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I was truly taken aback by a recent column by Star Parker, the Religious Right activist and failed Republican congressional candidate (she received only 23 percent of the vote), and I’m compelled to respond. For those of you who don’t know, Ms. Parker is an outspoken anti-gay and anti-choice activist, and happens to be African American.
I take umbrage to her column entitled, “Too Many Blacks Still Don’t Want To Be Free.” It’s misguided, rather odious…and as boxer Mike Tyson might say, ludicrous.
Parker states: “The message that massive government spending and borrowing does not grow the economy has not reached blacks. Rather, like our president, they seem to believe that the problem is we just haven’t yet dug the fiscal hole deep enough.”
I’m going to address the offensiveness and short sightedness of this statement. Parker so misreads what really occurred between 2000-2008, that we’re in this economic cesspool mainly because of the failed economic policies of George W. Bush. Actually, calling them "policies" are being charitable; they are more akin to voodoo economics, how his daddy characterized Reagan's policies when he was trying to best him for the 1980 Republican nomination.
By borrowing massive, unprecedented amounts of money from the Chinese and others to pay for two wars “off the books,” “Dub-Yah” (the last president Bush) drove America into this enormous, gaping deficit canyon. Along with that, granting several huge tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent added to the madness. As well, Dub-Yah squandered the surplus President Clinton left us.
DubYah's “economic policies” have savaged Americans, disproportionately minorities. And Blacks in particular. Just this month, the Pew Research Center published a mind-blowing report that states that wealth gaps have risen to record highs between whites, Blacks and Latinos. According to the report, the “Great Recession” and the uneven recovery have obliterated decades of minority gains, leaving whites on average with 20 times the net worth of Blacks and 18 times that of Latinos. The word “shameful” doesn’t adequately describe this.
Remember the classic pop song "Clean-Up Woman" by Betty Wright? Well, President Obama has had to be the “Clean-Up Man.” Well-respected economists have stated that the president’s economic policies prevented us from falling into another Great Depression. In truth, we needed a larger economic stimulus than we got.
And, isn't it interesting that although American corporations are racking up record profits, they aren’t hiring and investing in American workers? These companies definitely are doing just that for their overseas workers. And the “Repubs” have the unmitigated gall to say that if taxes are raised on the wealthiest one percent (the so-called “job creators”), that they in turn won't be able to create new jobs. Wise also notes a Kaiser Family Foundation report of a few years back. “According to Kaiser, two-thirds of whites think blacks are every bit as well off as whites when it comes to getting routine health care when they need it. In truth, African-Americans are far more likely than whites to lack health insurance coverage, and thus have a much harder time accessing routine and quality care.” Therefore, he concludes, “As a result of these (and other) disparities, black families are far more vulnerable than their white counterparts to economic downturns (as we’ve just seen).”
The fact is that during the Clinton Administration, at least 20 million new jobs were created. But during DubYah's tenure, only about 8 million new jobs were created--even though he gave successive tax cuts for those magical "job creators."
Parker continues, “Is this a racial thing? Whites will jump off the ship run by a black captain in a minute while blacks will ride it out until it hits the iceberg?” To even suggest that is racist. And just plain dumb. During the last administration, an overwhelming number of whites stuck with the white captain (Dub-Yah) even though the ship was speeding towards the iceberg. They did this by “rubber stamping” his sending the deficit through the proverbial roof.
Next, Parker writes, “Almost a half century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, too many blacks still don’t want to be free and accept the responsibilities that go with it. Too many blacks still believe that the condition of their lives is caused by what someone does or has.”
Now, I believe that each and every one of us has to take personal responsibility for our lives. However, I take umbrage to Parker because again, she conveniently, and for whatever reason, fails to own up to the history and the reality of America.
I’ve written extensively about the continuing impact and ramifications of institutional racism, which continues to put people of color--particularly African-Americans--into a suffocating, vice-like choke hold.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Allow me to quote Tim Wise, a leading anti-racism activist and one of America’s most respected--who happens to be Caucasian. The following excerpts are from his 2010 book, Colorblind—The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity.
“Recent polling has found that most whites believe blacks are just as well off as they are when it comes to jobs and income. This, despite the fact that African-Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed, in good times or bad. As of 2009, even black men with college degrees were nearly twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts. On average, blacks are about three times more likely than non-Hispanic whites to be poor and three and a half times as likely to be extremely poor.”
Wise continues, “Acts of race-specific domination and injustice, both historically and today, exact a much greater toll on black and brown communities than the post-racial liberals—and needless to say conservatives—are prepared to admit.” The anti-racist activist states that the vast majority of African-Americans were denied full access to wealth-building opportunities created by President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs that were critical to the economic recovery after the Great Depression. However, whites had full access to, and took full advantage of these wealth-building opportunities, which greatly explain the extraordinary wealth gap between whites and minorities—particularly Blacks—that the new Pew Research Center data show.
Wise concludes, “The impact of this institutionalized discrimination and white racial preference has been profound, and it is mightily implicated in the current maldistribution of resources between whites and persons of color.”
And in closing, I have to ask: are the current Repubs/Tea Party field of presidential candidates really offering any constructive and appealing ideas and policies to/for persons of color, especially African-Americans? I think not.
Poor Ms. Parker. She and others of her particular stripe are really drinking the “Tea.” And gittin’ drunk. The tea’s of very potent stock. And to make matters worse, it’s laced with the “Kool Aid.”
Sho’ Nuff.
