Racism

I was talking with my dad yesterday, and he mentioned my blog post where I brought up slavery. He advised me that I need to be careful with that topic. He said it is too sensitive for too many blacks.

While he was right, it made me think: Why?

There is no black person alive today who has experienced slavery, except for the rare exceptions who have been enslaved in other countries or enslaved by wackos. Frankly, most blacks' slavery experience equals my own: If you go back far enough in anyone's family history, you are likely to find a slave somewhere. You may have to go back to ancient times, but it makes no difference, since none of us has directly experienced it.

It has been 151 years since slavery was legal in the U.S. Since nobody is capable of living that long, that means, at best, there might be people old enough to have known someone who was once a slave.

I once met a man from Egypt. That doesn't allow me to claim to understand what it's like to be an Egyptian. Accordingly, knowing someone who was a slave doesn't allow you to claim to understand what it is like to be a slave.

Mind you, I am NOT talking about Jim Crow, or Civil Rights era racism.There are older blacks who know what that is like, and God bless them for what they had to endure. But I am not talking about them either.

No, I am talking about the foolish young black men who point e-cigarettes at cops and expect no consequences. I am talking about the black rioters who come out every time a young black man gets shot by a cop, regardless of whether it was justified. I am talking about "Black Lives Matter", which should be called "Cop Lives Don't Matter".

No, I am not excusing the racist cops out there. But the black community cannot assume every young black man who gets shot by a cop is due to racism.

Having said all that, I am done with pussyfooting around the blacks, especially the young ones. Man up, and take responsibility for yourself. Your excuse for "Black Lives Matter" while you object to "All Lives Matter" is wrong. There will always be certain amounts of racism in the world, and I will gladly do everything I can to help you fight it. But don't read that as some kind of admission of guilt from me, because it isn't. I have never owned slaves, nor have I ever been involved in any form of racial abuse of blacks. I am also not guilty of any of the traditional excuses for allowing blacks to have an unlevel playing field in their favor (otherwise known as affirmative action), let alone any form of reparations.

In other words, if you are looking for any kind of sympathy from me, it is not happening. If you are a poor black person, I will tell you the same thing I would tell a poor white person: If you are poor due to wealthy people stacking the odds against the middle class and poor, I am on your side. But don't expect sympathy for your skin color. Your time for that is over. Now get back to work.

And quit pointing things at cops. That's just dumb.