The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Black and White Rednecks

A reader sent me the following links:

http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2005/04/quotthe_redneck.html

http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2005/04/how_the_scotsir.html

They deal with a theory by Black Conservative commentator Thomas Sewell on the origins of some rather dysfunctional elements of black culture.  I don't have the specific knowledge to support or refute his theories, but thought some of you might well find them interesting. 
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In general, however, I say a resounding: "black ghetto culture contains some horrifically dysfunctional aspects."  There.  I said it.  This doesn't mean that they were not, and are not subjected to damage.  If you examined a forty-five year old adult who was sorely abused for the first thirty years of his life, you would expect to find dysfunctional behaviors, negative believes, crushingly distorted self-image.  Well, American blacks were enslaved for three hundred years, and free for about 150--the same rough proportion.  If there were not DEEP problems, we would be super-people.  And we're not.  We're just people.  My belief is that the primary difference between groups is their software, not their hardware.  And too damned many black Americans are running crappy software.  Then again, they didn't write it, did they?  Then again, that's irrelevant: it is their responsibility to upgrade.
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Another comment.  On one of the blogs, there is a typical comment about "politically correct" language.  I am so disgusted by the hijacking of that term, the implication that language, and news, and culture are only "politically correctly" slanted to the left.  This is just an absolute lie.  I have seen countless movies where anything non-white or non-American was presented as sub-standard.  this is what the audience at the time wanted to see, and that was a clear slanting to some of the more hierarchical elements on the right.  Movies where the domination of the environment was presented as good and right, where Biblical story-telling was presented as historical fact, where the founding fathers were presented as flawless paragons, etc. etc. etc.
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But the ONLY time you hear the term "Politically Correct" is in a criticism of the Left.  For God's sake, people.  Both sides have their flaws.  Domination by EITHER side would be disasterous.  Wake the hell up, or we're in trouble.

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