As I heard snatches and snippets of the Michael Jackson memorial service yesterday, I thought to myself, “It sure is a great time to be a black man.”

Even a black man who painted himself white gets the special treatment.

I heard Al Sharpton waxing idiotic about how Jackson “paved the way” for black musicians and even black athletes like Tiger Woods.  Huh?  Did I fall into a wormhole and travel to an alternate universe?  I must have.

In my universe, we had people like Nat King Cole and Jackie Robinson paving the way.  We even had a whole decade of people like Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Commodores, Gladys Knight, etc., after the people like Nat King Cole… and before Michael Jackson.

Some other hitchhiker on the Jackson Memorial Bandwagon said that before Michael white people only listened to black music in the privacy of “back rooms,” where nobody could see them.  What a load of hooey.  Here’s an idea: if you’re a black man, don’t act like you know what white people are doing in “back rooms,” okay?  It’s a secret.

Well, since you asked politely, that’s where we teach ourselves to bite our lower lips while dancing.  We have to learn that.

Forget about whether you think Michael Jackson did or did not sexually abuse little boys—I know he was never convicted—here’s the big question: would anybody make excuses for a white musician who slept with little boys?

Meanwhile, we have a president who didn’t have a dime to his name—whose best job was a part time gig as a teacher—who suddenly got rich right after being elected to the U.S. Senate.  He suddenly got a multi-million-dollar advance to write a book, his disbarred lawyer wife suddenly got a huge promotion to a job earning three hundred thousand per year, and they suddenly bought a big house they couldn’t afford with the help of a crook who is now serving time in federal prison for bribing public officials.

The big question: could a white politician get away with such blatant behavior without being labeled a crook?  Hell no.  People are not shy about labeling a white man.  All Larry Craig did was tap some Morse code with his foot and he was immediately impaled on a spit and barbecued… okay, bad imagery maybe, given the circumstances, but you get my point.

Now that he’s president, Obama is “passing it forward.”  During the election, two men from the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia barred the entrance to a polling place, carrying weapons, physically threatening voters, and uttering racial insults.  The Bush Justice Department arrested them and charged them.  The Justice Department won the trial but then Obama became president and appointed a black Attorney General who dismissed the charges before sentencing.

Like I said, it's a great time to be a black man.

The two thugs in question never even bothered to show up in court, apparently knowing the fix was in.  Since one of them actually worked for the Obama campaign, it’s easy to guess the source of their confidence.

(Shoot, if I had a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free pass, I wouldn’t waste it on harassing voters.  I’d do something more rewarding like rob a bank or kidnap Donald Trump.)

We just had a Supreme Court case about firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, who were denied promotions because they were not black.  The primary litigant was a white man with dyslexia who persevered in spite of it, spent 8 to 13 hours a day studying, paid somebody to record books on tape because of his handicap, and ultimately achieved the highest score on the promotion exam.

Great story, right?  Good enough to be a made-for-TV movie.

Black politicians in New Haven objected, however, because no black man scored high enough to earn a promotion so the city council threw out the test results and promoted nobody.  Not even the two Hispanic guys who scored high.  After all, they aren’t black either.

Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor ruled against the unblack firefighters at the Appeals Court level, not even considering their case worthy of comment.  The Supreme Court unanimously rejected her rejection but, not to worry, Obama saw that her heart was in the right place, even if her legal reasoning is faulty, and promoted her to the Supreme Court.

So not only is this a great time to be a black man, it looks like things will be getting better, at least on the Supreme Court.

New Haven isn’t the only place where it helps to be black.  The nation recently learned that the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis has abandoned aptitude and achievement-based enrollment in favor of diversity-based enrollment.  Basically, what this boils down to is this: if you’re black and want to matriculate at Annapolis, you’re in.

Even if you don’t know what “matriculate” means.

A white kid has to score better than 600 on SAT’s, have almost perfect grades in high school, and be the one out of ten they pick based on personal leadership and sports achievement.  He could be valedictorian of his high school, quarterback of the football team, nominated for enrollment by his congressman, help little old ladies cross the street… and still not make the cut.

Don’t worry, they have a special one-year remedial school for the dummies before they let them be Midshipmen so they are at least five years away from controlling Aegis missile systems and making dead-of-night decisions in foreign oceans about billion-dollar warships.  Relax.

Yeah, it’s a great time to be a black man... but is it really?

How does this stuff make you feel when you’re an accomplished black man whose achievements were by your own merit?  What does Tiger Woods think when Al Sharpton gives Michael Jackson credit for his accomplishments?  Was Michael out there with Tiger until after sundown hitting thousands of practice balls, to the point where his hands bled?

Hey, maybe that’s why he wore that white glove!

How about the black Midshipmen in Annapolis who got into the Naval Academy because they studied in high school and scored well on their SATs?  How about the black firefighters in New Haven who were promoted because they earned it and face the daily stigma of being lumped with diversity-promoted black men?

Seems to me it’s not fair to them—not fair at all.  If you’re somebody who works hard, perseveres in the face of adversity, and achieves success based on your merits, seems to me it’s a bad time to be a black man.  When Tiger Woods, operating at the very top of a sport which is the epitome of individual accomplishment, cannot avoid having his achievements tarnished by the likes of Al Sharpton playing racial politics, how can anybody?

So maybe it’s not a great time to be a black man.  I’m confused.

The reason I’m confused is because the only black men I know are like Tiger Woods and the Annapolis midshipmen who earned their position.  The black men I know are like the New Haven firefighters who passed the promotion exam with flying colors and deserve their positions.

The black men I know are just guys, like me.  Just guys trying to do the right thing—going to work, paying their taxes, receiving no special favors, taking care of their families.  Just people.  Who are these New Black Panther Party thugs barring the doorway to polling places?  Why is Michael Jackson held up as some kind of paragon of virtue?  Who are these black politicians in New Haven who have taken their city’s fire department and constructed a bitter divide between races that will probably last longer than the lawsuit it spawned?

Whoever they are, are they really doing black men any favors?

The same liberal political theories that bring us diversity-based admissions and diversity-based promotions also bring us the social programs and philosophical mindset that have destroyed black families.  Feminist socialism in the form of draconian child-support laws and family-unfriendly aid-to-children regulations have damaged males of all races in this country, but they have been especially ruinous for black men.

In 1960, 67% of black children lived in two-parent households.  Family structure was the backbone and strength of black culture.  Then came the Great Society with its new child support and welfare laws—a giant social experiment performed on the American nation. By 1995, the percentage of black children living in two-parent households had fallen to 33%.

33%!

That’s a disaster.  Most black children today are not living with their father and I know those fathers don’t want it this way.  Nobody would.  The same kind of damage was done to every other race but nothing this extreme.  The biggest price for fifty years of experimentation with socialism in this country has been paid by black people—primarily black men.

No amount of racial-payback and Al Sharpton excuse-making and Obama “pay it forward” racism can compensate for being separated from your children.  New Black Panther thugs with billy clubs are not going to fix this.  Clearly, the white man is not your enemy here, no matter what Al Sharpton says.  We’re just guys trying to get by, like you.  We’re victims of the same social experiment that is fucking up your life.

I personally watch more than half my paycheck disappear into the child support system for a child I never get to see or visit—just another fatherless son buried in the statistics, growing up without his father's guidance.

One of the biggest tragedies caused by the breakdown of black family structure is the fact that so many black kids are available for adoption—which brings us full-circle, to another white-faced man who slept with little boys: Frank Lombard, the white gay professor at Duke who made a point of adopting black boys because they were “easier to get.”  He adopted them for the specific purpose of sexually abusing them.

“Easier to get.”  If those words don’t make you want to cry…

As those two boys grow up—in some other household, hopefully—I wonder if they will think it’s a great time to be a black man.  I wonder if children—all children of all races—wouldn’t be better served by showcasing Tiger Woods as the shining example for men—all men of all races—rather than Michael Jackson.

Let’s stop letting them make it about black against white and let’s turn our attention to the system that is destroying us all.  Let’s send the race baiters like David Duke and Al Sharpton off to some deserted island and let them throw rocks at each other.  Who would miss them?

It’s not a great time to be a man, period.  And it won’t be until we create a system that recognizes us as individuals instead of constantly trying to perfect a system that squeezes us into categories and forces us into opposing groups in the name of some theoretical concept called racial equity.


From Reno, Nevada, USA