BLACK AND WHITE; BLOG # 167; JAN. 23, 2015.

THE SOAPBOX:

DON'T BLAME IT ON ME! 

Whether you like or hate Bill O'Reilly please consider his thoughts in this week's clip. He has the guts to tell it like HE BELIEVES it is. Al Sharpton stands to lose some of the revenue he receives by extorting money from large corporations in order to refrain from accusing them of racism. It would be a good thing if the media refused to give him any credibility or exposure every time a situation involving Blacks makes headlines. 

Some of what O'reilly says is probably true and is backed up by an investigation of the facts. Most people already know the truth; however, they are intimidated by a weird sense of decency or a reluctance to be offensive and speak out! In order to be politically correct they bury their head in sand and go along with the outcry against racism and inequality.

THE TRUTH: FAMILY IS EVERYTHING!

JUDITH CUMMINGS  

The first black woman to head a national news bureau for The New York Times

JUDITH DIED IN 1988 AT THE AGE OF 68

Judith Cummings

PUBLISHED IN 1983 by Judith Cummings

At the height of the civil rights movement in 1965, when a quarter of black families with children were headed by women, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in a report to President Johnson that this growing matriarchy was an important cause of poverty among black Americans. Mr. Moynihan, then a White House aide, created a furor, accused by many of blaming the victims for their distress. 

Today, 18 years later, virtually half of black families are headed by single women, and 55 percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers. 

Gun-shy from the Moynihan experience, authorities for years were reluctant to speak out about the problem. But now, politicians and scholars - black and white, liberal and conservative - openly agree that the situation has reached such proportions that it threatens to undo the black economic gains of the past three decades. 

Growing Alarm Among Blacks 

The breakdown of traditional family structure is, they say, one of the underlying causes of black poverty, not only because there is no man to provide family income but also because women on the average earn much less than men. 

Moreover, many black spokesmen are saying for the first time that this is one of the most serious problems facing their communities and that it may mean that larger and larger proportions of coming generations of blacks will grow up disadvantaged. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Black law professor at Georgetown University who was chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the Carter Administration, termed the family crisis, 'a threat to the future of black people without equal.' 

The problem must be resolved, the experts say, because otherwise society at large will have to pay the price, either in compensatory measures to prop up fractured lives or in strife and social conflict as the gap widens between the privileged and the excluded. 

DON LEMON

DON LEMON'S 5 POINT ADVICE TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY

Bill O'Reilly's Criticism 

Of Black Community 

"Doesn't Go Far Enough"

1. Just because you can have a baby, it doesn't mean you should. Especially without planning for one or getting married first. More than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That means absent fathers. And the studies show that lack of a male role model is an express train right to prison and the cycle continues.

2. Finish school. You want to break the cycle of poverty? Stop telling kids they're acting white because they go to school or they speak proper English. A high school dropout makes on average $19,000 a year, a high school graduate makes $28,000 a year, a college graduate makes $51,000 a year. Over the course of a career, a college grad will make nearly $1 million more than a high school graduate. 

3. Respect where you live. Start small by not dropping trash, littering in your own communities. I've lived in several predominantly white neighborhoods in my life, I rarely, if ever, witnessed people littering. I live in Harlem now, it's an historically black neighbourhood, every single day I see adults and children dropping their trash on the ground when a garbage can is just feet away. 

4. I understand poetic license, but consider this: I hosted a special on the n-word, suggesting that black people stop using it and that entertainers stop deluding yourselves or themselves and others that you're somehow taking the word back. 

5. Pull up your pants. Some people, a lot of them black, gave me flak for saying that recently on "The Wendy Williams Show." If you're sagging, I mean -- I think it's your self-esteem that is sagging and who you are as a person it's sagging. Young people need to be taught respect and there are rules. 

SUSAN L. BROWN

BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY

Adolescents in single-parent families are significantly more delinquent than their counterparts residing with two biological, married parents. During the past 25 years the proportion of children living in families headed by women has more than doubled from 1 in 10 to 1 in 5. Concern about this trend stems from the fact that these families are much more likely to be poor or to experience sharp drops in income than other families and that the children of single parents are less likely to be successful as adults than those who grow up in 2-parent homes.

AL SHARPTON

The Oxford Union in London will hold a debate about race relations in the United States. MSNBC host Al Sharpton accepted an invitation to the event, but after confirming he would be one of the participants to propose the motion that the United States is “institutionally racist,” he did an about face, shocking his esteemed hosts.

Sharpton was supposed to defend his proposition along with Black Panther leader Aaron Dixon and liberal blogger Mychal Denzel Smith, while SiriusXM host, Breitbart News, and Fox News Contributor David Webb; conservative commentator Joe R. Hicks; and BBC radio host Charlie Wolf would oppose the motion in a structured Oxford-style debate.

DAVID WEBB

Sources have indicated that Sharpton, who is an informal adviser to both President Obama and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, has asked Oxford for an opportunity to speak but not debate the counter argument. “He wants to control the event, because he won’t debate the facts and the real issues including how his own conduct impacts race relations in the U.S.,” stated Webb. “He doesn’t want to be exposed for what he really is – a shakedown artist and racial coward. After years of conning people into giving him money by fanning the flames of racism, he’s just too afraid to have a civil, fact-based conversation about the issues of race in America.”

SHAWTY LO

Growing up, the ATL trap rapper faced many hardships. His mother was hooked on drugs, his dad wasn’t around and his grandmother who raised him died from cancer by the time he turned 17. Having to fend for himself, Shawty Lo turned to the streets to make ends meet.

“I came to be one of the largest drug dealers to come from Atlanta, Bankhead area and I started havin’ kids. When the money came, a lot of women came,” he said, estimating he was a millionaire by the time he turned 21. “Once you feel like a girl was your girlfriend or whatever, the rubber probably came off,” he said candidly. “They wouldn’t have an abortion. They used to take the money and run with it, and they’d have a baby by the most popular guy in the street, and that’s how I had all them kids.”

After the pilot for “All My Babies’ Mamas” hit the Net in late December, Lo and show producers came under a ton of scrutiny, with some even calling for a BOYCOTT. But Shawty Lo insists he is a good dad, and contrary to what people may feel, he doesn’t have as much baby-mama drama as folks think.

“I take care of all my kids. … Outta all the 10 baby mamas, I just have problems outta one. That’s it,” he said. “She has two kids by me, and she feel like I’m supposed to do more for her kids, and she don’t wanna work. She just want me to straight take care of them, but it’s all love. I handle it.”

The proud papa doesn’t want people to focus on the amount of kids he has, but the fact that he takes care of all of his offspring. “It’s a lot of fathers don’t take care of one; I gotta deal with 11. I gotta deal with nine girls and two boys,” he said.

It isn’t just about spending money either, Shawty Lo advises all fathers to spend time with their children. “Even if you ain’t got the money, you gotta be a father to your child. You need to be in your child’s life, ’cause that means a lot to them,” he said. “Comin’ up, we didn’t have Thanksgiving, we didn’t have Christmas, but if I had my father there, if I even had my mother there, I probably wouldn’t have been that person I was in the streets.”

ONE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE 

A Single Father Embraces His Role With Pride

Mr. Sweat has four children: two sons, Jeremiah, 13, and Elijah, 11, and two daughters, Adryannah, 5, and Joscelyn, 2. Jeremiah, Elijah and Adryannah have the same mother and had lived with her until three years ago, when Mr. Sweat was awarded partial custody. He now serves as the children's sole caregiver.

Fourteen years ago, Mr. Sweat was pursuing a culinary degree when he found out that his girlfriend was pregnant with the couple’s first child. He left school just short of completing his degree to work full time. He hopes to go back, if only to set an example. “I want my kids to see I’m going to school,” Mr. Sweat said. “I want to make sure they see that in me.”

In 2011, he was working as a stock clerk and was badly hurt when a loaded pallet fell on his back. Rather than collect disability payments, Mr. Sweat found a part-time job as a peer companion at Rose House, a hospital-diversion residence in Milton, N.Y., for people in crisis. He earns $214 every two weeks and hopes to be promoted to a full-time job as a manager soon.

“Even though it’s part-time work, I love it,” he said. “It’s keeping me from being more depressed. Doctors have told Mr. Sweat that he needs back surgery, but he is in no rush, despite what he said was constant pain. “If I get physically disabled, that’s my real worry,” he said. “If I can’t go back to work and I’ve got to survive on $800 for disability a month, how am I going to do it?”

Presently, Mr. Sweat receives $519 a month in food stamps and $910 each month in child support from the mother of his three oldest children.

THE QUESTION:

HAVE YOU SEEN MY DADDY? 

THE QUOTE:

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

 -MARTIN LUTHER KING

THE LEMON:


THE REVEREND? 

THE CLIP: