By Patrick J. Buchanan
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America . Fair enough. But
this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from,
not just lectured to.. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions,
grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that
600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40
million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of
freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his
knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans.
Untold trillions have been spent since the ' 60s on welfare, food stamps, rent
supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid,
Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the
African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and
colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action,
contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have
donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care,
retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude???
Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona ?
And Johnstown , and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited
lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids.?
Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates
for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white
America 's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent
and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black
community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially
interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals
choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45
percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the
reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three
years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape
case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black
assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax
dollars ago.
We are a Christian Nation even if Mr. Obama says we are not.
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