'In one of the nastily cynical moments, Obama claimed that “to honor these five outstanding officers who we lost” we would have to act on “uncomfortable” truths such as his claim that the police are racist. “Insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals,” he spun. While the media applauded his “healing”, Obama was just recycling his speeches from before the Dallas shooting. The talking points had not changed. They had only been moved around a little to exploit the police officers murdered by a #BlackLivesMatter supporter in order to promote #BlackLivesMatter.'
I, for one, am so sick and
tired of Democrats blaming 'White America' for everything that is wrong in the
‘Black Community’ (as though #BlackLivesMatter represents the entire black
population and White Supremacist, Dylann Roof, represents the white
community). Not only is this absolutely
wrong, but they are flat-out lying about actual facts and history.
I’m fed up with our
outrageously dishonest President and his even more preposterously prevaricating
propagandists and revisionist historians in the Democratic Party, the media,
academia, and on the Left, in general.
You see, it is one thing
to be blamed for something that you did; it is quite another – not to mention
inflammatory, infuriating bridge-burning – to be blamed for something for which
you had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with whilst those on the Left, who
most demonstratively did, rewrite history and take Stalin’s Eraser to their own
roles in bringing about those things for which I and other white people now
stand accused.
Things really aren't as
they seem and those on the Left need to be reminded of some inconvenient
historical facts.
President Reagan hands his wife, First Lady Nancy Reagan, the pen he used to sign a $1.7 billion anti-drug bill at the White House. Looking on from the far left is Representative Charles B. Rangel.
'On
tapes secretly recorded by former president Richard Nixon, Congressman
Charles Rangel can be heard in closed door meeting encouraging Nixon to be more
aggressive on the ‘War on Drugs.’ ‘Public enemy number one in the United States
is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage
a new, all-out offensive,’ the Harlem Democrat can be heard saying in words
that Nixon would later mimic. Rangel opposed drug legalization and embraced
police militarization. He stood proudly by Nancy as President Ronald Reagan
signed another drug-war law.'
'The Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994 contained an expansion of the federal death penalty to
include drug offenses, the 'Three Strikes, You're Out' rule, and
billions in funding for police, prisons, and states that made it harder for
people to get parole (though Mr. Clinton neglected to mention this when he
mentioned that most prisoners are incarcerated by the state).
But
if Bill and Hillary Clinton were the pot, black politicians, activists, and
pastors were the kettle. Their support of punitive measures actually paved the
way for Clinton. It began with the man Ebony Magazine called the 'front-line general
in the war on drugs.' ...
In
addition to the dozens of pastors who signed a letter in support of the bill,
it also had the support of black mayors. Kurt Schmoke, the first elected black
mayor of Baltimore, was a vigorous supporter.
Even
then U.S. Representative Kweisi Mfume, then chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus
(CBC) who understood the bill was a means to 'find better ways to
incarcerate people' eventually buckled, not only supporting the bill, but was
ultimately responsible for its passage by rallying a majority of CBC members to
vote for it after the bill was nearly derailed on a procedural issue.
The
Clintons quite likely were motivated by political expediency -- appealing to
white voters with 'tough on crime' measures; however, it is
clear black leaders were simply desperate to rid communities of the gang
violence terrorizing their communities. The crime wave was real with rapes,
assaults, and murders at never before seen levels, especially in inner-cities.
'This idea — that strict drug laws
have done more harm than good in black America — is common these days. But
early on, many African-American leaders championed those same tough-on-crime
policies.
The Rev. George McMurray was lead
pastor at the Mother A.M.E. Zion Church in Harlem in the 1970s, when the city
faced a major heroin epidemic. He called for drug dealers to spend the rest of
their lives behind bars.
‘When you send a few men to prison for
life, someone's going to pass the word down, 'It's not too good over here.' ...
Instead of [robbing] and selling dope, 'I want to go to school and live a good
life.'‘
Black support for the drug war didn't
just grow in New York alone. At the federal level, members of the newly formed
Congressional Black Caucus met with President Richard Nixon, urging him to ramp
up the drug war as quickly as possible.
Michael Javen Fortner, a political
scientist and historian at Rutgers University, says that ‘the silent black
majority of Harlem and New York City felt constantly accosted by drug addicts,
by pushers, by crime.’'
‘African-Americans
are portrayed as passive victims to this, as the prison boom just washed over
their communities, as if they were just completely victimized,’ said
Vanessa Barker, author of The Politics
of Imprisonment. ‘I find that stance dehumanizing, I also
find that stance empirically, historically inaccurate.’
Barker
and others argue that in the 1960s, residents of black neighborhoods felt
constantly under threat from addicts and others associated with the drug trade,
and their calls for increased safety measures resonated at community meetings,
in the pages of black newspapers like The Amsterdam News, and in
churches.’
Has Charlie Rangel ever
apologized to the Black Community? The Congressional Black Caucus? Leaders of
the Black Community? No. If they are not silent, they are blaming ‘racist White
America’ and ‘institutional racism’.
And, as you can see,
Congressman Rangel has been hard at work trying to ‘right’ his ‘wrongs’…
Consider one of the big
talking points of politicians and others who claim that the harsher penalties
for people selling crack cocaine than for people selling powder cocaine show
racism, since crack cocaine is more likely to be used by blacks.
The
cold fact, however, is that black political and community leaders, back in the
1980s, spearheaded the drive for more severe legal penalties against those who
sold crack cocaine. Black congressman Charlie Rangel of Harlem was just one of those black leaders
who urged these more severe penalties. So did the New York Times,
the promoter of many crusades on the left.
Fast forward to the present, when both
black leaders and the New York Times are blaming
white racism for the more severe penalties for selling crack cocaine. If you
want to see what they were saying back in the 1980s, check pages 154-159 of
The War on Cops.
When
the political winds change, politicians change. But that does not change the
facts about what they said and did before.
- Dr
Thomas Sowell
Related Reading: The Inconvenient Truth About Race And Crime
