Recently I heard a radio interview with Michael Eric Dyson - they guy who wrote a book "Is Bill Cosby Right?" Its subtitled: "or has the black middle class gone crazy?" Not surprisingly, the guy turned out to be nothing more than a shill for the liberal left.
Dyson discounts Cosby's calls for personal responsibility, and paints him as a "black elitist"... as if any African American who DOES succeed in this society is somehow "off the plantation" for recognizing what it takes to succeed and doing it!
He takes a "don't confuse me with the facts" stance when confronted with the disturbing statistics about African-Americans' dropout rates, drug abuse rates, crime rates, incarceration rates, illegitimacy rates etc. Instead he blames it all on "whitey" keeping the black man down thru discrimination and deprivation of opportunity!! He doesn't recognize these demographic realities as the CAUSE of the plight of the poor black community. He views it as the inevitable RESULT of poverty.
Really? How many of today's "poor" blacks live truly destitute lives, as did the dirt farmers of the dust bowl (almost exclusively white), or the urban dwellers during the depression of the 30's? Yet what makes the criminals of that day (Capone, Nelson, Bonnie & Clyde, Kelly and the like) so famous? Simple
there were so few of them!!! Crime was far less commonplace back then than it is today, yet the people of the time were far more poverty-stricken. I fail to see Dysons logic.
Let's harken back to the subtitle of his book, shall we? He questions if the black middle class has gone crazy. Seems to me that Dyson needs the sanity check
If "whitey" is depriving the black man of opportunity -- then HOW is there a black middle class in the first place? Isn't the growing black middle class prima facie evidence to the contrary? In fact, the white middle class is shrinking as indeed the white rich get richer and the white poor get poorer... but the African American middle class is growing by leaps and bounds!
Ahh, and there's the rub. As people (black OR white) become successful in this country, they also tend toward the more conservative end of the political spectrum. And that's where the fear lies! The left has taken the black vote for granted. Now more and more successful blacks are daring to consider the conservative viewpoint and (gasp) the ranks of black republicans are swelling!
So, along comes Dysons new book casting aspersions at Bill Cosby and at all "middle class blacks" who have "left the reservation" and who no longer preach the gospel of victimology. This book is not a serious investigation of issues. It is a desperate cry of the left realizing its power is eroding away as the black community outgrows its victim status. Liberals, to survive, must continue to maintain a large enough segment of the minority community in the "under classes" so they can exploit them for political gain.
As has been said before, and it is borne out here: A liberal counts compassion by how many are on the public dole. A conservative measures compassion by how many have been elevated to no longer need it.
Copyright © 2005 by Doug Edelman
Doug Edelman is a conservative political commentator by avocation and passion, based in the suburbs of St. Louis, MO. For the support of his family, however, he is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business. He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://edeldoug.blogs.com/. Contact him at doug@pc-fixer-stl.com.