Critique of Black Culture

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by sycamore

Mr. Martin is reaching just a little bit...he accuses Rangel of a knee-jerk reaction, when he seems to be doing the same thing.

When I compare Rangel's opinion with Martin's what I see is one person looking at the symptoms of the problem and forecasting that the problem will get no better for the current generation of black men and one person looking at the causes and possible solutions to the problem.

So, if you are a young black man (10 years old let's say), you have Rangel telling you that one out of thee black men will find themselves behind bars (i.e., your future is shit) OR you have Martin and Cosby, et al saying stay in school, don't have babies you can't raise, stay out of gangs, don't do drugs and to visualize a positive future, who you gonna listen to? The guy that excuses every bad thing that happens to you (enabler) or the guy that says "yeah, the playing field ain't level but life ain't fair - but we made it and you can too!!!"

A leader of black people who predicts that one in three black men will be behind bars in ten years is pretty much insuring that he will be proven correct because he is already saying its not your fault. Nice.