Attorney General Eric Holder’s remarks at a Justice Department ceremony Feb. 18, 2009, commemorating Black History Month:
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, a nation of cowards. Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.”
Cowards come in all colors. Cowards usually are incapable of facing the truth about themselves. The blame for their problems are foisted on any but the obvious. Case in point: the dysfunctional social patterns leading to the tragic dissolution of black families. In itself it’s sad, but what makes it even sadder are the black leaders perpetuating and defending this behavior as part of the Black Culture. That to me is cowardly and for the black family it is disasterous, ending in them being victimized for political points.
In Thomas Sowell’s book: Black Rednecks and White Liberals missing pieces of the Black mystique are researched, revealed, and make for some riveting reading. This is the history you never read when dealing with slavery and it’s aftermath in this country.
Thomas Sowell is a Black man who has faced the struggles himself. He makes no excuses and holds no one responsible for his destiny but himself. Town Hall.com includes in Sowell’s bio:
Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. As with many others in his neighborhood, he left home early and did not finish high school. The next few years were difficult ones, but eventually he joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War.
After leaving the service, Sowell entered Harvard University, worked a part-time job as a photographer and studied the science that would become his passion and profession: economics.After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), he went on to receive his master’s in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968).
In the early ’60s, Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Department of Labor and AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In 1965, at Cornell University, he began the first of many professorships. His other teaching assignments include Rutgers University, Amherst University, Brandeis University and the University of California at Los Angeles, where he taught in the early ’70s and also from 1984 to 1989.
Attorney General Holder might do well to note that Black History is best served by scholars and honest men without agendas.
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