I am reposting this slightly updated article by journalist Shari Goodman. She makes many inconvenient, but valid points in this piece about the irrationality and absurdity of “white guilt”–of which I (and millions of other “European-Americans”) have none. Zilch. Zero. Nada. The inane notion of “victimhood” in our country is growing tiresome, as is the concept of “white privilege” of which I (and millions of other “European Americans”) have had none. Zilch, Zero. Nada.
Nobody in this life gave me anything I didn’t earn–except my mother, who gave me life. White privilege is a fabrication perpetrated by some in the minority community who are convinced they are victims. About the only white people I know with white privilege are those individuals who are the offspring of billionaires. And then, not all of them are even white! Read on. I think you will be enlightened by some indisputable facts.
By Shari Goodman
Fresh off the destruction of historical monuments by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, new protests are occurring–this time against our National Anthem and our flag. “Taking the knee“ was first introduced by former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick a few years ago, but has since gained momentum as many other black athletes with multi-million-dollar salaries have joined in solidarity with demonstrations against so-called white oppression and racism.
There is even a new Black National Anthem entitled “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which was first written as a poem in 1899 by James Weldon Johnson, former leader of the NAACP. Johnson wrote the poem for the 90th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Apparently, the NFL has agreed to play the anthem before every NFL game during the first week of the season, followed by the National Anthem.
I wonder if this means that every minority, every religion, and every ethnic group will now have their own national anthem? If that’s the case, I guess the nation’s motto “E Pluribus, Unum,” (Out of Many, One) needs to be scrapped.
You would think the nation was still afflicted with slavery and had never experienced a seminal civil rights movement. In fact, America fought a civil war to end slavery. It’s been over 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, thus, the fate of today’s blacks rests not upon yesterday’s slaveholders, but upon today’s failed black leadership who have intentionally kept America’s blacks on an imaginary plantation through the indoctrination of victimhood.
By instilling the notion that blacks today are the victims of white racism and “white privilege”, black leadership (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Maxine Waters, to name a few) have created not only an entitlement mentality but dependency and helplessness prevalent among young blacks in inner cities throughout the country.
It is not “whitey” who is committing 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders, 45 percent of assaults in the 75 biggest counties throughout the United States. Despite comprising only about 15 percent of the population in those counties. 91 percent of blacks are murdered by other blacks.
Blacks comprise 12 percent of the population but commit 42 percent of the robberies and 34 percent of felonies. In a report from the Department of Justice, over a 30-year period between 1980 and 2008, blacks committed half of all homicides in the United States despite comprising only 13 percent of the population.
Furthermore, a 2007 FBI file reports there were 433,934 single-offender victimization crimes against whites by blacks compared to 55,685 crimes committed by whites against blacks — eight times as many more crimes committed against whites by blacks. Interracial rape is almost exclusively a black-on-white crime with 14,000 assaults on white women but not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female.
In her book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, Heather McDonald documents the inner-city warfare committed by black males against other black males. In Chicago, 76 percent of all homicides are committed by blacks, and 78 percent of all juvenile arrests involve blacks.
Black educational statistics are dismal when compared to whites. In a 2012-2013 report by the Schott Foundation titled “Black Lives Matter: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males,” it was reported that only 59 percent of black males graduate from high school compared to 65 percent for Latinos and 80 percent for whites. In Detroit, a city governed by black leadership for decades, only 20 percent of black males graduate from high school. What an indictment and disgrace!
Nor are whites responsible for the huge increase in out-of-wedlock births. In 2013, 71 percent of black births were born to black unwed mothers.
These children were born into a life of poverty without the benefit of a father in the home. The norm for these kids is to drop out, use drugs, become unemployed, commit crimes, and become imprisoned at many more times the rate of whites, Asians, and Hispanics.
Yes, the black community has a problem, but it is of its own making, and too often whites are the victims of a dysfunctional black community. America has lavishly poured billions of taxpayer dollars in recent decades to improve public education, outreach, and equal opportunity programs such as Affirmative Action for blacks in inner cities, but to what avail?
We have stepped aside and watched silently as city after city, once safe and prosperous, became Third World outposts after decades of corrupt black Democratic leadership. They enriched themselves with unkept promises while the rest of the population floundered.
For decades, beginning with the 60s, white guilt was kept alive by a civil rights revolution that swept the nation. Many blacks found success in the media, the press, education, sports, law enforcement, and the halls of government, culminating in the election of the first black President, Barack Hussein Obama.
Many whites, eager to assuage their guilt after many years of playing defense, voted not for the best man to fill the office, but for a symbol, they hoped would end the racial conflict once and for all.
Contrarily, the election of Obama only served to exacerbate tension between whites and blacks. Many blacks felt emboldened and protected in their demands, and racist protests against police are now commonplace.
Chants by Black Lives Matter “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!” were frequently heard at protests. The result is a war on cops with numerous officers killed in the line of duty in NYC, Dallas, Baton Rouge, San Antonio, and other cities throughout the land.
It is not you who needs protection from us. It is we who need protection from you. Black problems are self-created, and history has proven that no amount of money thrown at them will solve the problem. Scapegoating is getting tiresome and dangerous.
Do not lecture us about social injustice and the debt owed to you. The only thing we owe you and what is owed to any of us is equal opportunity. We have more than given that to you. It is high time for the black community to look inwards, and when it does, it will discover the problem is not a lack of opportunities, but a lack of values.
Education, self-reliance, delayed gratification, responsibility, hard work, ambition, and an intact family are values incorporated and ingrained within those who lead decent, productive lives. It is lacking within a large segment of the black community.
Shame on those who display ingratitude and dishonor America, a country that has given black athletes the opportunity to make millions playing a sport that young men in Africa can only dream about, a country that has given blacks liberty and opportunity.
Shari Goodman is an educator, political activist, public speaker, and journalist. Her articles can be found in American Thinker, World Net Daily, and Israel Today among others.
I have no guilt either. When I was working, I ensured that African American businesses received 21% of the available supply chain budgets under my control. This amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Like you, I believe the concepts of white guilt and white privilege are canards that leftists (who may suffer from white guilt) have continued to parrot until they have lost all meaning.
Agreed