The Black Hole

[Composed on the spur of the moment. I am responsible, as usual, for any ranty goodness even if it doesn't make logical sense.]

I hope you're sitting down, but I've been reading. I've been reading about so-called race relations in America in light of the Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman affair. For the record, I deplore these two men's actions. I deplore Zimmerman because he should have known better, being the older and therefore supposedly wiser man. I deplore Zimmerman because he should have been more cognizant of the responsibility that comes with having a concealed weapon. I do not think--not that it matters--that he's a racist just quite stupid. I deplore Martin because he was a jerk. He was center deep in the rut to become a gangster, a thug, and a blight on good society.
That said, the jury made a sound decision in pronouncing Zimmerman not guilty. There was enough reasonable doubt that it would not have been justifiable in any sense, starting with the legal and ending with the moral, to send Zimmerman to prison.
I deplore Barack Obama even more than those two reprobates. His decision to enter the fray was perhaps the politically astute thing to do considering his failing presidency, but that aside it was a repugnant show of racist ideology and belies a cynicism bred of deep-seated hatred. I can only surmise that it is of white people, but I can't be certain but it doesn't matter. He's an asshole, and that's all there is to it. I'm now awaiting any of several Federal Agencies (including the Department of Education with its law enforcement arm. Yes, it has one. Who'd a thunk that!) to carry out a campaign against me at his behest. Not that I'm that significant or anything. How's that for being cynical?
All that was a preamble for something that's been eating at me for a while: black Americans as a group. It has been said in some areas of the Internet that I've trod that blacks are altogether inferior (this is true racism by the way, according to its dictionary definition) and therefore are incapable of American citizenship, one that requires intelligent and educated participation. When one looks around at the actions or inactions as the case may be of black Americans, can you fault the racist for thinking this? Substandard scores in just about every recorded education goal. A hellaciously fractured family life. Mob mentality in voting practices and actual mob behavior. Crimes committed at a rate completely out of proportion to population numbers.
Attributing such behavior to poverty is nonsensical and smacks of political opportunism. How? As a thoroughly reliable guide, anything Barack Obama thinks can be chalked up to political opportunism and he thinks poverty and a currently non-existent widespread racism is the cause of black malaise.
There are studies that have shown that black people are predisposed to violence and criminal behavior based on genetics. Is that true, one wonders. Is there a genetic link that dooms the average black American to becoming a criminal? If you believe, as I do, that even if it were true there was a genetic predisposition to crime locked somewhere in the genes of black people, it does not then follow that black people are completely helpless in determining whether or not to commit a crime. Criminal behavior is learned and correlation is not causation and all that claptrap. But I play my hand too soon.
What I find ironic is that the racist thinking that dooms black Americans to being inferior citizens, incapable of breaking from their genetic prisons to live peaceably in the freest society in human history is the same  shared by those who are supposedly virulently avowed non-racists. Liberal thought actually treats blacks with kid gloves that belie an ideology of low to no expectations. Black voting is a sure thing, like children can be counted on to always like ice cream. Black-run cities are always guaranteed to be violent and out-of-control, therefore more money should be heaped on them much the same way you provide your crying toddler with a lollipop to assuage a tantrum. Black education scores are deplorably below standards therefore amass a heap of money so that black children who don't care to learn are presented with world-class facilities that go mostly unused.
It is my considered opinion that black Americans are not genetically inferior humans anymore than than Asians are genetically superior human beings. In spite of all the studies that show a correlation between one gene or the other and a certain behavior, humans are and have always been capable of rejecting any such predispositions. “The history of the world is but the biography of great men” is an aphorism I read long ago, and it is true. Now take a look at the actual biographies of such great men and you will find all those foibles that make humanity its own worst enemy: we steal, we lie, we cheat, we kill. We are not doomed to behavior. The supposed best of us can show the worst of all behaviors. The supposed worst of us can show the best of all behaviors. We learn to become what we are.
This is not to say that genetics play absolutely no part in fashioning our natures. To say so would be to overstep my expertise. I do believe our genes determine our brain chemistry, which may in turn determine behavior, yes. But I do not believe therefore that it does determine our behavior. There are many reasons which this is so, and we as a society certainly do not act--nor should we--as if we believe we have no choice in modifying any predisposed behavior. We punish a criminal not his parents, for a somewhat trite example.
No, what I believe is black America's problem isn't one of genetics. It isn't one of economics--I will put my childhood up against the poorest of any American and mine will be worse, guaranteed. It is, pure and simply a cultured laziness.
I have read stories of newly-freed black slaves searching the land, far and wide, looking to be reunited with their families after the Civil War. I have heard stories of immense courage that black American men and women showed to keep their family and individual dignities together in the face of true hate. I have seen black Americans respond with aplomb and God-given grace in the face of what must have been an unending racist storm. I have heard of black Americans fervently seeking education despite the certain knowledge of instant and painful death upon discovery.
So what happened?
The liberals did. I believe that it started with the best of intentions: in a drive to assuage their consciences--sometimes wrought by their very Christianity--these fine folk decided to bend over backwards to give the so-called black community a hand up, to help gain standing in America (something which did not happen anywhere else on earth, by the way). Along the way, it became corrupted; co-opted by people like Barack Obama and the Kennedys and the LBJs of the world, it led to a widespread dependency by what was once a proud people on the purse and largesse of the government. In yet another unnoticed irony, this is exactly what slavery at its heart is about.
Here's the thing: you do this for any group of people and you will get the same results. Black, yellow, white, blue it doesn't matter. You give unending handouts and people will become lazy and stop "struggling." Since I've become quite the gym meathead, I can tell you that an apt analogy is muscle atrophy. You don't use your muscles--and by use I mean punish them, subject them to load, stress, shear--and they will atrophy.
Here's my measly contribution to the national conversation on race: start shaming people. All people. Certain civilizational standards exist. When people don't meet those standards, shame them. It is shameful to bring a bastard into the world. It is shameful to go to prison. It is shameful not to be able to pay your bills. It is shameful to be lazy. It is shameful to be dull in school (I like this term, by the way. Just as a dull knife can be made sharp by pressure and persistence, a dull child can attain mental sharpness and acuity.) It is shameful to be a one-parent household by choice. It is shameful for a black--or any other color--girl to sleep with as many thugs as she gets the vagina tingles for. It is shameful to impregnate as many woman as you want and then run away. It is shameful to shirk one's responsibilities. It is shameful to expect then come to demand handouts of any sort. It is shameful to display mental laziness in picking a candidate simply because of his color. It is all shameful. But people, being social animals, will only feel shame if we as a society start vociferously shaming.
It is not a racist act to shame. It is, in fact, an empowering act. You are calling another human being who has slipped back on to the sanity platform. It is allowing that they are adults capable for realizing shame and also, more importantly, mentally, psychologically and physically capable of changing behavior. Raise the standards, demand they be followed, and people will respond.
That or continue thinking black Americans are pets to be assuaged with goodies.