Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background," she explains, and then goes on to write a hard-hitting column that calls out irresponsible parents and those who look to Government for salvation.
Black History Month 2010 is not a great time for a party. Unemployment at almost 10%, and well over 16% among blacks, doesn’t make for much of a festive mood.
But if the mood is not festive, shouldn’t it be reflective?
Certainly, there’s reason for pride in black achievement in the forty plus years since the Civil Rights movement. We’ve now got a couple black billionaires and a black president. The percentage of blacks with college degrees is three times greater now than in 1970.
But black household income is still just 62% of white households. And the black poverty rate, at twice the national average, has hardly budged since the late 1960’s.
Blacks should be asking hard questions when, over this period of time, many immigrants from different backgrounds have come to this country with little and moved into the middle class in one generation.
The accumulation of considerable black political power – black mayors, governors, a 42 member Black Congressional Caucus, and now a black president - has made hardly a difference. It should be clear that black economic distress is not a political problem.
Studies show that it’s family and education that produces success in America. Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background.
Now consider that in 1970, 62% of black women were married compared to 33% today. In 1970, 74% of black men were married, compared to 44% today.
Or that in 1970, 5% of black mothers were never married compared to 41% today.
The Civil Rights movement was, of course, a religiously inspired and led movement. It made liberal use of the biblical imagery of the Exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt.
Taylor Branch called his trilogy about Dr. King and the movement he led “Parting of the Waters”, “Pillar of Fire”, and “At Canaan’s Edge.”
To the misfortune of blacks who put great hope in the redemptive powers of that movement, their leaders prematurely closed their bibles.
The story of the liberation of the Israelite slaves did not end with their release from their Egyptian taskmasters. That was the beginning. They then proceeded to the mountain in the wilderness to receive the law to take with them and live by in the Promised Land.
When it was clear that the former Egyptian slaves were not up to the task, they were condemned to wander for forty years in the wilderness so that a new generation would arise, enter the land, and build the nation.
Let’s recall that the law they received was about family (honor your parents), about property and ownership (thou shalt not steal), and about being concerned about building your own and not what your neighbor has (thou shalt not covet).
Rather than seeking redemption through this law, post-Civil Rights movement black leaders sought redemption in politics. The welfare state, entitlements, transfer payments, and the politics of differences and envy. Should we be surprised by the result?
The New York Times recently reported that from 2004 to 2008, the political and charitable arms of the Congressional Black Caucus raised more than $55 million from corporations and unions. According to the Times, most of these funds were “spent on elaborate conventions…a headquarters building, golf outings,…and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.”
More was spent on the caterer for the Caucus’s Foundation annual dinner - $700,000 – than it gave out in scholarships.
It’s now over forty years since the Civil Right movement. Enough wandering in the wilderness.
It’s time for a new generation of black Americans to step forward. A generation to turn to the truths that will rebuild black lives, black families, and lead blacks to the freedom that Dr. King and all blacks have dreamed about.
See more articles by Star Parker
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service
Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education
722 12th Street, NW Fourth Floor
Washington, DC 20005
202-479-2873 (CURE)
http://www.urbancure.org/
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Showing posts with label Star Parker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Parker. Show all posts
Black History Month is No Time to Party
Star Parker, founder and president of the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), writes that it is "time for a new generation of Black Americans." What does she mean by that? "Studies show that it’s family and education that produces success in America. Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background," she explains, and then goes on to write a hard-hitting column that calls out irresponsible parents and those who look to Government for salvation.
Black History Month 2010 is not a great time for a party. Unemployment at almost 10%, and well over 16% among blacks, doesn’t make for much of a festive mood.
But if the mood is not festive, shouldn’t it be reflective?
Certainly, there’s reason for pride in black achievement in the forty plus years since the Civil Rights movement. We’ve now got a couple black billionaires and a black president. The percentage of blacks with college degrees is three times greater now than in 1970.
But black household income is still just 62% of white households. And the black poverty rate, at twice the national average, has hardly budged since the late 1960’s.
Blacks should be asking hard questions when, over this period of time, many immigrants from different backgrounds have come to this country with little and moved into the middle class in one generation.
The accumulation of considerable black political power – black mayors, governors, a 42 member Black Congressional Caucus, and now a black president - has made hardly a difference. It should be clear that black economic distress is not a political problem.
Studies show that it’s family and education that produces success in America. Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background.
Now consider that in 1970, 62% of black women were married compared to 33% today. In 1970, 74% of black men were married, compared to 44% today.
Or that in 1970, 5% of black mothers were never married compared to 41% today.
The Civil Rights movement was, of course, a religiously inspired and led movement. It made liberal use of the biblical imagery of the Exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt.
Taylor Branch called his trilogy about Dr. King and the movement he led “Parting of the Waters”, “Pillar of Fire”, and “At Canaan’s Edge.”
To the misfortune of blacks who put great hope in the redemptive powers of that movement, their leaders prematurely closed their bibles.
The story of the liberation of the Israelite slaves did not end with their release from their Egyptian taskmasters. That was the beginning. They then proceeded to the mountain in the wilderness to receive the law to take with them and live by in the Promised Land.
When it was clear that the former Egyptian slaves were not up to the task, they were condemned to wander for forty years in the wilderness so that a new generation would arise, enter the land, and build the nation.
Let’s recall that the law they received was about family (honor your parents), about property and ownership (thou shalt not steal), and about being concerned about building your own and not what your neighbor has (thou shalt not covet).
Rather than seeking redemption through this law, post-Civil Rights movement black leaders sought redemption in politics. The welfare state, entitlements, transfer payments, and the politics of differences and envy. Should we be surprised by the result?
The New York Times recently reported that from 2004 to 2008, the political and charitable arms of the Congressional Black Caucus raised more than $55 million from corporations and unions. According to the Times, most of these funds were “spent on elaborate conventions…a headquarters building, golf outings,…and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.”
More was spent on the caterer for the Caucus’s Foundation annual dinner - $700,000 – than it gave out in scholarships.
It’s now over forty years since the Civil Right movement. Enough wandering in the wilderness.
It’s time for a new generation of black Americans to step forward. A generation to turn to the truths that will rebuild black lives, black families, and lead blacks to the freedom that Dr. King and all blacks have dreamed about.
See more articles by Star Parker
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service
Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education
722 12th Street, NW Fourth Floor
Washington, DC 20005
202-479-2873 (CURE)
http://www.urbancure.org/
Leave a Comment * Conservative T-Shirts * Follow CNB on Twitter * RSS Feed
Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background," she explains, and then goes on to write a hard-hitting column that calls out irresponsible parents and those who look to Government for salvation.
Black History Month 2010 is not a great time for a party. Unemployment at almost 10%, and well over 16% among blacks, doesn’t make for much of a festive mood.
But if the mood is not festive, shouldn’t it be reflective?
Certainly, there’s reason for pride in black achievement in the forty plus years since the Civil Rights movement. We’ve now got a couple black billionaires and a black president. The percentage of blacks with college degrees is three times greater now than in 1970.
But black household income is still just 62% of white households. And the black poverty rate, at twice the national average, has hardly budged since the late 1960’s.
Blacks should be asking hard questions when, over this period of time, many immigrants from different backgrounds have come to this country with little and moved into the middle class in one generation.
The accumulation of considerable black political power – black mayors, governors, a 42 member Black Congressional Caucus, and now a black president - has made hardly a difference. It should be clear that black economic distress is not a political problem.
Studies show that it’s family and education that produces success in America. Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background.
Now consider that in 1970, 62% of black women were married compared to 33% today. In 1970, 74% of black men were married, compared to 44% today.
Or that in 1970, 5% of black mothers were never married compared to 41% today.
The Civil Rights movement was, of course, a religiously inspired and led movement. It made liberal use of the biblical imagery of the Exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt.
Taylor Branch called his trilogy about Dr. King and the movement he led “Parting of the Waters”, “Pillar of Fire”, and “At Canaan’s Edge.”
To the misfortune of blacks who put great hope in the redemptive powers of that movement, their leaders prematurely closed their bibles.
The story of the liberation of the Israelite slaves did not end with their release from their Egyptian taskmasters. That was the beginning. They then proceeded to the mountain in the wilderness to receive the law to take with them and live by in the Promised Land.
When it was clear that the former Egyptian slaves were not up to the task, they were condemned to wander for forty years in the wilderness so that a new generation would arise, enter the land, and build the nation.
Let’s recall that the law they received was about family (honor your parents), about property and ownership (thou shalt not steal), and about being concerned about building your own and not what your neighbor has (thou shalt not covet).
Rather than seeking redemption through this law, post-Civil Rights movement black leaders sought redemption in politics. The welfare state, entitlements, transfer payments, and the politics of differences and envy. Should we be surprised by the result?
The New York Times recently reported that from 2004 to 2008, the political and charitable arms of the Congressional Black Caucus raised more than $55 million from corporations and unions. According to the Times, most of these funds were “spent on elaborate conventions…a headquarters building, golf outings,…and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.”
More was spent on the caterer for the Caucus’s Foundation annual dinner - $700,000 – than it gave out in scholarships.
It’s now over forty years since the Civil Right movement. Enough wandering in the wilderness.
It’s time for a new generation of black Americans to step forward. A generation to turn to the truths that will rebuild black lives, black families, and lead blacks to the freedom that Dr. King and all blacks have dreamed about.
See more articles by Star Parker
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service
Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education
722 12th Street, NW Fourth Floor
Washington, DC 20005
202-479-2873 (CURE)
http://www.urbancure.org/
Leave a Comment * Conservative T-Shirts * Follow CNB on Twitter * RSS Feed
Why You Should Hate the Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Star Parker rips into the hypocrisy and legal flaws of the new "Hate Crimes Prevention Act," which Barack Obama signed on October 28.
Parker (photos) is a favorite columnist around here. She is the founder and president of CURE, the Coalition for Urban Renewal & Education, a 501c3 non-profit think tank that provides a national voice of reason on issues of race and poverty in the media, inner city neighborhoods, and public policy.
Here is her Nov. 2 column, "New hate crimes law is a mistake."
President Barack Obama has signed into law the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Actually, he signed into law the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act tacked onto which was the hate crimes legislation.
Sen. Harry Reid, our brave Democratic majority leader, slipped the hate crimes bill into the defense authorization bill to avoid having to have our senators consider the controversial hate crimes bill on its own.
It's for good reason that our Democratic legislators wanted to hide under a rock while passing this terrible piece of legislation. It may help them with the far left wing of their party. But weakening and damaging our country is not something to be proud of. And that is exactly what this new hate crime law does.
The bill adds extra penalties to violent crimes when they are deemed motivated by gender, sexual orientation, or disabilities. It's the first major expansion of hate crimes legislation originally passed in 1968, targeted then to crimes aimed at race, color, religion, and national origin.
After signing this new law, Obama celebrated it by saying that in this nation we should "embrace our differences."
But law isn't about embracing our differences. It is about providing equal and non-arbitrary protection to all citizens.
Equal protection for every individual American under the law is what the 14th Amendment to our Constitution, passed after the Civil War, guarantees. That this nation takes this guarantee seriously -- that there are no classes of individuals treated differently under the law -- has been a justifiable obsession of blacks.
A society in which all life is not valued the same, where murder of one citizen is not the same as the murder of another citizen, is a horror that black Americans have known too well.
So it is a particular irony that this major expansion of the politicization of our law has been signed by our first black president.
What could it possibly mean that the penalty for the same act of violence -- for murder -- may be different depending on what might be deemed to be the motivation?
Can you imagine a football game where the penalty for roughing the passer is 20 yards rather than 15 yards if the referee concludes that the violence perpetrated was motivated because the quarterback was homosexual?
Is it not a sign of our own pathology that we now have codified that it is worse to murder a homosexual than someone who has committed adultery, even with your husband or wife, or who has slandered or robbed? Isn't the point murder?
Can we really believe that someone capable of murder is less likely to do so if the victim is a homosexual and the penalties are greater?
It should be clear that hate crime law has nothing to do with improving our law but rather with creating favored political classes. It is something that should be hateful to everyone who cares about a free society, and particularly hateful to those, such as blacks, who have been victimized by politicization of law.
How about the sad and pathetic recent murder of a 16-year-old Christian black honor student in Chicago by four teenage thugs, also black?
A hate crime?
Black on black homicides are tearing up our inner cities. Hate crimes?
The social breakdown that produces the disproportionate violence in black America is the product of the same moral relativism and politicization of law that has produced hate crime bills.
We already have a source, which instructs against murder and to love your neighbor as yourself.
But this has been banned from our schools and our public spaces.
So once again, in what is becoming our Godless nation, we mistake the disease for the cure.
More Articles from Star Parker:
The Health Care Fatal Conceit
We can expect the same results from government taking over health care as we've gotten from housing socialism.
Al Sharpton, today's Orval Faubus
Sharpton blocked Limbaugh like Governor Orval Faubus tried to block black children from entering Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.
Consumers need protection -- from government
700 of 1600 payday loan offices in Ohio have closed.
Outrage over ACORN, but not abortion
A great lie has found its way into our national culture -- a lie that has deadened our senses -- that we can contend with life's challenges in a morally relative way.
Video: Star Parker with Neil Cavuto
African-Americans are no longer buying into the 'plantation mentality' of the Left.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service
Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE)
722 12th Street, NW Fourth Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Telephone 202-479-2873
http://www.urbancure.org/
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Urban League's Declaration of Dependence
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| Star Parker |
This week, Parker thought a lot about the National Urban League and their shameful willingness to declare, in effect, that African-Americans are not able to make it on their own, and that Big Government is the only hope for them. Those are my words, not Parker's. She says it a whole lot better than I can:
The National Urban League has just issued its annual State of Black America report. It provides a troubling statistical snapshot of where blacks stand today in our country. Like Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, I'm concerned. But after concern, we part company. We have very different ideas of what it is we should be concerned about. Morial, I am sure, sees his organization as part of the solution. From what I see, it is a well-funded symptom of the problem.
Note: If you want a copy of the State of Black America report, the National Urban League will gladly sell you a copy for $19.95. However, you can find a free Executive Summary and free abstracts at no charge on their website.
Parker jumps right into to her declaration that the National Urban League, a suck-up organization in the pocket of the Democrat National Committee, is not part of any solution. The National Urban League, she says, is a big part of the problem:
Shouldn't it embarrass black Americans that one the nation's largest and most prestigious civil rights organizations offers a long list of proposals to improve black life in our country, and every single proposal is a government program? Government funded jobs as the answer to unemployment, more government money in public schools, government health care, government business loans, government money for retirement accounts, government programs for counseling homebuyers, government worker training programs, government money for building construction, and on and on.
Indeed, it should embarrass not just black Americans but all Americans that, in the year 2009, so much of the failed policies of Lyndon Johnson's not-so-"Great Society" are still clung to by race-baiting opportunists. The National Urban League is such an opportunistic organization, eager to take the tax dollars of hard working men and women regardless of race and redistribute it to those who have not earned it. A main motivation of such immoral action: Power. He who controls the gold controls those to whom he doles it. Why do you think 90 percent of black voters, in a typical election, will vote for the Democrat? Because organizations like the Urban League are in a devil's pact with the Democrats and the redistributionists.
Parker continues:
There's not a single proposal that I could find in a several hundred-page report about improving black life that does not start with government. The civil rights movement once was about freedom and liberation. Now it's about government dependency. We should be ashamed.
Ashamed, yes. Surprised, no, not with reflection and critical thought. One of the most disturbing nightmares for the Democrat Party leadership and groups such as the National Urban League is one in which black people and other minority groups begin to realize that freedom and liberty is killed by dependence. Whether that dependence is that of a child to parent or welfare recipient to government bureaucrat, freedom dies and the recipient is co-opted. Creativity is discouraged, enterprise muted, progress retarded.
But, you may whimper, blacks and minorities need more help than, you know, the rest of us. That's liberal code for "white people." The Democrat Party and the Urban League don't mind that at all. The notion that one cannot make it with Uncle Sam's hand up one's rear end, as with a ventriloquist and his dummy, is just fine and dandy. The ventriloquist, after all, controls the dummy. What good would it do the ventriloquist if the dummy got off his lap, walked away, and booked his own act?
Racism still exists, but it can no longer be blamed as a blanket reason for blacks to fail. Too many black Americans are succeeding, thank God, for that to be a valid reason any longer. It is now an shirker's excuse.
As Parker writes, "Regarding discrimination, you have to wonder what it will take to get off this convenient excuse. Some 40 million white Americans voted for Barack Obama for president. That is two million more white Americans than voted for John Kerry in 2004."
It is, perhaps, an ironic statement for Parker to make, considering that Kerry and Obama have been and continue to be part of the cabal that encourages groups like the National Urban League - and the myth that black Americans can't make it without them.
Obamafication of Education
Columnist Star Parker criticizes Barackobama's nice talk-bad walk approach to education.
President Obama often uses the right words. He says that "responsibility for our children's education must begin at home." But then he will not allow parents' school choice and the option to choose a religious school.
Nice words, pretty words. Empty, vapid, hypocritical words. Didn't Obama say that words are important?
Parker adds that "We need more common sense and freedom in K-12 education -- not more government programs and money." Full Column by Star Parker...
I agree with her completely. Unfortunately, the Democrats - and too many Republicans - prefer the to play the game of ever-increasing budgets for schools. They do this for two primary reasons: (1) Ignorance of the historic inverse relationship between student performance and spending per student, and (2) because bigger budgets means bigger bureaucracies - and that means more power. Not for the people, for the politicians and bureaucrats.
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Cool Stuff...
Uncle Sam as Massah
Columnist and frequent talk show guest Star Parker discusses the increasingly socialist nature of the U.S. Government, welfare, and plantation politics. Parker is the founder and president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (CURE).
Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems. The kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others.
The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families.
Through God's grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.
I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican congress and signed into law by a Democrat president. A few years after enactment, welfare roles were down fifty percent.
I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth producing American capitalism.
But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction. Full Column at CURE....
ALSO SEE: Video: Why change is rare in black communities - Free market has components built within it that will revolutionize a community regardless of the ethnicity.
ALSO: Video: Glenn Beck, panel, and Star Parker discuss the "Road To Socialism"
AND: Obama has little in common with Lincoln
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Obama Is No Lincoln
Star Parker (photo) is a writer who should not be ignored. She writes columns on the web site of CURE (Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education). Star's column on Jan. 19, "Obama has little in common with Lincoln," is a powerful commentary on Barack Obama's character and the current state of our public leadership.
On the hardest moral dilemma of his day, Abraham Lincoln stepped up to the plate and took a stand. He did not say that it was above his pay grade. And this is what makes Abraham Lincoln very different from Barack Obama. Full Article at CURE...
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