An “honest discussion about race” …

“We need to have an honest discussion about race in America.”

How many times have we heard this? 

Problem is, the people asking for this don’t really want an “honest” discussion. 

And they don’t want to discuss all races.  What they want is to deliver another lecture about black people, by black people, to everybody who isn’t black, about how tough it is to be black, and how blacks therefore deserve preferential treatment.   

There will be no “discussion”; they aren’t interested in exchanging views. 

Despite that, and only because they continue to ask for it, here’s my view:

The only people who think about race all the time are racists. 

And yes, blacks certainly can be racists. 

I’m thinking in particular about those who view everything in the world through the prism of race – like Obama, Holder, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, John Lewis and others who always see a honkie in the woodpile. They are racists, plain and simple.   

To maintain that blacks can’t be racist because they’re black is as silly as saying that everybody who isn’t black is a racist.

Jeez., Give it a rest.

Okay, so this is for you – Sharpton, Jackson, Lewis, Rangel, Holder, et al: 

You know who I’m talking about – the black “leaders” who are always first to interject race, no matter what the context. Yes, you are the same ones who treat the black community as helpless children incapable of fending for themselves.    

You are obsessed with race.  We’re not. 

Outside of the black community, most of us don’t care what race anybody is. 

No, honestly and truly, we don’t.  That’s probably a surprise to you. 

Then again, as cynically as some of you try to manipulate events, perhaps not. 

We hardly ever think about race unless someone jams race in our face.  Or tries to transform something that isn’t about race into something that is, as you are wont to do. 

The Trayvon Martin circus, the manufactured outrage over voter ID laws and changes to the Voting Rights Act come to mind.    

However, just because the media make a big deal out of stuff like this, and you can put crowds in the streets, that doesn’t mean it’s a big deal to all of us.  Or even most of us.   It isn’t.    

By this point, we’re more like dogs watching TV – we hear what you’re saying, we see what you’re doing, we understand why, but it doesn’t make any difference to us. It’s nothing more than background noise to most of us.   

You see, we’ve heard it all before.  Your problems and issues never change. 

You’re always offended by one thing or another, regardless how innocent or innocuous.  You hear imaginary “dog whistles” of hidden racism all the time.  You don’t think a black person can get a fair hearing, much less justice, in this country.  You don’t think blacks are treated fairly but you can’t define what “fairly” is.

And you seem to be pissed off about something most of the time. 

It’s exhausting dealing with you.  And fruitless.  So many of us are giving up. 

No matter how much we try to help – or appease – the black community, nothing we do seems to work.  Nothing seems to please you.  There’s never enough.

When society tries to help the black community we apparently often do more long-term harm than the value of any short-term good.  So instead of giving a hand up to self-sufficiency, we end up giving a handout that leads to more dependency.

It’s the fulfillment of the cynic’s creed:  No good deed goes unpunished. 

Still, according to many black leaders, things are worse for blacks now than they’ve been in years, especially in terms of racism and discrimination. 

Since many of us lived through the 50s and 60s, we – and you – know that’s complete bullshit.  Society’s come a long way.  But a lot of black leaders keep beating that dead horse. 

Here’s a big heads-up to today’s black leaders:  It’s time to leave 1960 and the days of Bull Conner … America has moved on.  It’s okay to put the bullhorn down and join us. 

Want proof? 

Since the 1960s Americans of all races elected a black President, not once but twice. 

They’ve also elected black governors, legislators and other officials.  There are blacks serving as the heads of Federal, state and local government agencies, and black judges on a variety of state and Federal benches, including the Supreme Court. 

There are many other successful blacks in leadership positions in business, industry, healthcare, communications and education throughout our society.

How do you explain them? You don’t. You look the other way and pretend they don’t matter. 

You won’t be happy until … until … well, we honestly don’t know.  Perhaps never. 

And that’s part of our frustration, leading to our growing indifference. 

In many ways, your black community is like a black hole in our society – no pun intended. 

America’s poured trillions of dollars down that hole, created special programs out the wazoo and it’s like it never happened.  All of it gets sucked into a bottomless vortex.  After about 50 years of shoveling resources into that hole we don’t have a lot to show for it as a society.   

There are some positives.  Black life expectancy has gone up by almost 30% since the 1960s and is now roughly the same as whites.  Education has also improved:  in 1960 only about 21.7% of blacks had completed high school; in 2010 it was 84.2%, about the same as whites.  In 1960 only 3.5% of blacks had college degrees; by 2010 it was 19.8%.

So health and education have improved for blacks, which are usually key building blocks for success by other races.  What’s been the result?     

Unemployment remains much higher for blacks than for other races.  When the rate recently dropped to an average of 7.3%, the black unemployment rate jumped to 13.5%. The overall teen unemployment rate is 25.1%; but for black teens it’s up to 43.1%.    

Blacks account for about 13% of the U.S. population, yet account for about 40.1% of all males in prison or in jail, about 39% of all welfare recipients, and about 22% of all food stamp recipients.  The black population is disproportionally represented in being in the system, and largely supported by the system. 

Not a great record.  What’s the cause? 

Black leaders say it’s all the result of a justice system stacked against blacks, bias and prejudice in hiring, and a lack of funding for inner-city programs and schools.     

Okay.  Could there be different causes – maybe some more obvious causes?  

1. Perhaps more black males are in prison or jail because more crimes are committed by them, and some already have a criminal record that started in their teens which results in harsher sentences. 

2. Employers are less likely to hire someone with a prison record, which is their right, and many now do criminal background checks.  If you’re a black male of any age with a criminal record, your employment prospects are severely limited. 

3. Only about 9% of black married couples live in poverty.  Since 38.2% of black children are living in poverty, the vast majority of those are in single-parent or caretaker households. 

4. If you’re a single female in your teens with a couple of kids – and their baby daddies are in prison – you’re going to have a hard time finding and keeping a job regardless of what race you are.  

Don’t know about you, but I find these more plausible causes than a vast conspiracy by the legal system, employers, and state and Federal officials against blacks.

Frankly – and I think I may speak for a sizable portion of the non-black population when I say this – we’re tired of all the excuses.  We’re also tired of being blamed for your woes. 

It’s not our fault the black community as a whole has not been more successful.  We’ve done everything we could. 

But we can’t solve your epidemic of out-of-wedlock births, now approaching 75%, which almost assures a life of poverty for mother and child.  Just about all your other social and economic problems stem from this alone.  Yet you are unwilling to address it.  

Maybe if you tried to fix some of your own problems we’d be more compassionate.  But as long as you blame others for all your misfortunes, we don’t see the point. 

We know black leaders want us to think about the black community and its problems every minute of every waking hour but the reality is we don’t. 

We sense that we’re somehow supposed to feel guilty about something related to the black community all the time.  Probably slavery.  Sorry, but we don’t.    

Despite what some in your community say, we don’t sit around and plot how to keep blacks down, from voting, or how to imprison as many black men as we can.

It’s pathetic so many of your community still think a sizable number of Americans do.  It’s shameful that some black leaders perpetuate these myths. 

The truth is, most of us are pretty much done caring.  Plus, we’re kind of busy trying to manage our own lives; we don’t have time for endless reruns of the same stuff.  

We don’t look down on you, nor do we look up to you.  However, it’s fair to say that you’re strangers to us who, except for living in the same country, appear to have little in common with us, by your own choosing. 

We also don’t care how you vote, for whom, or why.  You’ve proven that you’ll vote against your own self-interests, and against your own beliefs, purely on the basis of race.

Which seems to us to beg the question:  Who is the racist here? 

So can we end this discussion?  Now you know how we feel.  Get used to it.    

The party of big business and the rich

For decades Democrats have claimed to represent the little guy, the ordinary working man, and have routinely demonized business in general, and Wall Street, banks, and big business in particular. 

They’ve always painted Republicans as in the pocket of corporate America and the wealthy. 

This is just amazing.  Not that they’ve used this class warfare strategy.  But that they’ve gotten away with it so long.

Today’s Democrats are really the party of big business, Wall Street, banks and the wealthy.  They have been for years.  All you need to do is look at where the funding for the party comes from and who Democrats favor when it comes to regulation and enforcement and bail outs.

It’s simply stunning that this is so obvious.  Yet hardly a day goes by that some Democrat or another is trotting out some worthless, unnecessary bill to right some imagined wrong ostensibly to make “corporate America” do the right thing.  Oh, the media will lap it up and continue promoting the mythology that Democrats are the only party trying to rein in corporate excess and to make the wealthy and corporate executives “pay their fair share.” 

The reality is quite different.

Take the dust up over net neutrality – the Democrats on the FCC want to give big bandwidth providers the authority to charge different rates to different classes of content providers. 

Personally, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s already started. Netflix has already cut a deal with Comcast to insure faster downloads for Netflix customers. 

Now Comcast and lot of the other big broadband providers are in favor of this change from net neutrality, of course. Small businesses and startups are generally opposed, as are most Republicans, because they fear the big companies – like Comcast – will force smaller companies into a non-competitive “slow lane” unless they are willing to pay more. 

This would favor big businesses that have the resources to pay more for faster downloads, and has the potential to put some small businesses and their end users at a competitive disadvantage.  As the champions of the little guy, why would Democrats on the FCC be in favor of it?  Could it be that one of the largest fund raisers for Democrats in recent years runs Comcast? Do you think? 

Then there’s the whole immigration debate.  While most of the press has been focused on those mean old Republicans standing in the way hard working – albeit illegal – immigrants, and what they see as praise-worthy unilateral suspension of immigration rules by Holder and Obama, you have to look at who benefits from guest worker programs and the pull-back on enforcement.

Here’s a hint:  it’s not just the illegal immigrants.   

In fact, this Administration – and Democrats in general – are taking credit for “compassion” when they are really, and consciously, doing what big business wants, but hiding that from the public.

Big business wants cheap labor. Deep-pocketed tech giants and others also want vastly expanded H-1B allowances – from the current 65,000 to about 180,000 a year – something Democrats were willing to swallow in exchange for other immigration provisions with higher PR value.   

Like a path to virtual amnesty, which plays well politically to the Hispanic community. 

I’m puzzled by this paradox:  How can Democrats be so “concerned” about the loss of American jobs when at the same time they want to legalize up to 11 million people who came here illegally to take some of those jobs?  Millions of Americans remain out of work; what purpose is there then to increase the size of the potential workforce? 

Spare me the “jobs no Americans want” BS.  Look at practically any construction site – do you think all those Spanish speaking laborers are there because there are no American construction workers available?  The reason so many illegal immigrants are employed in America is because they will work for less, plain and simple. That’s why employers hire them, and often a lot of them.

I guess Democrats expect that out-of-work Americans will vote for Democrats anyway to keep their benefits going, so they’ve moved on to corner the Hispanic vote. 

So here’s another paradox:  If Democrats are so concerned about everyone having the right to a “living wage” why are they willing to allow employers to hire illegal immigrants to work for far less? 

Recently, this Administration cut the financial penalties almost by half for businesses who hire illegal immigrants.  And who are these businesses?  Mainly big businesses, like large agribusiness conglomerates, big manufacturers and the like.  When the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – the mouthpiece for the biggest businesses in America – aligns with Democrats on immigration reform, that tells you something.

Need more proof? Look at the bail outs.  GM and Chrysler.  The big banks.  Wall Street heavy hitters like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.  Talk about the 1%.  Talk about the ultra-rich and the ultra-powerful.  And Democrats are the party of the little guy? 

Consider ObamaCare.  Sure, there were Democrat gifts to their traditional special interests.  Yet the biggest gifts of all went to the very same boogeymen Obama claimed his legislation was designed to restrain – the biggest insurance companies, hospital management groups and big pharma.  Hell, Democrats let these same groups, and other direct beneficiaries of the law like AARP, actually write parts of the Affordable Care Act. 

Far from being adversaries, they were all in cahoots together. 

Insurers positively salivated over the prospect of millions of new customers forced to buy expanded policies at higher rates and with much higher deductibles, partially subsidized by Federal dollars for many.  Plus, insurers were essentially guaranteed not to take a financial hit if things didn’t work out as planned.  What’s not to like about that? 

Hospital management groups thrilled at the possibility that more people would come in with insurance and potentially increase their overall revenue.  Kaiser Permanente got on board early and continues to trumpet the merits of ObamaCare to any and all.  If they were taking a big hit, do you think they’d still be so vocal and public in their support?    

AARP liked ObamaCare because they thought it would boost their prescription-drugs-by-mail business.  They also expected to pump up sales of their Medicare supplement plans when the law essentially forced people 65 and older off their employer-paid plans and dumped them into crappy Medicare coverage that practically requires a supplemental plan. 

Finally, big pharma got a pass. They dodged the bullet on having their prices controlled, or being subject to negotiation by the exchanges.

And who got hurt in all this? Why, honest, hardworking Americans who paid a lot more for a lot less; small businesses who saw their insurance rates skyrocket; private-sector employees who saw a bigger chunk of their paychecks taken to offset higher premiums, to name a few. Then there were all the folks 65 and older kicked off their company plans and forced into Medicare and additional costs for Medicare supplemental plans.  Let's not forget health care providers expected to handle more patients for less money. 

Just remember, this bill passed with exclusively Democrat support.

Last but not least, let’s look at the Democrat push to raise the minimum wage.  Does this hurt big businesses?  Nope – most of them are already paying well above minimum wage.  They are largely unaffected.  Who gets hurt?  Well, small businesses mainly, like restaurants, fast-food joints and other places that hire unskilled, entry-level folks.

Democrats like to chastise outfits like McDonalds and other fast-food businesses as “big” profitable companies built on the backs of low-paid employees.  What they fail to mention is that a lot of the McDonalds, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts and others they lump together are franchise operations – where the franchise owner works alongside his or her employees every day.  Trust me, unless somebody owns a bunch of Manhattan Bagel or McDonalds franchises, the owner’s not getting rich; he or she is probably working long hours behind the counter taking your order to eke out a living.

Talk to somebody who owns a single fast-food franchise sometime and see for yourself.  I have.  They aren’t living high.  Most are just breaking even at best.  Raise their employee costs and it means they can pay fewer people.  Which means they have to work even longer hours themselves.  Or shut down completely and put all their employees out of work. 

So much for helping the little guy. 

Wherever you look, the supposed party of the little guy, the protector of honest, hard-working citizens, is actually the party deep in the pockets of big business and the ultra-rich. 

There’s a very old saying about hypocritical Prohibition-era politicians who were “dry in the mouth and wet in the pocket.”

That’s what today’s Democrat party is.  They talk about helping small business. They talk about helping honest, hard-working people get ahead. They talk about helping American workers get good paying jobs.  They talk about having corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share.

But it’s all bullshit.

They’ve thrown in their lot with big business and the mega rich.  Small businesses and honest, hardworking Americans be damned.  All you have to do is look at the legislation they support, the regulations they enforce and the laws they ignore.    

You’ll see the fingerprints of big business and the ultra-rich all over those.