The tagline for the (generic, pretty uninteresting) New York Times article on the future direction of African-American politics is:
Many African-Americans are uncertain of what the civil rights movement accomplished and how it should move forward.
“…what the civil rights movement accomplished…”??
My God. I spent a lot of time as kid with two black families and both Joe and Theodis could tell me and told me at every opportunity that they could – very clearly and elequently – what the civil rights movement had accomplished, and how proud and happy they were for their fellow Southern blacks who’d finally had enough.
I’d suggest that a better use of the time of whatever editor wrote that, and of the Times’ valuable newsprint (and web space) would be collecting some oral histories of just what the civil rights movement accomplished so that we all have some appreciation for it. Then once they – and the rest of the country is in touch with what we’ve done we might be able to think about “how to move forward.” You’d think that in honoring Rosa Parks, the New Freaking York Times would be able to do that.
Good grief.
I gave up the NYT after Judith Miller. They have clearly fallen down a hole of their own making. I suggest you do the same.
Maybe the NYT has forgotten what life was like under segregation. Perhaps they just chose to let it slide considering there is still more work to do in terms of overcoming racism. Yet the peaceful demonstrations by Parks and King will be spoken of in the same breath as Mandela and Ghandi. It was a triumph of the spirit. It stands in stark contrast to many conflicts in the world today.
Every minority in this country, and every causasian that chose not to hate owes them a debt not merely of gratitude but of accomplishment. To honor their sacrifice by enjoying and protecting their freedoms.
If you’re ever in Memphis, I recommend the National Civil Rights Museum, which is built on to the Lorraine motel where King was shot. It does a good job capturing the scope of the civil rights movement. Its in flyover country.
It is sad that the neo-left, of which the NYT is the head, has devolved into trying to find ways to make oppression of blacks seem worse than it is, for the sole purpose of keeping blacks dependent on left-wing institutions and politicians.
Look at how the left criticizes ANY black who is not a left-wing supporter (Rice, Thomas, Janice Rogers Brown). This is racism, pure and simple.
Another thing the left doesn’t want more Americans to realize is that their myth of ‘one has to be white to succeed in America’ is over. Asians have higher household incomes than whites. Period.
> “Many African-Americans are uncertain of what the civil rights movement accomplished”
I wonder if “many African-Americans” rely on the MSM for information?
May I attempt to cast some light on this? As of March 2002 2/3 of all African Americans in the United States were 45 or under and, consequently, had no real memories of what segregation was like before the civil rights movement.
Our kids haven’t learned what things were like from us, the schools, or the mass media. We shouldn’t be too surprised that African Americans are “uncertain” what was accomplished. What they can see with their own eyes is that there’s a lot of poverty in the black community, many of the people they know live in rundown, polluted neighborhoods, and the schools are lousy. And there are too many race-hustlers who are telling them that things are this way because nothing was accomplished.
bq. Many African-Americans are uncertain of what the civil rights movement accomplished and how it should move forward.
Assuming this to be correct (and I’m sure there’s at least some segment of the AA community that thinks this way… I’ve no idea how large or if they could be called “many”) I suspect this is primarily due to the propagandizing against this country that continues unabated… that the “american dream” is not a reality for AA’s, that this country is no less racist today than it was in the 40s and 50s, that Jim Crow exists today when AA test scores are 80% that of whites, when unemployment is 40%, etc. etc. etc.