They Think You're Stupid (7 page)

Due to the influence of Black churches, the political views of most Blacks are more conservative than they realize. Studies show that most Blacks are opposed to same-sex marriage, are eager to curtail the high Black abortion rate, and anxious to reform the big economic issues that have a disproportionately negative effect on Blacks. Conservative values and ideologies on social and fiscal issues are a natural home for Blacks.

Blacks can no longer look at conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an outlier or aberration. In the recent past we have seen the rise of many successful conservative Blacks, such as the aforementioned Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Rod Paige, as well as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, Texas Energy Commissioner Michael Williams, political and economic commentators Thomas Sowell, Star Parker, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, and Walter Williams, and scores of others throughout the business world and state and local politics. The common denominator of all the aforementioned great Black Americans is that they think for themselves. That's the result of knowing the facts and understanding the history of the political parties. 

In the late 1800s, Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute and the first Black ever to dine at the White House with the president, envisioned Black self-reliance when he stated that a Black citizen "should acquire property, own his own land, drive his own mule hitched to his own wagon, milk his own cow, raise his own crop, and keep out of debt, and when he acquired a home he became fit for a conservative citizen." Booker T. Washington's vision is for the same "Ownership Society" President Bush talks about today . . . one hundred years later.

Blacks have been told by their so-called leaders that the Republican Party is the home of "rich white guys" and that conservatism is inherently racist. Thus, the majority of Blacks over time have come to perceive all political issues through the lens of race. They see race as the root of all issues and the cause of all their problems. In reality, conservative policies are colorblind. For example, a tax code and regulatory policies that unburden small businesses, allow them to grow and hire more employees, and allow owners to pass these businesses on to their heirs benefit all small business owners regardless of race.

Of course, Blacks and the so-called Black leaders cannot shoulder all the blame for sharing the perception that the Republican Party does not speak to them or their economic and social values. The Republicans have done a poor job of reaching out to Blacks and educating them on the realities of conservative economic and social policies. The Democrats have surely taken their support among Blacks for granted, but Republicans until recently have been content to let the Democrats keep that support.

Many Republicans scratch their heads and wonder aloud why Blacks would continue to support a party that has betrayed them and taken them for granted for more than fifty years. These same Republicans should not be surprised that Blacks generally vote as a bloc, because both parties have treated Blacks as a separate bloc for more than one hundred years! The conversion of a relative minority of Blacks to the Republican Party should be seen as an example of many Blacks reaching in instead of the party reaching out.

Many people involved in the Republican Party leadership at the national and state levels are still tied to the good-old-boy, country club style of politics that determines which candidates will represent their party based on "Whose turn is it?" and "Who has paid their dues?" This is the perception of the Republican Party among a majority of Blacks. Whether it is the truth or not is irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant if Republicans are upset when Democrats accuse them of "cutting Social Security." Perception is reality in politics, and perception remains reality until drastic efforts in the form of long-term, strategic plans are made to educate the public on the facts.

We must remember that the majority of Blacks prior to the Great Depression primarily supported Republican candidates. Only after presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson reached out to Blacks through their rhetoric and policy agendas did the Black electorate move steadily to the ideological left. To win back the votes and support of Blacks in large numbers, Republicans must demonstrate and properly communicate that their policies and ideology are more in line with economic and social values held by most Blacks. In the long run, facts will triumph over rhetoric. The race to win back the votes of Blacks is a marathon, not a sprint.

The third great divide in our country is the
economic divide
, which starts with education. Slightly more than forty years ago Congress passed, and President Johnson signed into law, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since that time, thousands of Blacks have attained a college education, achieved financial success, started their own businesses, and risen to the highest levels of the corporate and political arenas. The long struggle to achieve equal opportunities for success in nearly all facets of our society has reaped great rewards for all U.S. citizens. Much of Dr. King's dream of equal opportunity for all citizens to achieve success is more possible than ever before, but many Blacks have not yet seized their full potential through the education and economic systems. It starts with personal responsibility and motivation, not the government.

For nearly every citizen, attainment of a quality education is an absolute minimum requirement for success in life, whether you measure success by economic status or virtually any other standard. Yet, after forty years of desegregated schools and the guarantees written in the Civil Rights Act, some Blacks still lag behind Whites in measures of educational and economic achievement.

Let's be clear about the reference to statistics here and throughout this book. Statistics represent a static aggregate measurement. They represent a reference point from which to develop concepts, policies, and practices intended to move the "epicenter" toward improvement.

No one doubts that academic achievement is a prerequisite for achieving economic freedom. In fact, I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, his focus would be on encouraging Blacks to close the academic achievement gap with Whites as a precursor to achieving economic success. Closing the academic achievement gap and achieving economic freedom, though, cannot be done with more federal government social and tax policies that discourage self-reliance and redistribute wealth to minority communities.

Black families must bear more of the burden for encouraging their children to achieve academic success. There are too many negative influences and peer pressures today among Blacks associated with academic achievement. Too many Blacks, however, will not admit that there is a problem. In March 2004, Dr. Bill Cosby, the well-known actor and comedian, stunned and angered the NAACP when he stated in an address to that organization,

Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids--$500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for "Hooked on Phonics." They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk: "Why you ain't," "Where you is . . . ." And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!

The truth sometimes hurts. In this case some people were offended. That's too bad! Bill Cosby had the personal podium of his success to "tell it like it is," and I am glad he did.

One of the strongest aspects of President Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation is that it places a greater emphasis on achievement at the early stages of education. What it does not emphasize, however, is greater parental involvement. When the president, every elected official, and every teacher discuss NCLB, they should mention the necessity of parental involvement in the education of children. Although not practical for the title of an initiative, No Child Left Behind
with
Parental Involvement would stress the point.

I do agree with those who argue that evaluating all schools based on one testing score is the wrong approach for finding whether or not a school is passing or failing. There are too many different dynamics between schools that play a role in determining academic achievement. The biggest complaint, however, among teachers and administrators I meet is that many children do not come to school anxious and eager to learn. These children are not encouraged to learn at home, so they do not see education as the means to success later in life.

In addition to encouraging a greater level of parental involvement in education, we must move beyond politics and rhetoric and teach our children, as well as many adults, the facts of our economic system. I call it elementary economics. Too many of our citizens are uninformed about the negative effects of the onerous tax code, about who actually pays taxes in our country, and about the dynamics involved in job creation.

The blame partially falls on liberal politicians who for many decades have misled citizens about the facts of basic economics while promoting a political structure based on jealousy and class warfare. The blame also falls on our educational system for failing to teach the basic dynamics of our market-based economic system, and on the apathetic percentage of the public that appears content to allow the government to tax them when they are not looking and then accuses the so-called "rich" for causing their economic situation.

Liberal politicians have also misled people about who actually pays most of the taxes in this country. One of their favorite promises is to provide a tax cut for the middle class.
I have a breaking announcement--There is no middle class!

The statistics in the chart above show that
20 percent of income earners in the nation pay nearly 80 percent of all income taxes
. Where is this middle class the Democrats keep talking about? Yet we never hear an end to the liberal chorus that cuts in the tax rates are "tax cuts for the rich." Liberals believe that the amount of control they can exert over your life is directly related to the amount of taxes they can take from your paycheck.

A favorite tactic of liberals is to instill among the bottom 80 percent of wage earners who only pay 20 percent of all income taxes the belief that tax cuts are only going to the rich. Who is this "rich" 20 percent who shoulder the majority of the tax burden? The top 20 percent of income earners are those who have average yearly earnings of just over $180,000. The top 40 percent of income earners have average yearly earnings of just over $75,000. Many of these "rich" people are small business owners who employ the majority of other wage earners in our country. Most of them would laugh at you if you called them "rich."

Virtually every decision individuals and businesses make about their futures is in some way related to the amount of money they have to spend. The more of your own money you get to keep determines the amount of control exerted over you by the federal government. The less control the federal government has over your life, the closer you are to achieving economic freedom.

It is no wonder, then, why the facts about the tax code and who actually pays taxes in our country are obscured and manipulated by politicians whose political futures depend on control of the economy and the process of taxation.

Just as the so-called Black leaders have instilled the groupthink mentality into a large percentage of the Black population, liberal leaders in Congress have attempted to instill a class warfare mentality in all citizens at the lowest levels of educational and economic achievement. The result is that instead of blaming Congress for enacting wrongheaded policies that discourage achievement, many of the uneducated and poor blame the rich for causing their lack of success.

The only way liberalism can survive as a viable policy alternative for the Democratic Party is if the citizens of this country continue to view themselves as members of downtrodden groups whose only hope for survival is more assistance from the federal government. The great irony, of course, is that liberal policies cause people to view themselves as members of groups and create the barriers that discourage educational attainment and economic freedom! The proponents of liberalism know this, but they hope a lot of people will never figure it out.