Sustaining the shameful legacy of slavery
(and what to do about it)

Summary

Our bipartisan government has left its massive thumbprints all over America’s race problems. Republican and especially Democratic politicians effectively sustain America’s shameful legacy of slavery.

Only one thing will end the legacy of slavery: freedom. All else is intrigue.

Historical context: A unique heroic achievement

The one-sentence assessment of the history of black Americans might go: Black Americans’ ascent from slavery is unprecedented in human history.

Stripped of their native culture, black Americans created a new culture from their own souls. Black Americans invented modern music from their own institutions – principally, the black American church. Theirs remains the most dynamic and influential culture in the world. (To predict the clothing that young people in Rome and Beijing will be wearing tomorrow, for example, look at what young black Americans are wearing in South L.A. today.)

Finally, regarding black Americans' unprecedented political achievement: A nation’s minority, about 12% of the America’s population, inspired the majority to grant political equality under the law and dealt a body blow to racial bigotry. Dr. King’s critics within the movement claimed Gandhi’s nonviolence was inappropriate for black Americans. They argued that while the Indian population represented the “elephant” and the British colonial presence in India represented the “mouse”, the roles were reversed in America. Dr. King and his followers proved that a "mouse" could exert the moral power of an "elephant".

Yet, the shameful legacy of slavery persists.

Consider two items:

1.One young black man in three in America has the negative attention of the criminal justice system: in prison, on parole or on probation.

2.The children of low-income black and brown Americans are burdened with exceptionally poor K-12 educations, as reflected in lower SAT scores. The ACLU has appropriately called this “education” “state-sponsored child abuse”.

The reasons such a shameful legacy persists are taboo in what passes today for political debate. An objective of my campaign is to expose this taboo.

What is Dr. King’s Dream? Freedom!

Every year, America’s newspaper editors fill their editorials with sterile, pious tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King to commemorate his birthday. The same, tired foot soldiers of the modern civil rights establishment dominate the op-ed pages, suggesting that Dr. King’s dream was all about a 25% increase in the social welfare state.

Dr. King’s dream was not about a new wing on the Government’s Plantation. Dr. King’s dream was Freedom. He clearly tried to make it obvious. He used the word “freedom” 20 times in his “I Have a Dream” speech. He concluded it by clearly and explicitly declaring his dream: that all the people will be “free at last”. The modern civil rights establishment has conducted a classic “bait and switch”, replacing Dr. King’s legacy with that of Karl Marx.

(Another hero of the American Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X, is most famous for saying “by any means necessary” (i.e., the ends justifies the means). What he actually said was: “Freedom, by any means necessary.” The modern civic rights establishment conducted a “freedom-ectomy” on Malcolm too.)

How the press sustains the legacy of slavery

The bipartisan press again runs interference for their clients, Democratic and Republican politicians, by wiping clean the government’s bloody thumbprints from this social problem. Consider two ways:

#1: The press hides “state-sponsored child abuse”. Instead of pointing out how the children of low-income minority Americans are crippled by their own government’s dysfunctional K-12 education, the press covertly promotes race preferences by referring to them by the euphemism “affirmative action”. For example, the press always refers to California’s Proposition 209 as the “anti-affirmative action initiative” – notwithstanding two facts: 1) “Affirmative action” cannot be found anywhere in the eight simple, declarative sentences comprising the initiative; and 2) the initiative’s open opponents lost their pre-election court battle to characterize Prop 209 as the “anti-affirmative action initiative” in the summary section of the sample ballot. (Rev. Jesse Jackson and David Duke both believe that black Americans require racial preferences in order to succeed. In this way, the press covertly endorses this subtle form of white supremacy.)

#2: The press ignores the harm of the drug war. Instead of noting how the drug war draws progressively more young black men into prison and feeds the stereotype of young black man as criminal, it covertly charges “white racism” with being the cause. (Hatred for innocent people is the flip side of the press’ blind adoration of government.)

What is “freedom”? The problem & its solution

Our bipartisan government has left its massive thumbprints all over America’s race problems. It energetically sustains America’s shameful legacy of slavery by delivering a one-two punch to the children of low-income black (and brown) Americans:

1. It closes the door of opportunity to a modern job by failing to deliver an adequate K-12 education to children of low-income minority parents.

2. It opens the door to lucrative careers in crime by prohibiting drugs.

The solution is freedom, which means you have the full power to run your own life. Specifically:

1. Freedom means you have the power to choose the school for your own child. It means school choice.

2. Freedom means that your body – your most intimate possession – is not a “public-private partnership”. It means the end of drug prohibition, and the end to the attendant crime, gangs and brutality.