In the recent posts about global justice and the related microcosm issue of help for panhandlers, one of the points I have sought to make is that swell intentions are not even close to good enough. Here is another example of that principle, a little closer to home.
In the latest Atlantic Monthly there is a striking article about Bill Cosby’s unique brand of conservative black rage. He is traveling around the country speaking to rallies of black men only, no reporters allowed, and he is letting them have it. His message is one of personal responsibility, coupled with deep anger over the cultural degradation that is now de rigeur. It is not that Cosby thinks there is no such thing as white racism — he knows better. But he is telling black men to stop blaming other people for what they are doing to themselves. And, pointing straight at a number of cultural practices that are suicidal, Cosby is telling them to knock it off.
I recall growing up as a small boy in a segregated town, going to the white elementary school a couple miles away, with the black school just a block away from our house. Few things are more self-evident than the screwed up nature of that kind of system. Petty, wrong-headed, bigoted, frustrating, and all the rest of it. But was it so bad that progressive fixers with good intentions couldn’t make it worse? C’mon, guess.
Cosby says that “you could see the Klan, but because these things were not on a horse, because there was no white sheet, and the people doing the deed were not white, we saw thing in the light of family and forgiveness . . . We didn’t pay attention to the dropout rate. We didn’t pay attention to the fathers . . .”
But in the meantime, if a black teenage girl got pregnant, the fixers were right there to pay her good money from the government provided she did not marry the father. And so now a generation of boys has grown up without fathers, to what effect? As the article notes, “Blacks are 13 percent of the population, yet black men account for 49 percent of America’s murder victims and 41 percent of the prison population.”
The thoughtless champions of Uplift are a devastating force. They are so certain of the purity of their intentions that it goes without saying that the consequences of all their actions are bound to be good.
“Lord, when did we abandon you to life in prison without further thought?” “Inasmuch as you insisted on paying mothers to remain unmarried, you did it unto me.” The reason we have decreasing opportunities to entertain angels unawares is that a large number of them will not be eligible for parole for another fifteen years — thanks to the high number of people who always have a high degree of confidence that they can fix any problem with government money. But at least we feel good about ourselves, which is actually the thing that really matters to white liberals.
In the meantime, I commend the Cosby article to you. A real eye-opener.