No Pimp Like an Old Pimp

Bothersome to see so many recent baloney charges of racism. What the hay is going on?

The latest cry wolfer is Professor "Skip" Gates. Gates is contemplating a lawsuit, demanding the cop apologize, and muses and mulls the idea of getting a PBS deal to do a documentary on racial profiling ... all in a week's pimping I guess.

Here is the arresting officer's report. Now who in their right mind is going to engage in a pissing contest with a cop and bring the cop's momma into it? I don't get it. There are sufficient instances of genuine racism around the country - why is the media focusing on phony accusations, especially one by a pompous large ego who believes his social status is leeway to act a fool with a cop? Gates swears he did not yell but the pic looks like a yell to me. When cops respond to a possible burglary in progress you, black or white, do not respond by asking if it is because you're black in America or say things like "you don't know who you're messin' with."

Gates is a "scholar" of W.E.B. DuBois, and I've always preferred Booker T. Washington. The difference?

Here, Ellis Washington highlights the differences (although usually he's too "rightwing" for my taste):

The dichotomy between Du Bois and Washington would be that of expediency versus patience; political protest verses self-help; overt activism in the streets verses the quiet assiduousness of personal and moral development in the home; seeking redress of rights in the courts of America for better jobs, schools and educational opportunities versus seeking knowledge in the libraries of America and creating our own jobs, schools, and educational opportunities; forcing Whites to accept us as equals verses showing Whites that we can first treat each other as equals. Such were (and presently are) the choices Black America must choose.

.... Enter the "Race merchants" and "Poverty Pimps," that is, Black leaders, who make a living keeping racism alive. While spouting empty rhetoric, they only feign combating racism. Such people have woven a carefully crafted web of deceit over the past several decades to maintain their influence and power over blacks. On this topic, in The End of Racism, Dinesh D'Souza writes: "The civil rights establishment has a vested interest in the continuation of spectacular episodes of racism: these provide an important justification for continuing transfer payments to minority activists."

However, this Faustian bargain, while bringing renewed influence and money to the leaders, resulted in the Black community languishing in inner city ghettos. As frustration grew in Black America and racial violence erupted in the cities, Whites fled in droves, leaving these cities without a viable tax base, or trained Blacks to fill the newly-vacant job base. Thus, large cities all across America followed the same refrain:
Black frustration--->Black riots--->White flight--->Dwindling tax base--- >Ghettoization--->Rise of the Black Underclass

In conclusion, once again the pivotal question to be asked is, Who had the best philosophy for helping Blacks attain equal treatment under the law--Booker T. Washington or W. E. B. Du Bois? History, trillions of dollars of redistributing wealth from Whites to minorities, and 40 years of civil rights and affirmative action programs, indicate that Washington's self-help philosophy was, indeed, the better path for Blacks to take.

Other ethnic groups also have histories of discrimination, segregation, and racism directed toward them by Whites (albeit less severe than what Blacks received). Yet they overcame such circumstances--not through activism and protesting--but quietly and methodically improving their lives by building their own institutional structures, achieved through work and the maintenance of family ties. It can be no different for the Black race. Blacks need to "have an ear to hear," in order to apply Booker T. Washington's principles of self-help and to partake fully in the American Dream."