Submitted by James, Dec 5, 2006 01:51

Back in the 1960s, I marched for civil rights, determined to make the country a better place for blacks as well as whites. I supported the Civil Rights Act, which provided a helping hand through programs like Affirmative Action, EEOC, and expanded welfare programs that were designed to bootstrap blacks out of the working class, where they were solidly located and employed, and into the professional class. To a significant degree, these programs were successful: Between 1975 and 1995, the number of blacks moving into the middle and professional classes increased, even as the number of whites in these classes decreased. Unfortunately, this success was offset by a simultaneous failure. The very programs that helped so many achieve socioeconomic mobility turned a large segment of the black population--a segement made up predominantly of young black males--into irresponsible slackers who feel that the world owes them a living. I recall seeing an interview with a black looter during the Rodney King riots in LA being asked why he was stealing merchandise from a store. "I wants things," he said. "Why don't you get a job?" the reporter asked. "Man, I ain't gonna work at no Burger King for $6 an hour! I deserves at least $25 an hour if I'm gonna work!" "Well," asked the reporter, "do you have any skills or education that would motivate an employer to pay you that much?" "Hell, no! I dropped out of high school! But I should get that much 'cause I deserves it! An' until I gets me that kind of job, I'm gonna be out here takin' what I wants." We now have a two-tiered society among blacks: A thriving educated group, comprised disproportionately of women, and an impoverished, uneducated, unmotivated criminal element getting by day-to-day through selling drugs, pimping, and stealing. Black communities that once were models of family values, with strong male role models, have disappeared. Eighty-five percent of black children are born to unwed mothers, nearly all of them teenagers. The fathers, lacking even the most fundamental of manly responsibilities, either disappear completely or show up once a month, usually around the first, to demand part of the mother's welfare check. Members of the black community, but especially males, should be ashamed.

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