Too many African-American leaders are pushing the very divisiveness they claim to abhor

Stephen Towe:

I have a penchant for writing about difficult things, because so many other people love to avoid the subject matter. As an American Caucasian male who has grown up in the most intense time of racial change our country has ever known, it’s time I write honestly about the most taboo of all subjects — racism. And man, has it ever changed since 1960.

I want to say that I am personally sorry that our Constitution and Bill of Rights were ignored regarding fair and equal treatment of African Americans for 185 years.

That action was inexcusable, but it is now a sad part of our past and not something to continue to dwell on. It is past time to move on.

AC-T local columnist Dwight Mullen, a political science professor at UNC Asheville, consistently continues to preach the politics of divisiveness that are a carbon copy of Jesse Jackson’s, Al Sharpton’s, and others front and center on the American stage of racial theatrics.

It is a never-ending soap opera designed to make all white folks feel guilty for sins we did not personally commit, punish college students with racial guilt to the extent that they feel the need to apologize for being born white, and capitalize on the same tired, broken and patently false theme of racial prejudice.

Mullen has caused me to lose my patience at long last with his column, “King holiday’s stature is a reminder of how elusive equality remains in America,” (AC-T, Jan. 8).

African-Americans have had 42 years since the integration of all public facilities to gain a foothold and begin to prosper within the American educational and economic system. It is not our fault that:

Forty-nine percent of prison inmates are African-American, when they comprise only 13 percent of the overall population.

One in three black males aged 20-29 is under criminal justice supervision.

One in 14 black males are in jail, compared to one in 100 white males.

A black male born in 1991 has a 29 percent chance of being imprisoned in his life, compared to 4 percent for whites and 16 percent for Hispanics (Bureau of Justice Statistics from 1996).

Indeed, blacks are five times more likely than whites to be in jail because they disproportionately commit more crimes, not because of a white conspiracy or racial prejudices.

When the politics of divisiveness and racism are accurately portrayed, it is the African-American leaders who insist on blaming whites for their problems that perpetuate racism and promote hostility, not the attitudes of whites.

The more African-American leaders play the blame game on whites, the less likely their constituents will wake up to the truthful realization that the moral virtues of hard work, education, sexual restraint and honoring our laws are the only tickets out of their self-imposed exile from the American dream.

Mullen’s column was about Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and in it he stated that equality in “health care, housing, employment, education and criminal justice are areas that continue to have worse outcomes for African-Americans than for whites.”

He goes on to state that “these areas are beyond the ability of the individual to single-handedly overcome,” and that King “thought that the institutions responsible for these areas should be held accountable for delivering racially just outcomes.”

No mention of personal accountability, no mention that what King actually said was, “I have a dream of a day when a man will be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin.”

No, Mullen and many like him want the institutions, “the hospitals, the Realtors, the banks, industries, schools and law enforcement agencies” to “deliver racially just outcomes.” He even suggests there be annual audits for performance. Meritorious behavior be damned — if you are black, you deserve equality of outcomes ... same pay, same benefits, same health care, and you don’t even have to work for it. According to this argument, whites owe equality of outcomes to blacks, regardless of their behavior or merit, simply because of their skin color.

That is not what King stood for, and Mullen’s belief in that lie is nothing but the reverse racism of privilege by skin color. African-American leaders do nothing but damage to their cause by such suggestions, causing the very divisiveness they claim to be opposed to. Truthfully, until this attitude of privilege by skin color is erased from the African-American mentality, they are doomed to failure and despair in a nation that celebrates and rewards achievement earned by hard work and efficiency, and not by skin color. The recent incredible success of the Asian and Latino populations of America are ample testament to that reality.

The moment anyone feels they “deserve” something they have not earned, they doom themselves to resentment, anger and a self-defeating psychology of privilege. It is unfortunate that prominent and influential leaders who should know better still cling to this defeatist psychology, which only alienates their partners and reinforces the racism they claim to despise.

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