You really are about as thick as a brick when it comes to this topic. Maybe if we were talking face to face, I could get through to you what I'm trying to get you to realize. You've got that liberal "if we all just joined hands and sang cumbuya" thing going. It's feel good bullshit. I can't generalize about the black race but you can generalize about the white race by saying our race enslaved blacks. The white race in general didn't enslave blacks. A small minority of people who happened to be white enslaved blacks. And long before they did that, other blacks enslaved blacks for centuries.

Let me say this as bluntly as I can. The majority of the black populations of our cities are drowning in their own self pity. A small minority are making it out of that trap. The way out is not for white liberal do gooders like you to say or do ANYTHING. They've got to let go of 150 year old bull *censored* and take their lives by the horns. Get the education that is offered to them. Baltimore city spends close to $4,000.00 more per pupil than all of the surrounding counties but is failing miserably because the pupils AND their families are not invested in education. They've got to reject the images that are presented to them in Rap videos of thugs and hoes. Instead they see them as their role models.

You chose to shoot the messenger. I'm just stating the truth. The black community in general is free falling and you want to rearrange the furniture. Dr. Poussaint and Bill Cosby are critizied for bringing this topic to the front. But if there is any hope of turning this problem around, it has to first be acknowledged. If white liberals like you can't admit this problem exists and is pervasive, I don't know how the black people who are mired in it can be expected to. Read the damn book.

stockingfull wrote:No ancestor of mine ever lived south of Frederick, MD to my knowledge, nor had anything to do with slave ownership, so I have no more reason to feel personal guilt than your background gives you.

OK, then why are you so burdened with guilt over slavery? Modern day slavery is the welfare system that rewards not working and having children out of wedlock. It's a trap. Read some Malcom X while you're at it. He understood the problem over 40 years ago.

This thread had nothing to do with race until you brought it in. Absolutely nothing. It was, and should have remained, about attitudes, motivation and behavior. But you had to connect that with race.

It's simply a dodge to suggest now that you were somehow channeling Bill Cosby the motivational author/speaker. You used a racial label to identify a "motivational infection." It was highly inappropriate. And, as you very well know, this isn't the first time you've fallen to the trap of negative racial/ethnic stereotyping.

On this of all weekends, when we're celebrating the nearly miraculous confluence of the holiday dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Inauguration of the President who, to a remarkable degree, represents the advent of the post-racial era King sought in this country, it is coarse to the point of vulgarity to be defending your racially-generalized statements.

Resolve to leave them behind. They're not necessary anymore. We're mature enough to deal with people as individuals, not as demographic groups from which they can't escape. It's one thing to call somebody a "liberal" or a "do gooder," or even an "underachiever," because those are things over which people have some control; it's quite another to associate negative behaviors with race. The goal of breaking that link was the reason I talked about "our race" enslaving "their race." (Although in fact "our race" didn't stop the enslavement of "their race" until halfway through the Civil War.) You don't like being "blamed" for owning slaves when neither you nor your ancestors did? Then why is it that you seem not to be able to understand the unfairness of using a racial label to describe underproductive members of society, when clearly not all of any racial or ethnic group are, or ever were?

It's the labels you seem to so love that are the problem. Not all blacks are lazy. Not all Muslims want to kill us. A black Senator with a Muslim middle name isn't fairly described by either generality. So why do you cling to the labels?

I never said any of these things, that are as plain as the nose on your face, were because they were black. But the indisputable fact is the black community is in serious crisis, more so than any other racial or ethnic group in this country. Is it because of slavery? Is it just because of race? Is it because of the passivity you claim has been "bred into them" by whites? I don't know and it really doesn't matter. When the barn is on fire, you don't worry about why it's on fire, you just try to put the fire out. You're trying to make me out to be a racist and that's untrue and unfair. I pointed out an elephant in the room that is a huge drain economically on our society, the solution for which has to come from within the group that has the problem. It can't be fixed by others. You've tried to twist my words to make it sound like I'm saying blacks are somehow inferior and then got on your liberal high horse because it's Martin Luther King Day and the inauguration of Obama. Obama recognizes the problem. I've heard him say in more than one speech that there are far too many absent black fathers and too many black children born to black women who are themselves just children. Gee, because he singled out blacks for this criticism, I guess he's a racist. He sees the problem and isn't afraid to acknowledge it. Pretending it's not there doesn't make it go away. I guess it's just too taboo for your Chardonnay sipping crowd to face. You know a week or so I reached out to you in a PM because I thought maybe I had been unfair to you and possibly misjudged you. Well, first instinct turns out to correct. I tried to have a civil exchange with you and you've called me a racist, vulgar, shamefull and offensive.

I think we have exhausted the possibility that we are going to have any meeting of the minds on this. KOOTCH, do us all a favor and lock it......please.

Still defending your racial generalizations. When will you ever learn?

It's time to stop pointing to others, particularly racial/ethnic groups, as the sources of the problems we face. We've reached the stage in history where there are enough problems that we all will do well to focus on addressing those which we and the people we can influence are responsible for. Like our own children.

Obama's life story, and his success, have the potential to revolutionize attitudes in a variety of communities where motivation historically has been in short supply. But have you noticed that all the "credible" sources you've been citing about blacks ... are black? Assuming you're not (black), and assuming further that you don't work with black people or in black neighborhoods to make life there better, I'm still wondering when you'll figure out that it's better for you to STFU about other racial/ethnic groups and tend your own garden.

We spend entirely too much time here pointing to others as the sources of the problems we face. There's plenty to do; if you see a problem, fix it, don't point at it.