Hello,
First, I want to congratulate on your recent response to the article in question. It is definitely a step in the right direction and that sort of mea culpa is not an easy thing to do. It was a wise and articulate response.
However, I must agree with those who feel that the two editors who allowed this hateful piece to get through should be punished along with the actual writer. The notion that anyone in any position of judgment and/or authority – especially in the highly impressionable, learning environment of a university – would have such a skewed vision of our nation and society that they could see any amount of accuracy in such a piece is deeply troubling. In addition, there’s a matter of fairness. From appearances, they were all three responsible for the hate being published in the first place.
On the bright side, this controversy may lead to what we’ve come to refer to as “a teachable moment”. Whether it can become that or not will come down to the level of honesty you are – or are not – capable of. This is what is in question: Are you capable of communicating some uncomfortable truths or are you merely capable of parroting the mainstream media as they repeatedly spout falsehoods and half-truths? I have a mixed-race family. I love them all deeply. I’m no racist. But some who read this letter may think I am – merely for pointing out the existence and the importance of these uncomfortable facts. If you have the courage to report on them, you’ll likely be called racist too. That’s the level of delusion and dishonesty our society has become normalized to. But someone, somewhere, needs to find the courage to discuss these issues. If we don’t, yet another generation of black and, to a lesser degree brown, young people will face a never-ending uphill battle in life – and it will go on for another 50 years.
Across the country, many people are claiming that our new president has caused our society to be more deeply divided than ever, despite 8 years of a black president in power, many blacks in Congress and even a female black defense secretary in Bush’s administration. We’ve also seen the rise, and general acceptance, of concepts like “white privilege” and the growth of “Black Lives Matter” and the narrative they promote of racially-driven police brutality. These currently-popular narratives are either half-truths or outright lies, but they are creating justifiable anger in those who believe them and are destroying our society.
The truth is, the division began several years ago in Ferguson, Missouri – the birthplace of Black Lives Matter. That Michael Brown – the black man killed by police that day in Ferguson – was a thug is now beyond question. He was killed shortly after being videotaped in a strong arm robbery and even the black witnesses agreed that he attacked the police officer. They also agreed that the entire “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative, which was widely repeated on mainstream media, never happened. Those who bother to educate themselves beyond the nightly TV news know this but those people seem to be in the minority.
On the subject of racist police, I would invite you to research the FBI and DOJ crime statistics and report those to your student body. This might bring some balance to their understanding of our world. The facts are stark and uncomfortable: black men are only around 7% of our population and yet are responsible, every year, for 40-60% of the murders, 50-60% of the armed robberies, 60-75% of the assaults, 30-40% of the rapes. Black people kill 17-18 times as many white people every year as the reverse (with this differential ratio, if the white and black populations were the same, it would mean around 200 times as many whites would be killed). Blacks are 130 times as likely to rob a white person as the other way around. Whether it’s murder, robbery, rape, car-jacking or virtually any other crime, blacks are committing crimes against whites (and every other ethnic group) at stupefying rates that no other group even comes close to.
The above numbers should cause any rational person to understand that blacks come in contact with the police more than any other group. The natural result would be a number of killings by police that is disproportional to their percentage of the population. However, given the same number of police encounters, whites are actually shot by police at a higher rate than blacks are. According to recent studies done by a black Harvard professor (I don’t recall his name, sorry), there is absolutely no evidence of racial bias in our nation’s policing.
We haven’t seen these facts in the mainstream media, have we? Maybe because it’s a “dog bites man” kind of thing. White oppression of other ethnic groups is a sensationalistic, anger-creating and guilt-producing subject, regardless of its truth or falsity. It stimulates emotions. In short – it sells.
And, by the way, poverty does not account for these crime stats. The state of West Virginia is the poorest states but one of the most peaceful. But it’s 96% white. Here’s a VERY uncomfortable fact – in any American city, the racial mix is a much better predictor of crime rates than poverty, unemployment and drop out rates combined.
We have a huge problem in this nation but it’s not racism. The problem is the black ethnic sub-culture that puts thugs and criminals on a pedestal but derides blacks who strive to succeed, calling them “oreo” and “Uncle Tom” and saying they are “acting white”. I’ve seen it happen in my own family. It’s a sub-culture that produces social pressures against success and instead, relies on a false – or at least trumped up – victimhood. It is the only American sub-culture that does this to such a degree (although it is now becoming apparent within the Hispanic sub-culture as well) and the results are there to be seen.
White Privilege: People need to know that Asians – not whites – are the wealthiest and most educated group in America. People need to know that ethnic Nigerians and Guyanese (both black, of course) have larger family incomes than whites. In a recent study of college entrance stats vis-à-vis SAT and ACT scores, it was shown that – on average – Asians are punished by around 50 points while Hispanics received a bonus and blacks receive an even larger bonus. Asians – not blacks nor Hispanics – are being unfairly treated. The reason is obvious – they work hard, study hard, don’t commit crimes and they, on average, succeed at a higher rate than other groups. But none of it has anything to do with racism – it’s their sub-culture that is responsible for their overall success.
I’m white. Personally, I grew up poor, with an alcoholic father in a rural area. I’ve lived on my own and supported myself since I was 16 years old. When I came to college, I met many black people, almost all of whom had a better family life than mine and almost all of whom came from wealthier families. I worked my way through school with no help from anyone. I deeply resent the idea of “white privilege”. The notion of “white” anything is as repugnant as the notion of “black” anything – and it’s every bit as racist.
Attached to the notion of “white privilege” and the white man as oppressor is the growing lie that white people invented slavery. The state of education regarding history in our country is embarrassing and shameful. Any thinking person knows slavery is as old as mankind, still goes on in Africa, and has been practiced by every race and every group that has ever existed. Throughout history, however human beings have divided themselves – whether it was along religious, ethnic, language, nationality or racial lines – they have preyed on each other. Students need to learn that all human beings are just that – human beings – and we all share the same virtues and vices. Any other concept is racism.
The above facts are only a smattering of the truths to be learned with only a little research. I invite you to double-check my stats and do your own digging.
This controversial article might be your opportunity to teach people to not accept mainstream media at face value, to question what seems obvious, to look deeper, to do their own research and, most of all, to accept personal responsibility for their own success – or lack of it. Maybe people can learn to drop group identity over personal identity, to refuse the concept of group guilt, and, most of all, to honor Martin Luther King’s goal of judging everyone by the content of their character. Over the last several decades, colleges and universities have been doing a fine job of teaching students to hate their own country (“America was never great”), to remain totally ignorant about political and economic freedom, and to remain blind to the triumphs and progress of Western Civilization. They’ve taught students to judge our society by the bar of perfection rather than by comparing it to all other societies. The result is the slow, sinking, gradual destruction of all that we hold dear and the forfeiture of our descendant’s future. I sincerely hope you can comprehend this and take this opportunity to, at least at your school, begin to make a change. Thank you for reading this.
-Don Williams