A Time Tested Recipe for Cultural Success is Rejected by the Cultural Left
I sent one of my cousins a video of comments from a scholar who has written about how the Cultural Left (the political left wing in today’s America) is elevating race (and gender) over merit, and how detrimental this has become for American society.
My cousin noted how much of this was painfully familiar – and how much he fought against it -- in his work as a school principal. He noted how many black activists don’t suggest that the black community take responsibility for the woes of the black community.
I responded by saying it would be great if some of the activists he mentioned would show the integrity to call out blacks for being responsible for much suffering in the black community. I admired Bill Cosby, for example, when he courageously made the following statement as reported by NBC News in 2004:
“Bill Cosby went off on another tirade against the black community Thursday, telling a room full of activists that too many black men are beating their wives while their children run around not knowing how to read or write.
Cosby made headlines in May when he upbraided some poor blacks for their grammar and accused them of squandering opportunities the civil rights movement gave them. He shot back Thursday, saying his detractors were trying in vain to hide the black community’s “dirty laundry.”
“Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it’s cursing and calling each other n------ as they’re walking up and down the street,” Cosby said during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund’s annual conference.
“They think they’re hip,” the entertainer said. “They can’t read; they can’t write. They’re laughing and giggling, and they’re going nowhere.”
He also had harsh words for black men who don’t have jobs and are angry about their lives.”
The “race hustlers” my cousin mentioned (and others such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson) should be utterly ashamed of themselves for their decades-long crusade to blame “racism” instead of the all-too-common dysfunctional black family and black culture (what Thomas Sowell calls “Black Redneck Culture”). Doing this, ironically, has significantly contributed to American blacks being held back. Not thriving or prospering or succeeding like so many other minority groups (including recent black immigrants, for example).
Black people need more statements from blacks, as my cousin pointed out, that are along the lines of the Cosby statements above.
The “Cultural Left,” as Dinesh D’Souza calls them, should be ashamed of themselves for refusing to hold blacks responsible for not working to escape from “Black Redneck Culture.” Instead, the Left righteously blames “systemic racism.” They ironically consider themselves “heroes” for doing so.
The “solution” from the Left is to keep guilt-tripping whites by blaming racism and supporting taking money from white people (i.e., reparations). Yes, let’s mimic the Soviet Union when they went after “oppressors of the people.” It is unquestionably the case that the Soviet reparations did not end well.
My cousin pointed out that the black president of the Chicago Teachers Union was appointed to this post because of her political views on the importance and value of public education. It was just revealed, my cousin noted, that her son attends a private Catholic school. To the exasperation of my cousin, she justified this double standard by saying that she wished to have her son carry out his dreams.
I responded to this by pointing out how sickening but utterly unsurprising it was to hear about this. Does she have no shame at all, I asked.
I went on to say that in Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005), Thomas Sowell lists attributes of the redneck culture – a culture that did NOT originate in the US South, but instead was imported by colonists centuries earlier. These colonists originated from the hinterlands in Wales, Scotland, England, and Ireland. These European nations were the origin of such culturally dysfunctional attributes (attributes that have been adopted by a significant number of American blacks) as:
*Aversion to work.
*Promiscuity.
*Lack of entrepreneurship.
*Reckless search for excitement.
*Drunkenness.
*Neglect of education.
*Violence.
*Unwillingness to be industrious or hard-working.
*Exaggerated pride and the related tendency to duel or feud.
*Wasteful expenditures.
I would add the following dysfunctional cultural attributes to Sowell’s list:
*A failure to speak proper English.
*Aversion to reading.
*Excessive watching of television.
*Wearing shabby clothes.
*Unkempt hair, wildly colored hair, and abundant body tattoos.
*Immaturely pursuing short-term pleasures to the detriment of longer-term and more satisfying happiness.
What, then, are the elements that a successful culture or family instills in their children so that they grow to become successful adults? My list includes the following…
*Being motivated to work hard.
*Self-discipline, responsibility, accountability, and self-control.
*Sexual discipline.
*Sobriety.
*A love for a lifetime of self-education, travel, and reading.
*Keeping emotions under control.
*Financial prudence and an affinity for saving money for the future.
*Speaking proper, plain, and clear English.
*Possessing an aversion to watching low-brow television.
*Dressing and grooming well – that is, in a way that conveys dignity, and respects and impresses most others.
*Having the maturity to avoid short-term pleasure in order to make longer-term, more meaningful happiness more likely.
*A firm belief that you should treat others the way you would like others to treat you. This includes, but is not limited to, being honest and fair-minded.
*Adopting behavior that promotes long-term mental and physical health.
*Striving for self-improvement and success rather than being a victim that passively blames others, blames “the system,” or blames “bad luck.”
*Having the humility, modesty, and wisdom to know how much you do not know, but at the same time to be able to judiciously speak up when you have advanced knowledge on a topic.
*Seeking different points of view in a lifelong effort to avoid confirmation bias and “living in an “echo chamber” or “bubble.” In other words, to be able to change your mind when evidence or logic runs counter to even your most cherished beliefs.
*Being able to admit when you are wrong.
*Being resilient enough to be able to bounce back in the face of adversity.
*Striving throughout your life for self-improvement and a reduction in personal liabilities.
*Adopting the above skills so as to achieve a healthy level of self-confidence.
The above is an excellent recipe for substantially increasing the chances of raising children to become successful adults.
Activists for improvement in the failing American black community, such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and LeBron James and others on the Cultural Left, need to be pushing the recipe I outline above, rather than “systemic racism,” if they are sincerely interested in advancing the American black community.
Assimilate into the successful recipe of Western Civilization, in other words, rather than continuing to not take self-responsibility.
In sum, adopt the Western Civilization recipe instead of playing the Blame Game and the Victimization Game.