Friday, August 2, 2013

Don Lemon and Bill O'Reilly "Agree" on What Blacks Need to Do?!?!

Don-Bill-Crystal


A few days ago, there was some agreement between CNN’s Don Lemon, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, and conservative Crystal Wright.  In a nutshell, Don Lemon mentioned that there are a host of issues taking place in the Black community and there are five things they should do: 




  • ·         Stop wearing their pants off their butts




  • ·         Stop using the "N" word




  • ·         Stop throwing down trash in the neighborhood




  • ·         Get an education




  • ·         Stop having babies, just because it’s possible to have them




While these issues are very legitimate, Don, Bill, and Crystal all miss a few underlying issues.  Blacks are disproportionately over-represented in lower class neighborhoods.  Therefore, the schools have a greater probability of being highly understaffed with fewer resources, resulting in further school quality decline.  It’s very easy to tell kids to “get an education” when many of the kids are not receiving quality early childhood education, which is compounded when they reach later grades.  These are issues that are not usually felt in the more middle-to-upper class neighborhoods because those schools have exceedingly better resources.


Of course, I don’t want to pretend as though there is no personal responsibility in this.  Some Blacks are making the intentional decision to forgo an education for an undesirable lifestyle.  However, this is not the issue for the majority of inner-city impoverished Blacks.  Clearly there are issues with the educational system if this is a fairly consistent issue in most inner-cities.


I agree with Don, Bill, and Crystal about wearing pants correctly, stop using the "N" word, no longer destroying the neighborhood with trash, and not having babies for the heck of it.  As mentioned earlier, there is personal accountability in many of these issues.  However, there is also a structural issue that extends to a system that is not designed for certain people to succeed.  When was the last time you heard elected officials discuss the poor?  You hear “middle-class,” “entrepreneurs,” “wealthy,” and those types of terms.  You don’t hear anything about attempting to focus on problems felt by those living in poverty, where Don’s 5 points are disproportionately more likely to occur.


For instance, we have a welfare system that is designed to perpetuate the cycle of poverty, an educational system that systematically provides lower quality education to those in poverty, a lack of access to quality jobs to those in poverty, a revolving door to incarceration, etc.  All of these factors are inter-related to Don Lemon’s 5 points.  While I see the point that the three people mentioned were attempting to make, they ignore the structural societal issues that make it difficult to address multiple issues.  The three of them take a very simplistic view to a complicated problem. 


These problems were couched in a conversation of “Black-on-Black” crime, which is a foolish term.  As a point of reference, most crime is intra-racial.  In other words, people are more likely to commit offenses against others of the same race.  Crime is usually committed in the areas in which people live, and given that many of our neighborhoods are dominated by a particular race, crime is mostly intra-racial.  Therefore, “White-on-White” crime is an issue… “Hispanic-on-Hispanic” crime is an issue.  Are you seeing the logic of the foolishness here?


Our “educated” talking heads and political pundits need to look deeper with their positions.  The surface-level thinking is presenting an image that contributes to the negative portrayal of underprivileged groups, especially Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos.  Before assigning individual blame, doesn’t it make sense for our society to remove the structural inequalities that are allowing these individual “choices” to take place?

14 comments:

  1. These are all very true points. Unfortunately, many of these issues are missed by both sides when attempting to engage in an educated conversation about these topics. Hopefully, a balance of personal and community responsibility, awareness and responsible conversations, and progressive acts can help create some of the changes that are necessary.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Obviously, none of them have ever read the work on Jonathan Kozol (Savage Inequalities and Amazing Grace). Or they haven't been to an inner city lately to check out for themselves. the broad generalizations they assert are not helpful. Not every person of color wears baggie pants. How about they put their money where their mouths are...contribute your time and money to helping disadvantaged youth instead of pointing fingers. It's easy to identify problems. It's a much more difficult to work on solutions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have made some valid points. I agree that poverty and institutionalized inequality of opportunity in every sphere of life are the basic problems confronting Blacks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tiffany, they stay missing the points. People like to say personal responsibility trumps community responsibility. However, if people are provided limited resources, and therefore have fewer choices, then how many choices do individuals really have? That is what all of these folks are missing in their discussions.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kim, it's very easy to judge people when they're not walking in their shoes. Most people of color don't dress/talk like fools....just like every person of color isn't a criminal. The generalizations that are made by people (regardless of political affiliation) is astounding sometimes. I agree....let them try to do more than just talk....actually do something....mentor, go into inner-city schools and help with resources, etc. It's very easy to go to facebook, twitter, and personal blogs to criticize.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Trevor, thanks! People ignore the institutional problems....constantly. It's frustrating, because they keep missing the larger issue. If the structural issues aren't addressed, the likelihood of true change continues to diminish.

    ReplyDelete
  7. There is another motive here. What Don Lemon and Bill O'Reilly are doing has absolutely nothing to do with helping the AA community understand what it needs to do, whether they acknowledge the systemic nature of discrimination or not. Bill O'Reilly's rant about what Blacks came after the backlash caused by the Zimmerman verdict. People began to see that there was a problem, even if they couldn't articulate what the problem actually was, except that somewhere along the line, the result would be more Zimmerman types coming out of the woodwork. It pulled the cover off a socio-judicial dilemma that could open up the discussion into how things like this could be avoided in the future. The sole purpose of O'Reilly's rant was to divert the attention away from this discussion. Don Lemon co-signed on it, and now, people are preoccupied with the discussion of whether or not Lemon's statements hold merit. It doesn't matter. It was a Fox and CNN tag-team operation to foil what could have been(or still can be) a discussion about how to remedy the problem caused by interpreting laws so that safety net are created for the Zimmerman types.

    ReplyDelete
  8. These are good points. I also agree that these discussions by both Don Lemon and Bill O'Reilly were/are to divert attention from the issue. In fact, these diversions were occurring before the verdict. Each time someone wanted to discuss race in America, Stand Your Ground, etc., the conversation usually got switched to some sort of "Black" issue in the community. I actually don't mind some discussion about whether Lemon's statements are credible....many people, unfortunately, believe much of what is seen on television. Because Lemon's and O'Reilly's statements mirror some of the very statements that have been shown in the media for many years, I think we need to spend some time debunking these statements...these myths. Public perception is often framed by the media, true or not. We just can't get preoccupied with this, as to avoid discuss the real issue, which is the systematic discrimination of black and brown folks, as both victims and offenders. You are touching on the very reason I started this website....to try to develop, facilitate, and engage in a conversation about all of these issues....to have us educate one another on the foolishness occurring and to identify ways to address it! Thank you for your comment....I hope you engage in this site often.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Trevor, thanks! People ignore the institutional problems….constantly. It’s frustrating, because they keep missing the larger issue. If the structural issues aren’t addressed, the likelihood of true change continues to diminish.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Kim, it’s very easy to judge people when they’re not walking in their shoes. Most people of color don’t dress/talk like fools….just like every person of color isn’t a criminal. The generalizations that are made by people (regardless of political affiliation) is astounding sometimes. I agree….let them try to do more than just talk….actually do something….mentor, go into inner-city schools and help with resources, etc. It’s very easy to go to facebook, twitter, and personal blogs to criticize.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Tiffany, they stay missing the points. People like to say personal responsibility trumps community responsibility. However, if people are provided limited resources, and therefore have fewer choices, then how many choices do individuals really have? That is what all of these folks are missing in their discussions.

    ReplyDelete
  12. @Kareem Jordan I think that you and I both agree that we have a problem within our communities and I do not want it to appear that Trayvon Martin is the only young person that has loss his life in a violent crime and no justice was served. We have loss too many of our young folks at such an early age to the prison system, to the grave, and in this drug war on a daily! We know we have a problem and acknowledge it and now the thing is to now fix it! Not as easy as saying it, but it will take the parents, the communities, the Churches, the politicians, different organizations, the schools, just the village in it entirety to join forces and solve this problem and not let this problem win! I believe in God and realize that nothing is impossible! We came out of slavery, succeeding during the Civil Right Era and now we can also win our communities and children back!

    ReplyDelete
  13. @Kareem Jordan I think that you and I both agree that we have a problem within our communities and I do not want it to appear that Trayvon Martin is the only young person that has loss his life in a violent crime and no justice was served. We have loss too many of our young folks at such an early age to the prison system, to the grave, and in this drug war on a daily! We know we have a problem and acknowledge it and now the thing is to now fix it! Not as easy as saying it, but it will take the parents, the communities, the Churches, the politicians, different organizations, the schools, just the village in it entirety to join forces and solve this problem and not let this problem win! I believe in God and realize that nothing is impossible! We came out of slavery, succeeding during the Civil Right Era and now we can also win our communities and children back

    ReplyDelete
  14. I fully agree with you. We have lost so many of our kids, regardless of the race to violence. Also, the prison industrial complex is a real thing. They are locking up people and making money. Prison is a business, and it is used as a way to control people, especially the economically disadvantaged. But you are also correct...it will take a lot of different groups to fix these issues. I just want people to know that it will take more than individual changes....people have to realize that the system is not designed for certain people to succeed. As long as we ignore the social structure, it will be very difficult to come out of this mess. But absolutely, with God, everything is possible!

    ReplyDelete