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Whites in this country enslaved blacks, even before we were a country. They did it in great numbers in the south, and built an economy in which (so they thought) enslaved blacks were essential. Thus their tenacious fight to preserve slavery and their need to see blacks as inferior.
Northern whites eliminated legalized slavery before the Civil War, mostly because they did not need it. This made it easier to object morally, but everyone knew that the nation could not have been created without acquiescing in slavery. Even the slaveholding revolutionaries (Jefferson, Washington) knew that slavery was incompatible with the democratic ideal, but they went ahead anyway. Blacks were victims of what the American revolutionaries saw as a higher ideal. But victims neverthless and very few shed a tear for them.
Whatever Lincoln's ultimate motivations were, the average northern soldier did not fight to end slavery. There was a small cadre of aggressive abolitionists who for a time had considerable power, but it was not sustainable power. Nor were the abolitionists without bias. Certainly very few of them had a taste for using the government to help blacks. For them the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were enough. Beyond that, the blacks were on their own, especially after the election of 1876. On their own was not likely to go well, and it did not.
Then began the long sorry era of discrimination, further oppression segregation. There was slow change, much stepping forward and back, but mostly sideways. The political marginalization of blacks, and the suppression of their vote, put the whole issue as much out of sight as the politicians could make it be. Democrats were the main oppressors (and that is the right word) and the Party of Lincoln lost interest in the struggle as a important issue for the nation.
The biggest progress came from people we have never heard of and never will, because they had no public role. It took a long time but as people moved around more and communications became more immediate and vivid, the injustices were more apparent. And there were leaders, white and black, in and out of government, who took stands and made changes. Small changes but changes. What had changed least was education. While some blacks rose above it, most people are not exceptional and the lousy education, discrimination and prejudice left millions ill prepared for the world they had been born into.
Then came the 50's and 60's which gave blacks more legal protection but also increased suspicion and fear. Blacks learned how to exploit each other, in media and entertainment, in race politics that made false promises and got limited results. The Democrats, the so called champions of the blacks, put black politicians in gerrymandered reservations and milked their votes without doing much that actually helped. Affirmative action became just another false promise administered by rent seekers. Welfare was intensively destructive and liberal educational policies were a dismal failure.
Then Obama confounded everyone by creating a cross racial alliance and getting himself elected President. This was a personal achievement, not an institutional one. Unfortunately he has governed badly and has done little in the area where he should have helped most, education. There is doubtless a racist undertone to some of the criticism and certainly some of the tone. It does not help that Obama is so aloof and distant, so the valid complaints about the man and his misgovernment get mixed in with the racial crap. And then of course there is the hiding behind complaints of racism, which this stupid reaction to the photo illustrates, and which Obama can not control even if he wanted to. (Who knows what he thinks about it? His course of staying above it is the only one he can possibly choose.)
What I do not understand is why, after this sorry history of disappointment with and by whites over two centuries, blacks continue to trust in government or other supposedly benevolent white dominated institutions as their path to betterment. Why trust a government that has been miseducating your kids for generations? Why seek more benefits when the so called benefits have negatively impacted your families? Why trust in affirmative action when you do not trust the people who administer it? Why wait for police or social scientists to solve the issues of crime, drugs and violence? Why keep voting for the full bore pro choice people when "choice" has aborted 15-20 million black babies over the last 40 years? Why elevate Dr. King to a Godly status when you know that the victories you had came as much or more from the courage of the nameless nobodies than from leaders? Why follow current leaders who do not know or care where they are taking you?
I think blacks have to figure out where the road really runs. It runs through every family, every coach, every minister, every block, every neighborhood, every church, every parent, every teacher. This has always been a bootstrap country. A pull yourself up country. For a long time, for most blacks, pulling on the bootstrap only resulted in blistered hands and a sore back. Now (I think, I hope) it is different. But the whites are not going to lead the blacks out. Some will help, some will not oppose, some will exploit, many will be utterly indifferent. But I don't think they will (or can) stop you anymore if you just pull. A massive, across the board, accept no bullshit pull.
Not easy. Not fair. But necessary.
