Racial Discrimination and Truth

                I have great respect for Walter Williams, a black professor of economics at George Mason University, because he dares to tell the truth about the plight of African Americans. I heard him speak many years ago when he was substituting as a talk show host. He spoke common sense then, and he writes common sense in an article published at The Daily Signal titled “What Can Racial Discrimination Explain?” 

                Dr. Williams begins his article: “A guiding principle for physicians is primum non nocere, the Latin express for `first, do no harm.’ In order not to do harm, whether it’s with medicine or with public policy, the first order of business is accurate diagnostics.

                “Racial discrimination is seen as the cause of many problems of black Americans. No one argues that racial discrimination does not exist or does not have effects. The relevant question, as far as policy and resource allocation are concerned, is: How much of what we see is caused by current racial discrimination?”

                Dr. Williams then proceeds to list several problems for black Americans, such as, “From the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, black youth unemployment was slightly less than or equal to white youth unemployment. Today, black youth unemployment is at least double that of white youth unemployment. Would anyone try to explain the difference with the argument that there was less racial discrimination during the `40s and `50s than today?”  Dr. Williams continues by discussing the differences in other problems, such as the black illegitimacy rate and black test scores, all of which have gotten much worse since race hustlers started working “for” the black people.

                The article closes, “Intellectuals and political hustlers who blame the plight of so many blacks on poverty, racial discrimination, and the `legacy of slavery’ are complicit in the socio-economic and moral decay. But one can earn money, prestige, and power in the victimhood game.

                “As Booker t. Washington long ago observed, `There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs – partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.’”

                I encourage you to read the article because Dr. Williams courageously speaks the truth about the plight of the black people. I believe that African Americans will continue suffer until they learn to ignore the race and political hustlers and stop believing they are victims.