Whites, Blacks and Culture...

If you spend any time online (particularly after Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show) you’ll come across memes that say that America was built by blacks or that Shakespeare’s work was written by a black woman or that black Africans built western civilization. I’m not convinced.   

To put it bluntly, has black Africa ever given the world anything of consequence since humans originated there? Has black Africa ever had a civilization worthy of comparison to the great civilizations we’re all familiar with? Is there a reason why Africa has the lowest IQs on the planet? That almost every country in Africa is poor while the continent has a majority of the world’s gold, cobalt, diamonds, and platinum? Is it any coincidence that 8 of the 10 most violent countries in the world is either in Africa or is majority black? Ditto for wars? Is it any coincidence that black Americans are 600% more likely to commit murder than whites?

We’ve been told that white racism is the driver behind all of that. If that were true we would expect black Africa before Europeans arrived to be a thriving continent bustling with advanced civilizations. But is that the case?

Some claim it is, and indeed there were a number of large civilizations in Sub-Saharan history.  There was the Mali Empire that dates back to the 13^th century and was once led by Mansa Musa, said to have been the richest man in history. There’s the Great Zimbabwe Empire also from the 13^th century and the Songhai Empire which dates to the 15^th.  Then there was the Kingdom of Aksum that operated as a trading center between Europe, North Africa and Asia and lasted 1,000 years from about 200 BC to 800 AD.

Those and others were no doubt complex societies that traded, warred and lasted for centuries but somehow managed to not become particularly advanced. Compare the intact ruins of the 13^th century Zimbabwe Empire to Paris’s Sainte-Chapelle, also from 13^th century or the 11^th century Dogon Cliffs in Mali to Britain’s 11th century Windsor Castle. The word that comes to mind is primitive. And most of sub-Saharan Africa never really advanced much from there.  While it’s likely that when the Portuguese began exploring the continent in the early 15^th century they encountered numerous population centers of significant size, most would not be what we might call advanced. Compare sculptures from 15^th century West Africa to what was being produced in Europe at the same time. 

While we’re constantly told that the condition of Africans in the 21^st century is the result of European imperialism, the reality is, Africa south of the Sahara was barely out of the stone age when the Europeans arrived in the 15^th century.

What about black Africans today?  Sadly, while from afar the continent is covered with beautiful modern cities, upon closer look virtually every country is economically distressed and many are wracked with violence and war. What about blacks whose ancestors left Africa, what has become of them?  Well, sadly the picture’s not much different. Whole countries, like Haiti, which freed itself from European rule in 1806 – coerced to sign a suffocating indemnity with France that would take more than a century to repay – is one of the poorest and most dysfunctional nations in the world.  Here in the United States black communities are wracked with a spectrum of problems from violence to unwed motherhood to illiteracy to drugs and economic stagnation. Indeed, in some black communities the murder rates are among the highest in the world.

So what does all of that mean?  Lower IQs, lack of civilizational development, extraordinary levels of violence?  Are blacks genetically coded to be inferior to everyone else?

No, I don’t think so. The hardest working and kindest man I’ve ever know was black.  Thomas Sowell is arguably the greatest economist of the last half century.  We’ve all see Hidden Figures, the true story about how Katherine Johnson and her team played a critical role in sending the astronauts to the moon.  Madame CJ Walker was America’s first self-made female millionaire, overcoming actual, real racism and creating a company that employed 20,000 women at the beginning of the 20^th century.  There are countless more examples of why it’s impossible for DNA to be the cause. So then what is it?

Dr. Sowell argues compellingly in his cultures trilogy that sub-Saharan Africa was backward (my word not his) because with its dearth of navigable rivers, deep water ports and lack of trade and the exchange of ideas with the world beyond. By the 16^th century Europeans had been fighting, trading with and learning from one another as well as Asia and north Africa for thousands of years. European advancement, like most, came as a result of man’s natural competitive forces being honed in the crucible of conflict and war taking place within a geography capable of facilitating efficient exchange of goods, information and ideas over a large area. They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and the interactions between the different peoples fueled their development. By the 16^th century those interactions had produced Shakespeare and Monteverdi and Galileo and Columbus and DaVinci, Michelangelo and many more. Black Africa had nothing comparable.

But what about intelligence? Are blacks biologically unequal?  Jason Riley, in his outstanding book Please Stop Helping Us provides the definitive answer: No. In looking at the past half century in America Riley demonstrates that it is culture that has damaged America’s black communities.  He references today’s black ghetto culture and its origin, which arrived in the first half of the 19^th century via the Irish, Scottish and Welsh migrants who heavily populated the south.  He quotes Sowell: “The cultural values and social patterns prevalent among southern whites included an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship, reckless searches for excitement, lively music…”

While most of those whites would move away from that culture, as would many blacks, in the second half of the 20^th century not only would many backtrack, but a majority would champion those very characteristics in an effort to “avoid acting white”.

In championing those values and crying victimhood, black leaders have betrayed the very people they claim to defend.  Riley contrasts the results of black students in teacher’s union controlled NYC public schools and those in nearby charter schools where the outcomes differed like night and day. Drawing students from the same communities and demographic, the former would expect and attain failure while the latter would not only expect success, but would produce some of the state’s best students, regardless of race. Culture matters.   

He further talks about the fact that in the early 20^th century, when blacks were making consistent and significant gains, there were times when more black children lived in 2 parent homes than whites. But then the government got involved and through a variety of programs intended to combat poverty, eviscerated black families. So today in America we have a black underclass that is characterized by poverty, a lack of education and extraordinary levels of violence – which is celebrated in rap lyrics – largely a consequence of government policies that made single motherhood a viable career path. 

Although blacks were part of the antebellum South, they did not build America nor western civilization, and the west is not responsible for the state of blacks around the world. As Sowell and Riley chronicle very compellingly, culture matters. Until that reality is recognized and addressed within the black universe, things will never improve.

Who would you rather call if your child was in danger - Barack Obama or Mitt Romney?

Dinesh D’Souza recently penned a piece called “How I became George Obama's 'brother”. It talks about George Obama calling him (D’Souza) from Kenya seeking $1,000 for badly needed medical care for his hospitalized son. D’Souza, who had met George years ago when he was doing research for “The Roots of Obama's Rage” was happy to send the money, but wondered “Why are you coming to me?” George, the brother of the multi-millionaire President of the United States replied: “I have no one else to ask.”

Now of course, George not feeling like he could call his brother is different from his actually calling his brother and giving him the opportunity to help. That might be a strong argument on the President’s side if he was somehow unaware of George or if his circumstances were unknown. Neither is the case however. Barack Obama actually met his half brother in 1987 when his sibling was 5 years old and then again in 2006 when Barack Obama was a US Senator from Illinois. In addition to that, George Obama’s life situation in a country where the average person lives on less than $3 a day has been chronicled in the American media since Obama announced his run for the presidency in 2008.

D’Souza grants that George Obama is no angel, calling him a “drinker and a skirt chaser”. Nonetheless, George’s brother is the most powerful man on the planet yet when the health of his son was in the balance George didn’t feel as if he could reach out to him.

One might wonder why George felt the need to reach out to D’Souza rather than his big brother, particularly if he had heard President Obama’s speech earlier this year when he compared his values to those of others, saying “I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper. That’s a value.”

Well, it turns out that President Obama didn’t mean that he was literally his brother’s keeper, but rather he was using the biblical reference to suggest that the rich “do a little more”, i.e. pay more taxes.

That one speech gets to the core of the vision of America that voters are faced with in November. Barack Obama wants to take care of everyone, but he wants the government to do it with your money. Contrast that approach with Mitt Romney’s.

In 1996 a Bain Capital employee, Robert Gay, came to Romney and told him that Melissa, Gay’s 14 year old daughter, had snuck out of the house to attend a concert in New York and had been missing for three days. Romney immediately closed down the multibillion dollar Boston operation, set up a temporary headquarters in New York City and mobilized dozens of volunteers to search for the girl. He had Bain’s printing company print 300,000 flyers and had clerks at the firm’s drugstore unit stuff them into bags at checkout. The girl was found a week later recovering from a drug overdose, and, according to doctors, would likely not have survived another day.

To get another perspective on this contrast, one need only compare the tax returns of Romney and Obama. To compare apples to apples, one would compare Mitt Romney’s 2010 and 2011 tax returns to Barack Obama’s 2006 & 2007 returns – the two years before the presidential election.

The numbers are stark. In both 2006 and 2007 Barack Obama donated 6% of his income to charity. Mitt Romney during 2010 and 2011 donated 14% and 19% (respectively) of his income to charity. The goal of this piece is not to suggest that 6% is too low or that 15% is ideal. On the contrary. Everyone gives what they believe is appropriate.

The difference, however, is clear. Barack Obama claims that he is his brother’s keeper but believes it’s your job to actually pay for that upkeep, and he uses his position as President of the United States to compel such. Mitt Romney on the other hand suggests that it’s not the government’s job to take care of everyone, but rather individuals, communities, churches etc. and he puts his money behind those words.

Interestingly, this is not necessarily about greed or keeping money in his own pocket. If you combine Obama’s taxes and his charitable giving, he paid 39% in 2006 and 42% in 2007 while Romney paid 32% in 2010 and 42% in 2011. It’s about a fundamental understanding of the role of government. Barack Obama believes in the almighty government and their ability and responsibility to take care of the poor and the unfortunate and practically everything else in society. Mitt Romney on the other hand believes that while government can play a role in society, including providing a safety net for those in need, the primary responsibility for taking care of citizens lays with individuals, their families and their communities.

On November 6th, voters should not only think about how great a job the nanny state government has done with everything from food stamps to Social Security to Solyndra to Fast and Furious, they should also look to the plights of George Obama and Robert Gay. When citizens subcontract the support and well being of their families, communities or country to a nameless, faceless government bureaucracy there is a disconnect between the warm and fuzzy feeling they get for being caring people with good intentions and the actual results in the lives of the people in need. This holds true for feeding the poor, educating the children or creating jobs and prosperity. If there was an emergency with your child, who would you rather call for help? Barack Obama or Mitt Romney? This election may not involve a child in danger, but it certainly involves a nation in distress. The question is, who will the voters call upon?