Being informed today about current events is both easier, and more difficult, than perhaps at any time in our nation’s history. While our access to information from various sources is growing more expansive, we have increasingly less time available to give thoughtful consideration to any of it – not to mention discern fact from fiction.
Many of us are working longer hours to make ends meet and reading the news is less of a priority when children have their homework to finish, baths to take, and the checkbook still has to be balanced.
So last Sunday, when I read Prentiss Smith’s column on this editorial page, where he attempted to simplify the thought process for black voters this fall by reminding them that voting for Republicans is analogous to voting for racists, I got angry.
I got angry because it’s a lie, and because history is filled with examples of lies that have oppressed the human spirit, in an attempt to seize those rights that were granted unto us only by God – and not by government. But as Hitler’s propaganda minister understood, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” And this is the case when it comes to Democrats.
Prentiss knows better that Republicans enacted the civil rights laws in the 1950’s and 1960’s, over the objection of Democrats. He knows that even though Democrats are considered more caring and sympathetic to the plight of the poor, it has been the Democrat-led welfare programs over the past 50 years, which have virtually destroyed the black family, and the black community.
He’s aware that before these welfare programs began in 1965, only 22% of black children were born into single parent families, but that after these Democrat-led programs began, the illegitimacy rate in the black community tripled to almost 70%. He knows too this sent millions of black families into poverty, since the poverty rate for single-mother families is nearly five times more than the rate for married-couple families, not to mention that boys born to these single-mothers (especially who didn’t finish high school) are twice as likely to end up in prison, as well.
He knows the statistics back then show that the unemployment rate among young black men was not only lower than it is today, before these welfare programs were enacted, but that it was nearly the same as the unemployment rate for whites.
And he knows that today the race hustlers in the Democrat Party are still manipulating the black community, even as the unemployment rate for blacks continues to balloon under this administration – an unemployment rate that is twice as high as whites, and almost as much as the unemployment rate of Asians and Hispanics combined.
And he knows that Washington is marginalizing the black community more each day by allowing more illegal immigrants to flood the market, reducing wages and employment opportunities in the black community (not to mention taking their votes for granted) because there are simply not enough low-skilled jobs to go around for both blacks and illegal immigrants.
Despite these facts, the lie persists that Republicans are racist and therefore (according to Prentiss) need to find a way to broaden their appeal to blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc.
I disagree. This pandering has gone on for too long now, and our nation has to only political correctness and trillions of dollars of debt to show for it. It has divided us as a country, and is one of the reasons that Americans are frustrated with our political party system in the first place, and are registering to vote as “no party” instead. Republicans sounding like Democrats will have the same destructive effect on the black community that Democrats have had all these years.
So, no, the Republican Party does not need to talk to minorities as minorities – we ought to be talking to one another as Americans, demanding results, instead of more rhetoric, and planning for the long-run, instead of merely how to win elections.