of the 1960s hippies, the bell-bottoms of the 1970s and the new-wave fashions of the 1980s.

However, sagging pants, a homage to America's prisons, has reached a point in the new millenium where lawmakers have felt compelled to intervene.

State Representative Joe Towns and State Senator Ophelia Ford, both Memphis Democrats (and both black, I might add, in case the race card is played), sponsored House Bill 2099. The Commercial Appeal in March 2009 that the bill would make it a misdemeanor to "knowingly wear pants below the waistline, in a manner that exposes the person's underwear or bare buttocks." While the bill does not mandate jail time for offenses, it does allow for fines to be levied ($200 to $1,000) and hours of community service to be served. Any proceeds collected from fines would be spent on school books and extracurricular activities.

During debate on the bill, Rep. Karen Camper, another Democrat from Memphis, said, "I am absolutely against this bill. I think it's targeting a certain group of people...My question to Rep. Towns is, what is the demographics you are targeting with this legislation?" Rep. Towns wasted no time in responding: "If the shoe fits. Black kids are not the only kids wearing their pants at a certain level...it's a culture in this country."

I agree with Mr. Towns. At my current place of employment, the most ridiculous sagger is a white kid.

Tennessee is just the latest state to find itself grappling with fashion. From Connecticutt to Louisiana, municipalities have been forced to deal with this fashion trend. In some states, laws were passed, complete with fines; in others, such attempts at legislating fashion failed. In June 2007, three towns and parishes in Louisiana passed ordinances against sagging. In 2008, Jasper County in South Carolina did the same. Efforts in Virginia failed to enact such laws in 2004. However, Texas and Florida are exploring anti-sagging laws.

The hip-hop community responded to the sagging issue with typical knee-jerk liberalism. Benjamin Chavis, the former leader of the NAACP, told The New York Times, "I think to criminalize how a person wears their clothing is more offensive than what the remedy is trying to do." Co-chair of something called the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, Chavis added, "The focus should be on cleaning up the social conditions that the sagging pants comes out of. That they wear their pants the way they do is a statement on the reality that they're struggling with on a day-to-day basis."

Why is it that liberals believe the solution to every single problem in America is Marxism in some form or another? If we only had a government entitlement of some sort, size 30 Junior would not wear size 40 britches.

As mentioned, sagging has its roots in prison, where inmates are not allowed belts or shoestrings. The practice of sagging has also for years been a subtle hint to fellow inmates that the sagger is an inviting homosexual, much like the "tramp stamp" tattoo many young women wear on their lower backs screams "hit this!" to possible suitors. Hip-hop culture adopted sagging in the early 1990s, just as "gangsta' rap" became the de-facto face of hip-hop. That rap/thug culture would take their fashion straight from the jail-house seems only fitting, since incarceration is a badge of honor for thugs, as well as rappers.

Personally, I believe the entire movement to ban sagging pants is a waste of time; state lawmakers should not be worrying about some person's derriere. However, when one thinks about it, such a move on the part of lawmakers is merely a natural step in the progression to a total "nanny state." Maybe it should be the government's job to legislate dressing norms for young men, since it was Lyndon Baines Johnson's "War on Poverty" that eliminated fatherhood in the black community. And let's face it: this sagging issue is one of parental responsibility, and as it relates to boys, a father's realm. Sadly, fathers are few and far between in many neighborhoods. Fully 70% of black babies are born to single moms. For the white community, the figure stands at 25%, the very figure it was in the mid-1960s, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan issued his study of the black family that warned of a looming crisis.

When my brothers and I were boys, it was our father who made sure we were dressed appropriately.. Were we boys now, we would sag our britches once. Once. That would be all it would take for Pop to send a resounding message to the three of us. Unfortunately, fathers are now considered a luxury, which explains the growing number of out of control adolescent males.

Bill Cosby noted this cultural decline in 2004 at his now famous (or infamous, depending on your politics) speech honoring the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. Sagging pants, according to Dr. Cosby, is merely a sign: "Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing what's wrong. Isn't that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with a hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn't that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up?"

In this day and age, it's not Jesus folks are waiting on. It is the government. It should be a father.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Frederick Douglass, Where Are You?

In 2007, I want the America envisioned by Frederick Douglass, the former slave turned abolitionist. On January 26, 1865, with the Civil War grinding to halt, Mr. Douglass delivered a speech that has largely been forgotten by contemporary America, that nation of racial-pimps, racial set-asides and perpetual (and phony) racial injustices and the staged marches to address each. While Douglass's words received loud cheers and a standing ovation in 1865, these same words and ideals, if uttered in 2007, would be met by blacks with hissing, booing and maybe even rioting. Such words would be deemed "offensive" in these hyper-sensitive times.

Attempting to answer a popular question of the day -- "What does the black man want?" -- Mr. Douglass forcefully said:

"What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. I have had one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played mischief with us."

Mr. Douglass continued, offering his thoughts on a post Civil War America and freed blacks:

"If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall."

He completes his analogy with the following:

"And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is given him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! Your interference is doing him positive injury!"

Powerful sentiments from a man who knew slavery firsthand, a man who fought and scratched for everything he had in a time when the deck was legally stacked against him. Frederick Douglass hated slavery, and as a teen continually sought ways to escape it. Yet he still believed in the promise of America.

Can anyone imagine any politician, especially a black politician, saying anything remotely similar to these words? Would Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, the two self-inflated and self-appointed leaders of "Black America," ever give a speech calling for blacks to be responsible for themselves and accountable for their actions? Would either of these hucksters ever tell black folks, as Douglass did, to "sink or swim?" The answer is a definitive "no." However, these two scheisters are Pavlovian-like in their "blame-whitey-for-every-black-person's-problems." In a time when he could could have rightly done such, Frederick Douglass demurred, asking white folks to get out of the way and give blacks a chance.

Frederick Douglass, America needs you, or someone espousing your positions.

I have often wondered what Frederick Douglass would think of America in 2007. He would certainly be impressed with many things regarding black people. American blacks are the richest and best educated blacks on the planet. Many black citizens have risen to powerful positions in the corporate world and in governments, at the local, state and federal level. A black man, Barack Obama, is a leading candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for President in 2008. Yes, there is much Frederick Douglass would celebrate.

However, there is much he would disdain.

I believe he would find the current definition of "civil rights" a bit awry. After all, for him in 1865, civil rights were something else entirely, namely ending slavery. In 2007, civil rights means "special rights." In many colleges, blacks only compete with blacks for admission. Government contracts and jobs are "set-aside" for blacks only. Sometime since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, equal opportunity became "equal outcomes," which, of course, will never happen naturally, so the government forces such. As currently practiced, civil rights is nothing more than "cultural Marxism," where the cream is never allowed to rise to the top, settling instead at the bottom. American society is the lesser for this also. Massive mediocrity is the result of the cultural Marxism that is the current civil rights movement.

America, since that God-awful decade of the 1960s, has done the exact opposite of what Frederick Douglass desired. Instead of getting out of the way, the government has been a permanent crutch. Beginning with Lyndon B, Johnson's "War on Poverty" to Richard Nixon's signing the first affirmative action program, the government has done nothing to empower the black man, preferring instead to placate him and prop him up. Entitlement programs were not what Mr. Douglass wanted. He wanted black people to succeed on their own merit.

What would Frederick Douglass think of the current civil rights establishment? What would he make of marches such as the one held in September 2006 in Jena, Louisiana? What would Mr. Douglass think of thousands of black people converging on this small town to call for the release of and dismissal of charges against six young black men who attacked and beat a white classmate at Jena High School. I wonder what Mr. Douglass would think of the "New Black Panthers" descending on the small community of Pasadena, Texas to protest Joe Horn's shooting of two burglars who were coming out of a window of his neighbor's home? What would he think of the numerous "hate crime" hoaxes perpetrated by blacks like Donald Maynard, A Baltimore fireman, who wrote racist notes to himself and hung a noose in the station house in an attempt to garner some Jena-like sympathy. What would Mr. Douglass make of a professor at Columbia University who said a noose appeared on her office door, a noose that she most likely placed there herself to gain attention? What would Douglass think of the current civil rights movement, one based on pseudo-outrage, pompous indignation and political theater?

What would Mr. Douglass make of illegitimacy in the black community? Fully 70% of black children are born to a single mother. The government picks up the tab in most cases. Illegitimacy creates so many problems for the mom and the kids -- government dependence, poor school performance, poor health, criminally-inclined young men, more illegitimacy.

What would Frederick Douglass think of many young black males and their seeming lust for criminality? The Crips, Bloods, Vice-Lords and Gangster Disciples have become the extracurricular activity of choice for many school age black males. Crime has become a way of life for many black males aged 18-34. In some cities, one in three black males in this age group is connected to the justice system in some manner: awaiting trial, on probation or in jail. Homicide is leading cause of death for this age group, although it should be labeled "fratricide," as the majority of the deaths are at the hands of another black male in the demographic.

Since it was illegal to educate a slave, Frederick Douglass risked his own safety to learn how to read and write. In today's urban schools, one has to threaten the lives of some black males to make them read or learn anything outside of the latest filth from the rap community. Many American school systems struggle to graduate black students. In Detroit, just 21% of its students ever graduate from high school. In many other cities, the percentage rarely gets over 40-50%. Nationwide, just half of black students graduate from high school. A free education is on the table, and many refuse to take advantage of it. Billions have been (and are being) spent, yet this money might as well be tossed into a hole, for all the good it does.

America needs someone like Frederick Douglass, someone to say the things -- as ugly as they may be -- that need to be said, someone whose example is one to be lauded and emulated.

Of course, Mr. Douglass could rise from the grave and deliver this same speech on college campuses nationwide, and many blacks would simply call him an "Uncle Tom" and move on to their next march for set-asides and hate crime legislation.
Posted by Baldwhiteguy at 4:20 PM 0 comments

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Waging Jihad on the Boy Scouts

In the mid-1970s, I was a member of Boy Scout Troop 3115, a ribald collection of teens from the Orange Mound section of Memphis (black) and the Poplar-Higland corrider (white). Roughly half white and half black, the troop was stationed at the Tennessee National Guard Armory and headed up by Mr. Bill Lanier, a sargent in the guard. We caused Mr. Lanier untold nightmares, as we were mischievious and full of devilment. While we were good at "scout" things -- we had numerous awards we'd won at scout events -- we were also good at fighting (often each other) and finding other assorted trouble. I often think of this period as my "Huck Finn" period, as I learned of the woods via the numerous camping trips and of black folks, whom I had never been around much prior to the scouts. Some of my fondest memories of my youth can be found in the camping trip weekends I shared with Jesse Green, Andrew Phillips, Michael Prichard and other members of Troop 3115. Bill Lanier is/was a great man for giving so much of himself during this time. Lord knows, many members of the troop would have found "other" things to get into were it not for the Boy Scouts.

My personal experience with the Boy Scouts is why I am so angered by the Do-gooder-social-engineers and their attempts to destroy the Boy Scouts of America. The latest assault in Philadelphia is outrageous and merely the latest attempt by the left to impose "San Francisco" values on the normal and decent.

The left has a long history of hating the Boy Scouts. The ACLU filed the first lawsuit against the Boy Scouts in 1980. This was the beginning of a litany of forays brought against the Boy Scouts. The year 2000 was a particularly brutal year for the scouts. With the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the scouts -- their policy to deny homosexuals access to boys as Scout leaders -- and the real threat George W. Bush would win the 2000 election, the liberals stepped up the attacks on the Boy Scouts:

- The Clinton Administration launched investigations into the Scouts and ties to federal agencies, particularly its relationships with national parks and military installations.

- Al Gore called for a law demanding that the Boy Scouts allow homosexuals in its ranks.

- The city of Los Angeles voted to evict the Boy Scouts from public facilities.

- Broward County's school board also voted to evict 60 troops and Cub Scout packs from its schools.

- Private business Knight-Ridder, Inc. and Levi's stopped funding the scouts.

- United Way chapters also cut off funding for the scouts.

The message was clear: run afoul of the newest preferred minority -- homosexuals -- and you'll be punished.

The situation in the "City of Brotherly (literally) Love" is beyond outrageous.

Addressing more than 30,000 scouts in August 2005, President Bush reminided the scouts that "At times, you may be come across people who say that moral truth is relative, or call a relgious faith a comforting illusion." The President must have been thinking of Philadelphia's city solicitor Romulo Diaz.

The "Cradle of Liberty Council" serves more than 64,000 boys, mostly from the inner-city and fatherless homes (just like many of the kids in my Troop 3115). Since 1928, the council has been headquartered at the Beaux-Arts Building -- a building the Boy Scouts built in 1928 -- for the symbolic sum of $1.00 a year. But because a Boy Scout pledges to live "morally straight" and because the city of Philadelphia has bought into the phony homosexual civil right movement, the Boy Scouts are being threatened with eviciton from their longitme home. Romulo Diaz, an open homosexual and the city solicitor, has given the Cradle of Liberty Council until December 3, 2007 to come up with $200,000.00 -- fair market rent -- or they must vacate the building. Of course, the council could remain, their $1.00 agreement in place, if they give homosexuals access to the council's 64,000 boys.

What an outrage.

Has America not learned a thing from the experience of the Catholic Church and its homosexual priest problem of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s? The U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released the John Jay Report in 2004, and it revealed that 4,392 accusations had been levied against homosexual priests, with most sexual assaults occuring between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. Fully four percent of Catholic priests had engaged in molesting adolescent boys, resulting in millions of dollars being granted to victims via settlements reached in courts across the country. In 2006, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles paid $60 million to settle 45 cases of abuse, only to shell out $660 million in 2007. The Dioceses of Dallas, Boston, Louisville, Orange, and Phoenix all agreed to settle cases in the nine year period between 1997 and 2006 to the tune of $242 million. Because they had lawsuits and trial dates pending, several dioceses -- Portland, Spokane, Tucson, Davenport and San Diego -- filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to save their parishes from financial ruin.

Is this the fate we want the Boy Scouts to suffer?

If you ask the radical homosexuals and their mafia-like backers, the answer is a loud "yes." How dare any organization believe in moral absolutes in this day and age of "secular-progressives" and their gospel where right and wrong are merely matters of interpretation.

Radical homosexuals and their defenders will view the example of the Catholic Church and say the problem was "pedophilia" and not homosexuality. Au contrare, I would add. The overwheliming majority of the complaints in the Catholic Church scandal regarded priests molesting adolescent boys, not young children. Pedophiles like pre-pubescent boys and girls. While NAMBLA -- a prominent member of the homosexual mafia -- might enjoy groping young boys, the homosexual priests preyed upon adolescent boys, young men, if you will.


Romulo Diaz can say, "We will not subsidize...discrimination..." in Philadelphia, but what he really means is, "Unless we homosexuals get a shot at these teenage boys, the Boy Scouts will not be allowed to use city property, no matter what the Supreme Court says."


Joseph Farah of World Net Daily has written extensively of the phony homosexual movement and, in particular, of its hostility towards the Boy Scouts. He poses the following question for all to consider: "Would you rather live in a community populated by the Boy Scouts and Scout leaders or one populated by members of ACT-UP?" Discuss. (Oh, and by the way, don't answer until June 2008
Posted by Baldwhiteguy at 5:58 PM 0 comments

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Racism Forever -- Please!

On June 14, 1997, President Bill Clinton announced with great zeal his proposed "dialogue" on race, his "One America in the 21st Century" initiative. America's "first black" president, I guess Mr. Clinton felt it his responsibility to lead such a conversation. In a 1995 speech, Mr. Clinton bandied about his racial bona-fides: "I graduated from a segregated high school seven years after President Dwight Eisenhower integrated Little Rock Central High School. My experiences with discrimination are rooted in the South and the legacy slavery left."

I dismissed the effort at the time because such -- a discussion on race -- was not possible then. Nor is it possible now. For whatever reason, any conversation on race evolves into a monologue, with blacks on one side, wagging their fingers at whites and saying, "Shame, shame, shame." Ward Connerly said the initiative was "the sound of one hand clapping." With the lefty panel Clinton appointed to head these "conversations," there would plenty of guilt trips laid out, and little conversation held.

At one time, I believed -- naively, it turns out -- that my generation, those born in the 1960s, would be the generation to put the "race" issue to bed. After all, we came of age after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Jim Crow was someone we never knew. We attended integrated schools. We were raised -- at least, my two brothers and I were -- not to judge someone on the color of their skin. We were the first generation to have some regular, and even daily, contact with that "other" race. Surely, all the mistrust, strife, anger and bitterness of the past, a past we had only heard of, would be buried by us.

How wrong I was.

I believe race relations are worse in 2007 than they were thirty years ago in 1977, my tenth grade year in high school. And things are only getting worse.

What the hell happened?

The "Racism Industry" is what. An amalgamation of activists (s--t starters), attorneys (well-dressed parasites with law degrees) and black-only organizations (Marxists with an axe to grind), the Racism Industry finds prosperity and political clout in keeping, not hope, but strife alive. If something causes animosity, bitterness or anger between the races, then there's a good chance you will find a member of the Racism Industry behind it. Long gone are the days of peaceful groups of well-dressed and well-spoken people rallying for the right to vote and a fair shot at the American Dream. They have been replaced with activists demanding equal outcomes and other assorted aims of the Racism Industry:

Of course, this sort of grievance-mongering is not new. Booker T. Washington spoke of such as early as the late 1800s: "There is a another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances because they do not want to lose their jobs."

Mr. Washington was speaking of many of his critics, most notably W. E. B. DuBois, the Harvard grad noted for his "talented tenth" theory that the talented ten percent of blacks would lead the race. Mr. Washington's words aptly describe the latter-day crop of "DuBoisian" fellows: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al. These two (and other like-minded players) have never met a racial stir -- real or perceived -- that they did not want to exploit for their own gain.

Jesse Jackson has established a profitable career for himself and his family. Like Tony Soprano used his "waste management" position to cover his illegal activities, so too does Jesse Jackson. His "Operation PUSH"-- People United to Save Humanity -- is a non-profit front used by Jackson to wash literally millions that have come Jackson's way. Kenneth Timmerman's 2002 book Shakedown highlights the good reverend's tactics and windfalls of his activism. Using 18 chapters, 400+ pages and an astounding 1,000 plus footnotes, Mr. Timmerman paints the picture of a guy always out looking for the next score. During the Carter Administration, Mr. Jackson was able to get millions of dollars in federal grants funneled into the education wing of PUSH. The jig was up, however, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The Reagan Administration and its audits led Reverend Jackson to his true calling: the corporate shakedown. Beginning with Coca-Cola in 1981, Jackson has used his tried and true tactics to extort millions from American corporations. The M-O is simple. First, find an alleged racial slight with a company (like Coca-Cola's dealings with apartheid South Africa). Secondly, threaten boycotts or protests of the company. By the second step, companies usually settle with Jackson. Literally. While other blacks have benefited from Jackson's efforts, no one has benefited like Jackson himself and those closest to him. His half brother, Noah Robinson, was awarded a syrup distributorship by Coca-Cola in September 1981, one month after a $30 million settlement had been reached. Jackson's two sons own a beer distributorship in Chicago -- gained in the same manner. Anheuser-Busch, Texaco and Nike have all felt the brunt of Jackson's "work." Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Jackson's mau-mauing toward corporations was as automatic as the John Stockton-Karl Malone pick and roll of the same era: guaranteed to deliver. Seeking "justice," Jackson got himself a lot of it in the form of dollar bills.

While Jesse Jackson is a racial extortionist, Al Sharpton is a racial arsonist. Jackson seeks financial gain, while Sharpton is out for political chits. The Reverend Al cut his teeth in the 1980s, when he, like some sleazy lawyer at an accident scene, would show up at any incident that hinted of a racial angle that could be exploited. With his James Brown hair-do, sweat suits and vituperative tongue, Sharpton fanned any racial flames he could, often making a tragic situation even worse. No incident shows Sharpton's dishonesty like the Tawana Brawley affair. In November 1987, fifteen year old Tawana Brawley claimed she was abducted, raped and smeared with feces by a group of white men, some of whom were police officers with the Duchess County (New York) police department. A grand jury determined that Brawley's story was a hoax, designed to cover her being out too late one night. Despite any evidence to support Brawley's claim, Al Sharpton and his goons -- in this case, attorneys Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason -- arrived to exploit the race aspect of the case. The three even went as far as to accuse Duchess County assistant district attorney Steven Pagones of taking part in the fictional assault and rape. Sharpton even told Pagones to "sue" him if he was lying, which Pagones did in 1997. A jury awarded Pagones a $345,000.00 judgement, of which the good reverend has yet to pay one red cent.

Similar protests by Sharpton in 1991 (Crown Heights) and and 1995 (Harlem's Freddy's Fashion Mart) actually resulted in the deaths of people. Jackson, while dishonest to the core, does not cause the deaths of people in his wake.

One might think that such shady dealings and outrageous rhetoric would take away the credibility of someone. Think again. Both Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have run for the presidency (as Democrats, of course). If anything, it appears that each's record has heightened their profile. Judging from events of the past year, Jackson and Sharpton have taken on Christ-like proportions, as white people who make "insensitive racial remarks" must trek to Jackson or Sharpton and pay tribute and beg for forgiveness. Michael Richards, the former Seinfeld star, went to Jackson to beg forgiveness for his use of the word "nigger" on a comedy stage. Don Imus used "nappy-headed hos" to describe the Rutgers women's basketball team, and the next week he appeared on Sharpton's radio show to grovel and kiss the ass of Sharpton. At this writing, it is not certain which of the race-hustlers Dog the Bounty Hunter will appeal to to atone for his racial comments made during a private conversation with his son.

What irony. Al Sharpton, who has called Jews "diamond merchants, and Jesse Jackson, who referred to New York City as "Hymietown," are now the arbiters of the speech police. What a country.
Posted by Baldwhiteguy at 5:13 PM 0 comments

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Huck Finn: Still Troublesome After All These Years


"We do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking."
-- Mark Twain


As an English teacher since 1991, I get aggravated each year at the inevitable attacks on Mark Twain, as school districts wrestle with demands from one of the permanently dour to ban the teaching of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Birdsville High School (Texas) is the latest in a long, long list of school districts forced to deal with the complaints of parents (or, as is the case in Birdsville, a parent) and activists who are outraged this "racist" tome is taught to high school students.


Seventeen year old junior Ibrahim Mohamed took offense with a lesson plan designed to alleviate such umbrage. The lesson obviously didn't work. Entitled "Word Magic (How To Deal With the N-word When Reading Huck Finn)," the lesson called for the teacher to write several offensive words and phrases, including "nigger," on the board; the intent was to open a discussion on the use of the terms and if context matters. The lesson never got to step two because Ibrahim demanded that the word be removed from the board and any discussion. When the teacher did not remove it, Ibrahim complained to his mother, Tunya Mohamed, who enlisted the usual suspects of the Racism Industry -- the NAACP -- to protest the lesson and have the book removed from the school's reading lists. In addition, the activists want the teacher to do community service for their organization and to apologize in writing, as if she was some sort of pedophile or drunk driver. Ibrahim, according to his mother, is "really upset and very, very depressed."


I have two words for young Ibrahim: Grow up! If, at age 17, you are so despondent upon seeing one word on the board -- a word you probably say with glee while listening to your favorite thug rapper -- how are you going to survive in the "real world," where no one gives a damn about you or your feelings?


A teacher in the 87% black Memphis City Schools, I typically scoff when I hear of another call to ban Huck Finn, especially for the reason cited for banning it: its racist use of the word nigger. Yes, the word does appear in the novel 215 times, which is about the average number of times I hear it in the hallways each day from black adolescents. No, the irony has never escaped my grasp.


It is intellectually dishonest to claim Huck Finn racist, when any analytical reading of the book shows quite the opposite to be true. Twain's classic intended to demean and vilify the slave-holding society of the pre-Civil War south, of which Missouri was a like-minded territory. The frequent use of the word accomplishes this, while giving the reader an insight into a long forgotten era. Frankly, to avoid use of the word in the book would not have been realistic. Like it or not, the word was used by whites in daily conversations then-- much like rappers do now-- to refer to blacks.


Of course, anyone with an IQ above a brick understands that Huck Finn is an "anti-racism" novel. Ralph Ellison, the noted black author, understood Twain's intent: "Huckleberry Finn knew, as did Mark Twain, that Jim was not only a slave but a human being, a symbol of humanity...and in freeing Jim, Huck makes a bid to free himself of the conventionalized evil taken from civilization by the town -- in other words, of the abomination of slavery itself."


A learned man, Mr. Ellison was ruled by his intellect, as opposed to guided by his emotions. Not everyone is predisposed to such.


For the emotionally-guided who refuse to read between the lines of the novel, Russell Baker provides a vivid image these child-like folks can get: "The people Huck and Jim encounter are drunkards, murderers, bullies, swindlers, lynchers, thieves, liars, frauds, child abusers, numb-skulls, hypocrites, windbags, and traders in flesh. All are white. The one man of honor in this phantasmagoria is black Jim, the runaway slave." It doesn't take a PhD to "get" Twain's indictment of the slave-owning society of the south. Jim is the only noble character in the book, and he is the one the other characters (society) hold in contempt. In 2007, how do people not "get" this?


The measure of great art is found in its ability to evoke a response or reaction. Nothing has done just such like Twain's The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn. Earnest Hemingway called the book the "source" of all American literature. The book has managed to inspire and offend in not only the 19th century of its creation, but also in the 20th and now 21st centuries.


It is my guess Mark Twain is smiling when viewing all the trouble his little story has created. He might look at his critics and say these words again: "Be yourself is about the worst advice to give people."
Posted by Baldwhiteguy at 3:02 PM 0 comments

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Title IX: Revenge of the Shrews

President Richard M. Nixon, an otherwise brilliant man, suffered a lapse of naivety on June 23, 1972, when he signed into law these thirty-seven words: "No person in the United States shall on the basis of gender, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Where was President Nixon's cynicism when he needed it? Signed at the height of the feminist movement -- erstwhile known as that "era of bitterness, anger and resentment" -- did he actually believe the law-- Title IX -- would not be twisted, contorted and used by the testosterone-hating-shrews within the feminist cause to attack men in some manner?

Nixon's sense of fair play colored his judgement. Of course, girls should be afforded the same opportunities in education that boys enjoyed. Unfortunately, Title IX in its current form is a sledgehammer wielded by angry and bitter women to exact revenge for the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to pass. Any effort to inject common sense into the law is met with feminazi lawyers and their threats of litigation.

In her book Women Who Make The World Worse, Kate O'Beirn exposes the real aim of Title IX-activists: "The feminists' signature brew of dishonesty, intimidation, and hypocrisy has been he familiar recipe in the campaign they claim is designed to increase the number of women who engage in sports...In the name of leveling the playing field, these women are determined to tackle the male dominance in sports, which they see as a despised vestige of male privilege and powers, and a precursor to male violence." By using Title IX to attack sports at the collegiate and high school levels, it is the goal of the feminists to castrate men (in a figurative sense, of course -- however, with this group of nags, one never knows for sure) and male dominated ventures because all of it is a prelude to some bum beating his wife.

I began coaching wrestling in 1995 at Westside High School in Memphis. Like the average American, I knew little of Title IX or its pernicious enforcement. As my wrestlers became more involved in wrestling, they would ask about wrestling in college. All "inner-city" kids, they loved the sport and were good at it. Other athletes had a chance at a scholarship. Why not them? I began to look into wrestling on the collegiate level and found little to speak of. In Tennessee, for example, there is just one Division 1 school that wrestles: the University of Tennessee- Chattanooga. No Vanderbilt. No University of Tennessee. No University of Memphis. I became very anti-Title IX the more I investigated it. I had wrestlers capable of wrestling in college, but there were no opportunities for them to do such. Courtney Guy was the TSSAA State Runner-up at 215 pounds in 1998. Going into his senior year, he would have been a highly recruited wrestler -- if it was 1972, when there were 777 colleges and universities with wrestling teams. Unfortunately, in 1999, his year of graduation, there were fewer than 100 Division 1 wrestling teams. A scholarship was his only chance at college, as was the case with all the wrestlers on my team. In a sensible world, he would have been competing in college after his high school graduation. Of course, "sensible" is not a word to be used when liberals with an agenda and a chip on their shoulders take hold of anything.

The truth of Title IX is ugly. It is nothing more than government sanctioned discrimination aimed at eliminating male sports. While football and basketball are untouchable to the shrews -- someone has to pay for the social engineering and women's crew teams -- other male sports are not. In 1972, as mentioned, there were 777 wrestling teams in the NCAA. According to Intermat, an amateur wrestling site, 447 collegiate teams have been eliminated since 1972, despite the fact that high school wrestling grows each year and is very popular. The Southeastern Conference, arguably the best athletic conference in the nation, has not one school with a wrestling team. Wrestling is not the only affected sport. Baseball, track, tennis, water polo, swimming, fencing and any other male sport is subject to be eliminated by the insane demands of Title IX compliance. UCLA's swimming team earned 22 medals at the Olympics, yet it was ended in 1993. According to the NCAA, between 1992 and 1997, 20,000 male athletes -- or "athletic opportunities" -- were eliminated. The NCAA now reports that there are more women's teams than there are men's teams; this is entirely due to Title IX. When surveyed, men typically express more interest in athletic competition than women. (Do we need surveys to know this? Look at any elementary playground.) Intramural athletics on college campuses, which are strictly voluntary, are overwhelmingly male, yet female athletes take precedent at colleges due to Title IX and its threat of non-compliance, which can result in a loss of federal money.

While feminists routinely and loudly hail Title IX now, they paid little attention to the law its first decade of existence. It was only after the expiration of the ERA in 1982 that the perpetually-aggrieved of the feminist movement turned its sights on athletics. At midnight on June 30, 1982, the ERA expired, and the "jihad" on male athletes began. Phyllis N. Segal, then legal director of the National Organization of Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund, said at the time: "What we need to do, in the absence of a national mandate and clear policy statement, is to apply and defend the progress that has been made and to develop tools to take the profit and habit out of sexual discrimination." The "tool" of choice would be Title IX. Jessica Gavora, author of Tilting the Playing Field, writes of the outlook of feminists in the early 1980s: "Many of the gains that feminists had hoped to secure with the ERA, they saw, could be achieved through expansion and manipulation of the law (Title IX) against discrimination."

Using a 1979 policy interpretation of the law, the Title IX-mafia would use just one prong of the "three prong test" to dismantle male team after male team. While there are three ways to be in compliance with Title IX, only one -- the proportionality prong -- has been used to determine if a school is in compliance: "Providing athletic opportunities that are substantially proportionate to the student enrollment." Translated this means that if a school has a student body that is 60% female, then 60% of all things athletic must also be female: athletes, scholarships, teams, etc. Failure to be in compliance means costly lawsuits and the aforementioned loss of federal funds. Rather than fight the good fight, spineless bureaucrats and administrators would rather cower at the first sight of the NOW-gang lawyers.

The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) oversees Title IX enforcement and compliance. During the Reagan and Bush I administrations, the office performed its job much like a cop does his: react and respond to a complaint or crime. A police officer cannot be proactive and "create" a crime on a slow night. That is profiling, harassment or entrapment. This, however, is exactly what the OCR did throughout the 1990s. It created Title IX "problems" where none existed. Consequently, the 1990s is the decade that saw the most males' teams eliminated.

The election of Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992 brought with it many 1960s radicals and their agendas. No one was more radical than Ms. Norma Cantu, longtime member of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Dubbed one of Clinton's "quota queens," Ms. Cantu would live up to the moniker as the head "capo" in the OCR. Under her stewardship, Title IX became an official quota, as Representative Maxine Waters, a liberal Democrat, in a rare moment of honesty and candor, once noted: "It is the biggest quota you've ever seen. It is 50-50. It's a quota -- a big, round quota."

Unlike the cop on the beat, Ms. Cantu's OCR would not just react to Title IX complaints or problems; her OCR would create them. Unduly influenced by the Women's Sports Foundation, a radical organization formed by lesbian-activist Billie Jean King, Norma Cantu's OCR, it its first nineteen months alone, attacked 240 schools. launching investigative "reviews" into their Title IX practices. Not a single school targeted had ever been the subject of even one complaint. Furthermore, Ms.Cantu ordered the OCR's ten regional offices to "double" the number of its complaints. In other words, it became official policy to harass and intimidate universities and to create problems where none existed.

Norma Cantu's tenure at the OCR was one of spite. Football was never to be discussed as the sport relates to Title IX enforcement. Carrying 100 scholarships/slots per year, if football were removed from the equation, it would allow many schools to be in compliance with the asinine quotas set by Title IX. Cantu and her tribe would never agree with excluding football from the equation, even though there is no female-equivalent sport. It is as if Cantu and the rest of the angry spinsters don't want schools to comply. Full compliance would negate their jobs. Walk-on players, who don't get scholarships and play for love of the game, are included in the numbers game. Consequently, walk-on slots have been radically reduced due to the numbers demands of Title IX. Potential walk-ons have to be "invited" to walk-on by coaches. So committed to proportionality is the OCR that even private citizens, alumni, and boosters cannot fund a team that has been eliminated. The University of Southern California and Princeton ran afoul of the bean-counters in the mid-1990s and chose to shut down their swimming and wrestling teams. Private money and boosters stepped forward to fund each team, but the universities shut them down anyway. Said Carol Zaleski of United States Swimming, "It's not a question of money. It's a question of numbers."

Many in the anti-quota crowd took a sigh of relief with the election of George W. Bush in 2000. Finally, some thought, common sense will find its way into Title IX. Such wasn't meant to be.

In 2002, Rod Paige, Bush's Secretary of Education, announced the formation of the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics (COA), a panel of former sports figures and policy wonks who would look into Title IX and its enforcement. The commission hoped to find ways to improve the law. Four townhall-style meetings were held across the nation to allow the public to express their views and offer suggestions for improving the law. The reaction from the usual suspects was immediate and hysterical. Feminists were apoplectic at the mere mention of altering Title IX. "We are deeply troubled by the commission's action," said Jocelyn Samuels, the vice-president of the National Women's Law Center, adding, "This allows the secretary of education to radically restructure current practices..." The irony of Ms. Samuel's words flies right over her head; "radically restructure" Title IX is exactly what Norma Cantu did from her first day on the job. Donna Lopiano, the executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, chimed in also: "The commission has opened the barn door for the Bush administration to weaken Title IX. This gives the education secretary license to do pretty much anything he wants." And Norma Cantu didn't do whatever she felt?

Ultimately, the COA and the townhall meetings were a sham. The Title IX-mafia won in the end. Though all the recommendations of the COA, including eliminating quotas, were approved by an 8-5 vote of the commission's members, Secretary Paige said he would only act on those measures that were unanimous, thus giving a veto to the very people who caused the problems with Title IX and the reason for the commission in the first place. In a future Republican administration -- such would never happen in a Democratic one -- Title IX might be revisited. One can only hope.

Title IX is what happens whenever an angry member of the permanently indignant with an axe to grind gets to exorcise the permanent chip on their shoulder. Common sense is tossed aside in favor of an agenda. More often than not that agenda is about "getting someone" or "atoning" for past sins. It might be the wealthy one moment, or corporations the next, but someone is going to pay when it comes to radicals and their agendas. Men are the "despised sex" for feminists, so male athletes paid the price. Such is the price for "social justice," a term that should make any sane person cringe when hearing it because at some point "they" could be the target for the do-gooders.
Posted by Baldwhiteguy at 4:32 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 22, 2007

It's The Thugs, Stupid!

In my sixteen plus years in the Memphis City Schools (MCS), there was a time when I was shocked at seeing a former student of mine's name in the paper accused of one crime or another. However, I am no longer shocked or even surprised when I read familiar names in the daily newspaper or see familiar faces on the 10:00 news -- names and faces often attached to one heinous crime after another. In most instances, I could have predicted such for these individuals. Such was their behavior in my class, when I tried to teach them English, the operative word being "tried." These non-learners of the first order simply would have none of it. In fact, most of these reprobates I speak of were outright hostile to any and all things school-related: English, math, science, rules, authority, order, etc.

It goes without saying that I was not the least bit surprised to see the mug of Christian Taylor on the August 30, 2007 10 PM newscast. He had escaped a work detail in Frayser, and the story told of his capture after a brief period of freedom in the 38127 area. That Christian Taylor was on the run from the police only seemed fitting to me, as the entire time he was a "student" at Westside High School, all he did was run the hallways, peeking around corners for administrators, taking momentary breaks to curse a teacher, harass a co-ed, disrupt a class, smoke some dope or vandalize the building in some manner. The kid was a chaotic, disrespectful and anti-intellectual ball of dysfunction and a royal pain-in-the-ass at the age of fourteen. God only knows...no, actually everyone knows...the type person he is now. It was not a real stretch to see prison in his future; it was a certainty.

Because the MCS did not expel -- the system does not expel in the numbers it should -- this non-learner, the system, in essence, is partly responsible for the plight of Christian Taylor, for it, by its non-action, told Christian that he could behave in any way he desired without consequence. Christian Taylor figured he could do the same in the "real world." Taylor is an MCS "success story," in that what he did in school prepped him for what he would do in his life after school -- running from the law (after committing burglary or robbery, of course). This is not to say his career is going well, as witnessed by his conviction and prison term.

There are many "Christian Taylors" in MCS high schools right now. For these non-learners, the arrival of their first pubic hair brings with it a wholesale rejection of all that is civilized and decent and a full embrace of the uncivilized and abnormal. The "Three R's" of academia are scoffed at by these types, who much prefer the values of hip-hop/gang/prison culture: sex, drugs and violence. For these non-learners, a book is merely a square projectile to hurl at another student; profanity is often their first language; dope-dealing and home invasions are legitimate career options for these anti-intellectual types. Homework to these non-learners means selling dope to a relative.

I do not exaggerate. Daily, I venture to the Shelby County Jail website. I am seldom surprised by the names or crimes of these former students of mine. A May 2007 visit to the kiosk found 18 former students of mine locked-up for an array of charges ranging from the mild (possession) to the violent (first-degree murder). I am sometimes bothered by what I see, for some of these perps had good heads on their shoulders. They did not, however, possess any desire for anything decent. lusting instead for the "thug life" championed by the dead hoodlum (and sometime rapper) Tupac Shakur.

It is disheartening to see young people -- some as young as thirteen years of age -- willingly and lustfully choosing to join gangs and the life of crime it entails.

I do not believe the schools can do anything to save these type of non-learners. These young people bring problems with them that the school did not create. Therefore, there is not a thing the schools can do to fix them. A school's job is to educate and to prepare the young to be productive and good citizens. It is not a school's job to be a parent. Unfortunately, this has been forgotten, and teachers have to spend an inordinate amount of time on these "nut-jobs," thus hurting the well-intended "real" students.

I got into teaching out of a real concern for young people. I believed that as a coach, I could help young folks navigate their high school years and have a real impact on their lives. Instead, I (and other teachers) have become nothing more than a cog in the "expensive baby-sitting arrangement" Ann Coulter writes of in her best-seller Godless, providing the needed service of "keeping hoodlums off the street during daylight hours."

While not the career I envisioned, I do have a great desk and get the summers off.
Posted by Baldwhiteguy at 4:34 PM 0 comments
Saturday, October 20, 2007
The Return of the I-Man
Don Imus is set to return to the airwaves in December at WABS-AM in New York City. He will return better known than at any point in his long career, an unintended consequence of his detractors and their successful efforts to get him canned this past April. His return comes after his firing in April form CBS Radio for his now infamous "nappy headed hos" gibe aimed at the Rutgers women's basketball team. Even though the I-Man apologized privately, publicly (and profusely) to the Rutgers team, a debate has begun among the thought-control left, those jackals who believe Imus: a) was not out of work long enough, or b) should not be allowed ever to ply his trade again.

The decision by Citadel Broadcasting to hire Don Imus has caused hyper-sensitive liberals to do what they love to do: feel indignant and outraged. Do these people ever just rise in the morning and enjoy the day?

Barbara Ciara of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) feels Imus didn't suffer enough or long enough for his "despicable" actions: "To put him on the air now makes light of his serious and offensive racial remarks that are still ringing in the ears of people all over the country." Stephan A. Smith of ESPN launched into a ten minute tirade on the subject of Imus, saying Imus should be suspended at least "a year." Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization of Women, called the hiring of Imus "a bad dream," asking, "Didn't they learn anything?"

This is all so odd. Back in April, the hypersensitive-thought and speech-police were screaming that Imus should be fired. They got that. Now, they are demanding that he be "suspended a year," as if the firing, the ultimate penalty for an employee, never occurred. Are Stephan A. Smith and his fellow travelers calling on privately-owned broadcast companies never to hire Imus? Though they will never admit it, the answer is an obvious "Yes." If they could "tar and feather" Imus, they would. Don Imus joins the ranks of Al Campanis, Jimmy the Greek, John Rocker and others in the "club," white guys who broke the unofficial 11Th Commandment: "Thou, if thee are white, shall not say (even in jest) an ill word about black people."

The entire incident is disturbing. It says much for the current political environment. A shock-jock, unknown to many, becomes a household name for a comment made with no malice intended whatsoever. Sure, it was dumb thing to say, but are those three little words worthy of a national debate? Or the psuedo-outrage from the usual quarters? I think not.

Abraham Lincoln used just 266 words in his famous address at Gettysburg, yet Vivian Stringer, the Rutgers head coach, spent over thirty minutes before a cable tv audience talking of the hurtful impact of Don Imus's dumb comments. It is a sign of the times that "nappy headed hos" carries as much seriousness as "Fourscore and seven years ago..." How far as we as a nation really come?

I have taught and coached largely black children in my 16 years in the 87% black Memphis City Schools. I have heard much worse language used by black male students toward their female classmates in that time, with "bitch" being the preferred term of address. However, because of all the fuss over the Imus situation, there has been a resurgence in the usage of "nappy headed hos." Prior to April 12, 2007, most, if not all, of my students did not know who Don Imus was. Now, because of this imbroglio, almost all know who he is. And his alleged crime is now commonplace.

Don Imus was not the problem on April 12, 2007; he never was the problem. Getting Imus canned from CBS Radio will be hailed as civil rights win, but it will not help the first black person. It's simply style over substance. Sadly, much of what passes for "civil rights victories" is the same. Black liberals will point and say, "See, we got Imus. We speak for and defend the voiceless." The impact of this type of protest is thimble-deep.

Jason Whitlock, a columnist for the Kansas City Star, sums up the Imus mess and its impact quite succinctly: "We know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old whtie guy with a bad radio show. There's no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out."
Posted by Baldwhiteguy at 4:46 PM 0 comments
Older Posts Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Blog Archive
▼ 2007 (10)
▼ December (1)
Frederick Douglass, Where Are You?
► November (3)
Waging Jihad on the Boy Scouts
Racism Forever -- Please!
Huck Finn: Still Troublesome After All These Years...
► October (6)
Title IX: Revenge of the Shrews
It's The Thugs, Stupid!
The Return of the I-Man
Ms. Conservatism: Ann Coulter
The New Civil Right -- Attack A Cracker!
The Culture War is Over
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