The Eternal Diplomat in Me.......

......compels me to further explain my Colin Powell post. This is simply a further expansion on where I think the issues of black people lie.

To begin, I'll say this: from a superficial standpoint, the Juan Williams ilk does address reasonable points. Personal responsibility is a value that should be further emphasized, because quite frankly, something has to happen so that we can all put a foot in these deadbeat dads' behinds. We all know the statistics: 70% of black households are headed by single mothers, there are more black men in prison than in college, etc. Obviously, something is missing from the pot given just these two figures. Also, there has to be a renewed commitment to family on the part of the fathers who just impregnate women and run, because quite frankly, it isn't fair that a child is left without a father because that person didn't want to take responsibility for his own flesh and blood. On these two issues, the pundits have it right.......sort of. I'll address why in a minute.

However, back to the issue of black America for a second. It is beyond short-sighted to assume that blacks are bereft of ideas such as this, or to have the perception of black conservatives as shining beacons in a sea of darkness. The ideas of responsibility and accountability have existed with the black community for years; Malcolm X--both as a member of the Nation of Islam and as a Sunni Muslim--is probably the best historical example of it. Hell, Louis Farrakhan, as reviled as he is these days, was a proponent of this, so from a "leadership" standpoint, these beliefs have always existed. In a more general sense, these beliefs still hold as well; conversations about it are held in black neighborhoods, homes, and barbershops all over the country. I'm reasoning as a I write here, but perhaps, the biggest issue is that these sentiments aren't expressed in public spheres enough. Perhaps it's easy for deadbeat dads to remain deadbeats when they know that there's no public clamoring for him to step up and do his job as a father. I'm not quite sure about this, personally. However, I've seen enough in my lifetime to know that values such as accountability are quite existent in the black community.

Here's where people like Williams get it wrong: to act as though these values, and these values alone, are the answer to black people's ills is to only see one part of the equation. In a larger sense, to act as though it is simply a so-called victim complex that's hampering race relations in America is an egregious distortion of reality. Yes, stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility will help black families, and yes, the victim complex that some blacks have hinders race relations to a certain extent. However, it's going to take more than one course of action to fix these complex issues. Issues like the lack of fathers in the household give rise to more issues such as high crime rates and low graduation rates for black men; that, in turn, feeds the stereotypes of black men as criminals and lazy, do-nothings. It defies common sense to think that simply saying "stop being a victim and pull yourself up" is going to solve these problems. Another thing to consider: none of this happens in a vacuum. The deadbeat dad who's skipping out on his child probably came from a single parent household himself. Probably never learned the value of getting an education from his parent, and simply doesn't know any other way to live his life. This doesn't excuse him for his actions later in life, but I point this out to say that these problems are cyclical in that the repetition of them is almost surely to produce the same or similar result in later generations. Given this, is it really that big a secret that a child who grows up without a father runs out on his own child later in life? Think about it like this: that child's mother worked all day to pay bills while he probably attended some inner city school with shitty teachers. That desire to learn, the relevance of education is never established in that child, and he or she is essentially ruined at a young age. Children can learn, but in the absence of a support system, of a family to instill values into his being, that child's not going to get very far. The ultimate problem with the logic of a Juan Williams is that it starts too late down the line, when that young child becomes an adult. They ignore the circumstances that surround his upbringing, they ignore that young child who could have learned something in school didn't see the need to because his parents weren't around to tell him why learning was so important. In short, they disconnect adult actions from childhood context.

Again, I don't knock black conservatives as a whole based on a few of the cats that I disagree with, but guys like Williams do blacks a disservice with such a half-assed view of the black community. They present no real answers too the ills of blacks, only recycled platitudes that appease their audiences. It's the equivalent of taking a pound of flesh off of the backs of blacks with each word spoken on the subject.