SPECIAL GUEST COLUMN by Mark Alexander. Mark is the editor of the PatriotPost.us. The Patriot Post presents current policy and culture issues of concern to Americans who uphold the most basic tenets of America: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Black Privilege - From Suppression to Supremacy

first published on Dec. 3, 2014 in The Patriot Post

“There is in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong, a love of truth and a veneration of virtue … if the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice.” –John Adams (1775)

From MLK to BHO.

1963: “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” –Martin Luther King

2014: “The fact is … a deep distrust exists [in] communities of color. … There are still problems and communities of color aren’t just making these problems up. … [The] frustrations … have deep roots in many communities of color. … Too many individuals, particularly young people of color, do not feel as if they are being treated fairly.” –Barack Hussein Obama

That’s right, more than half a century has passed, and “color” still trumps “character.” But the segregation between those distinctions is not the result of racism – quite the contrary.

In August of 1963, when King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the Lincoln Memorial, parts of the nation were deeply entrenched in racial discord. Notably, that racial tension was far from limited to the stereotypical Deep South struggle.

In 1966, when King went to Obama’s hometown of Chicago, where racial factions had erupted in riotous violence, he observed, “I can tell you that the hatred and hostility in Chicago are really deeper than in Alabama and Mississippi.”

Chicago was then, and is in many respects now, not only a cauldron of racial hatred but also the birthplace of the black supremacist movement. Indeed, Obama was steeped in racist hostility by his Afro-centric “pastor,” Jeremiah “G– d— America” Wright, the mentor Obama says filled the role of the father he never had.

Of such racial antagonists, King said, “Those who are associated with ‘Black Power’ and black supremacy are wrong.”

King had the right idea in ‘63, but the Democratic Party has, over the last 50 years, inverted the wisdom of this iconic civil rights leader. Today, this agenda implies that King has rather said, “I have a dream that my children will be judged by the color of their skin, not the content of their character.”

King’s dream has been betrayed by Democratic cadres of “poverty pimps,” who have done a very effective job of corralling black voters into their most loyal constituency. Today, more than 90% of black voters support Democrats. The party accomplished this subjugation by convincing generations of black Americans that they will forever be victims of racial inequality and must therefore be dependent upon the state to survive.

The “Great Society” social programs of King’s era have, in effect, enslaved generations of black men, women and children on urban poverty plantations. In 1964, the poverty rate was 19%. Beginning with Lyndon Johnson’s Economic Opportunity Act, which launched the Democrats’ so-called “War on Poverty,” more than $15 trillion of individual and national treasure has been redistributed, ostensibly, to “lift up the poor.” Today, after Obama has redistributed almost $1 trillion in national treasure for his failed “economic recovery,” the poverty rate for black families is now 27%. Black unemployment is 11.6%, more than double the rate of white unemployment. Among blacks age 16 to 19, unemployment is now a staggering 36.8%.

And that brings us to August of 2014, and the fatal confrontation between a white police officer and a towering black thug (a.k.a. “unarmed teenager”) in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri. After Officer Darren Wilson shot assailant Michael Brown in self-defense, as affirmed by at least six black eyewitness reports before a grand jury that investigated all the evidence, Brown became the latest poster child for the Democrats' race-baiting political hustlers.

Facts of this confrontation notwithstanding, it is a case study on the sense of entitlement that emerges in any interracial interaction that can be reframed by Demo race hustlers as white-on-black injustice in order to foment racial disunity and distract the attention of their black constituents from more legitimate concerns – such as black-on-black crime, drug abuse, rampant illegitimacy and fatherlessness, crumbling inner-city schools, and a pernicious and destructive “gangsta” culture.

However, Obama’s race-bait confab at the White House this week, featuring über-racial antagonista Al Sharpton in the seat of honor next to Joe Biden, addressed none of this “black culture blight.” Instead, it was about appeasing his constituents by insisting that mean and women in blue are responsible for the racial tension between police and inner-city black folks. To solve this problem, Obama announced that his corrupt Attorney General Eric Holder “is going to be working … to convene a series of these meetings all across the country, because this is not a problem simply of Ferguson, Missouri; this is a problem that is national.”

He then declared, in a self-aggrandizing third-person, “Part of the reason this time will be different is because the president of the United States is deeply invested in making sure this time is different.” (So, are we to assume that in all the previous times Obama has thrown accelerant on racially charged incidents he wasn’t really “invested”?)

However, what underlies the “racial entitlement” that emerges in events like Ferguson, as it did in the 2012 Zimmerman/Martin case, is something much more endemic,dangerous and consequential.

The foundation of this racial entitlement is the assumption of “black privilege,” similar to the Race Industry’s constant cry of “white privilege” in that it is associated with skin color. However, black privilege differs from white privilege in that its scope is far more pervasive, discriminatory and, yes, racist.

Across the nation, mostly on the “more enlightened” college and university campuses, professors and students alike are engaged in “whiteness studies” promoting the notion of “white privilege.” It is not coincidental that “white-skin privilege” has its origin in the 1960s writings of the Weatherman terrorist group headed by Wiliam Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Yes, that would be the same Ayers and Dohrn who were Chicago neighbors and friends of Barack and Michelle Obama, and who launched BO’s political career by hosting his first fundraiser in 1995.

Today, the term “white privilege” encompasses the assumption of social status based solely on skin color – accessibility to more beneficial unearned societal privileges than non-whites.

I would argue that there are to varying degrees undeniable societal biases based on all those human traits and attributes we are supposed to ignore – race, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, etc.

Do I think those biases are so pronounced that some groups experience more privilege under some circumstances than others? Yes. Is it worth discussing? Yes, but only if that discussion includes the whole color spectrum of privilege.

Unfortunately, there are no academic degrees or studies in “black privilege,” and it does not even rate a Wiki entry for proper definition, though my colleague, former leftist radical David Horowitz, has written on the subject extensively.

Beyond all the benefits that clearly fit under the category of “black privilege” (if anyone dared label them as such), perhaps the most obvious would be the across-the-board institutionalization of affirmative action and a wide range of other preferential treatment standards based on the sole attribute of being anything but white.

It has been more than 150 years since the last person in America was born into slavery prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. And on December 5th, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified, followed by a plethora of special protections for those who are anything but white, including most recently the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Since 1863, black Americans have in ever-greater numbers achieved enormous success, including the 2008 election and 2012 re-election of a black president (though some of that president’s supporters are experiencing significant buyer’s remorse).

Black privilege dictates that all such special preferences must apply in perpetuity.

However, there is a much darker side to black privilege, which underlies racially politicized incidents like the Ferguson case. Here is how that underlying privilege manifested in that case.

First, if a white police officer (or a “white Hispanic” citizen as the race-obsessed New York Times labeled the defendant in the Zimmerman/Martin case) shoots a black person in self-defense, black privilege dictates that shooting is indisputably racist.

In Ferguson, black privilege meant that a drug-using 300-pound black man was entitled to walk into a convenience store, brazenly steal merchandise and physically assault a tiny store clerk. It means he was entitled to walk down the middle of a street taunting traffic. It means that when a police officer told him to get out of the street, he was entitled to punch the officer through his patrol vehicle window and attempt to take the officer’s weapon. It means that he was entitled to defy lawful police orders to stop when he turned and charged toward that officer to assault him again. It means when the officer shot that black man, it was, by default, racist. It means that you can adopt a “hands up” symbolic gesture, though the assailant’s hands were not up. It means that race trumps facts, even as determined by a grand jury. It means that, in the name of “civil rights,” black people are entitled to riot and loot small businesses, most owned by responsible and hard-working black residents.

Black privilege also means that a black president and his black attorney general are entitled to frame this case as one based on “color” rather than “character,” and launch a national constituency-building initiative. Meanwhile, they are entitled to ignore the epidemic of black-on-black violence and the grossly disproportionate examples of black-on-white violence occurring in urban centers across the nation.

Notably, as Obama and Holder are busy dealing “race cards,” maybe the political urgency is compelled by the findings of a comprehensive national survey on racism by Rasmussen: “Among black Americans, 31% think most blacks are racist, while 24% consider most whites racist and 15% view most Hispanics that way.”

Obama and Holder would far better serve their constituents if they focused on the real divide in America – the moral divide that accounts for the racial disparity in crime.

The fact is, the number of our black brothers and sisters across the nation who take great offence at black privilege is growing.

In 1911, Booker T. Washington, the American political leader, educator and former president of Tuskegee University, wrote in “My Larger Education”: “There is [a] class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs – partly because they want sympathy, and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

In reference to his young nemesis, W.E.B. Du Bois, who advocated a far more virulent racial activist movement more like those today, Washington added, “There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.”

What do modern-day “race-problem solvers” like Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson think of Mr. Washington’s century-old observation?

In 1963, Martin Luther King concluded his timeless “I Have a Dream” speech by asserting the need to distinguish character over color. “If America is to be a great nation,” he said, “this must become true.”

Today, however, and for as long as the race hustlers about whom Booker T. Washington wrote are the de facto spokesmen for black Americans, King’s dream will remain only just that.

Teen Christians... DO THE RIGHT THING - Part 3

GOD FIRST, LAST and ALL the Time

Sometimes it's impossible to fit God in where we are, even when we think we can! The Bible says, "In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths" (Proverbs 3:6, NKJV). It's a big mistake to carelessly wander off down any path we take a fancy to. Can we acknowledge Him on every path we choose? It is extremely important that we allow God to lead us. "He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake" (Psalm 23:3, NKJV). In other words, God is revealed in us when we live the right way and do the right thing. 

Does our behavior let others know we have a serious relationship with Him? "...whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1st Corinthians 10:31); "... do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17).

Sometimes God has no place in the things we do. Many teenage Christians would feel very uncomfortable trying to acknowledge God in all their ways. Ungodly peer pressure regularly influences careless young believers. Can Christians acknowledge God and keep Him in the centre of their experience when they go to see a movie containing bad language, extreme violence and sex? Are Christians really on the right path when they listen to music that makes a big issue out of godless, sensual things? What do unbelievers think of us and God when we disregard and ignore His standards? 

We are more likely to fall when we would rather please ourselves. We cannot acknowledge God when we light up a cigarette, watch godless scenarios unfolding on TV, date people who aren't Christians, get distracted by money and position, hobbies and possessions... The list is endless. Is God pleased with our behavior? Would He go where we go, watch what we watch, listen to and enjoy what we listen to and enjoy? Are we doing all things to the glory of God? Are we really trying to please Him? These are tough questions. And we are all called to examine ourselves.

But wait! You don't need to give up, no matter how hard it seems. 

Let's take it one step further. Life's not just about doing the right thing and choosing the right path. Life is really about a Person. The Bible says, "To live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21). Sounds extreme. But it's normal. 

Churchy Christians can get a bit too religious! Call it formalism or environmental restrictions! But it's an easy mistake to make if you're not careful. They have all the bits and pieces of Christianity carefully labelled and filed neatly into relevant drawers. But instead of knowing Him, their heads are stuffed with knowledge about Him. We must move up higher. "Many Christians are more interested in the principles of God than in the person of God. They give to God, receive from God and work on His behalf, but they never enter into an intimate relationship with Him."

Knowing about God is vital, but we can't stop there. He's real, no matter what your feelings may try to tell you. More than anything else, desire to get to know Christ more and more. He will respond. Tell Him you want Him with you every step of the way along every path of your life. Take time to raise your voice in prayer and praise. Worship Him! He is great and worthy to be praised!  Honor Him with by living your life in harmony with His commands!

Do the best you can to live the right way, but always make sure you are hungry for more of God Himself. Knowledge will not satisfy you. You will run out of steam and end up with a meaningless religious routine. There is no victorious power in head knowledge alone.  Let what you know, what you learn… move in your heart.

Teen Christians... DO THE RIGHT THING - Part 2

Listen up, God wants you to learn to love and respect yourself.  He wants you to look after your body as well as your mind. What about healthy eating?  That too, He wants you to eat the right things. 

The challenge of living right, doing the right thing touches each of us many times throughout the day as we’re prompted to nourish our bodies with food. Think about how much junk food you eat and what it might be doing to your body. Maybe you should cut down on french fries, burgers, soda and sweets. Don't just go by what tastes good. Try to eat a healthy diet... heavy on the fruits and vegetables. 

Are you looking after your teeth? Should you be getting more exercise? Are you spending too much time in front of a computer screen? Guilty!  Sometimes it seems that these things don't matter, but those who fall into bad habits during their teenage years often suffer from poor health, both physically and mentally, in later life. Time goes by very quickly. Your body will respond to what you eat and your mind will respond to what you put into it as well – make both inputs healthy.

Make the most of your time for God. A sinful world needs visible, noticeable Christians who are really trying to follow Jesus.  Wrong choices and wrong behavior will not set you apart as noticeable to those around you.   A selfish lifestyle will leave you unfulfilled in adulthood. 

Have absolutely nothing to do with the devil and the occult. Resist him and everything he does. Don't listen to any of his enticing lies. Hate everything bad. Cling to God and to whatever is good. That way the devil will have a very hard time getting the better of you. 

Learn to control your anger. It only causes trouble and conflict. Don't try to get even with people who hurt your feelings. Don't be rude with people and don't use bad language. (Count to ten and think before you speak!) Try not to tell lies, even so-called white ones, and don't exaggerate situations or reality. Don't bend the facts or try to distort the truth to gain an advantage over others. 

Behave properly when people get on your nerves. Speak the plain truth in love and try your very best to live in peace with everyone. Don't run people down behind their backs or say you hate them. Hate is a terrible emotion. You don't mean it and in most cases you probably have little reason for thinking or saying such a thing. You wouldn't like it if someone said they hated you. Do to others what you would like them to do to you. 

Take time to help and comfort those who are going through hard times. We need one another. When we are suffering it's nice to know that someone cares - even if it's just minor aches and pains. It helps to have people around you who can offer love and comfort. Words are cheap and ring hollow without appropriate actions to back them up. Show friends you really do care by offering practical help when they need it most.

Don't be selfish and greedy. Don't worry about money. The part of your nature that prefers to do without God can easily get carried away with the pursuit of money. It's easy to spot those who can't control their income - they try to fill their lives with lots of things they don't really need. Less important things become bigger and better. Money tempts us and trips us up. It can push God into the last row of your life. We can end up spending too much on things we like instead of things we really need. Some Christians let the pursuit of money become their god, being led astray by harmful desires which end in many troubles and emptiness.

The world would try to convince us that it's a good idea to work longer hours to get plenty of money. God says that's not smart! "Do not overwork to be rich" (Proverbs 23:4). Use your head. See how quickly money races away from you and disappears! It will never bring contentment into your life, no matter how rich you become.

Make sure you always take time to share your life with God through prayer. Prayer is very important - and sometimes very difficult! If we were honest we would have to admit that there are times when it's easier not to bother with prayer. But despite all the problems, get into the habit of talking to God, even when you feel less than worthy. He tells us in the Bible that He is our Helper and Friend. He really listens and the act of sincere prayer brings genuine relief and comfort from life’s stresses. 

Do your best to regularly attend church. For a good number of teenagers, going to church is as boring as watching paint dry on a wall. To a certain extent this is understandable. Some adults even have problems of boredom with church meetings.  However, if you make an effort to think about the choruses you sing and the messages you hear, you might just get a bit more out of it. It seems that some church services are a little behind the times and out of touch, making it difficult for younger people to relate.

Be sure to regularly read and understand God's Word, because it will strengthen you and help you to do the right thing. This is very important to your grounding as a Christian teen and a very important cornerstone for your adult life choices.  Try to read the Bible slow and steady and you will discover that reading God’s Word can be refreshing and comforting. 

Don’t ever give up.  Too many young people give up too soon. They say they can't keep up the high standards put forth by the Church and their parents. They may even feel like they are missing out on the all the fun the world has to offer. Don’t become down-hearted, it takes time to get a firm hold on God's will for your life. Most Christians learn the hard way. Each day is part of a process that can occasionally be painful. Don't give up on God. He will help you in ways you don't understand. Trust Him through the hard times. That's the essence of faith, and you must always walk by faith.

Look around for mature, experienced Christians who appreciate what teenagers go through. They won't be religious with you. They will tell you about their failures and doubts. They will show you how God brought them through the difficult teen years empowered to live in harmonious balance with Him. They will be only too willing to encourage you and offer you direction. Don't be afraid to cry out for help. It's not a sign of weakness. It's sensible.  It’s real courage and strength. Never give up. Never!

More encouragement for teens coming next time in Part 3.

Teen Christians... DO THE RIGHT THING - Part 1

Excuse me, I’m talking to you... yeah you.  Listen up all you teens, parents of teens and grand parents who love your grand teens.  The next couple of installments of this column will talk to young people, their parents and grand parents about some of the challenges teens face in growing up to be committed Christians.  

I don’t have any special formulas or special advice that’s going to smooth out the rough patches or make bad decisions and careless choices magically go away.  Being a teen is not easy today. Looking back I’m not sure my generation or any generation has ever had a smooth ride through the teen years.  The journey can be a tough one, especially if you’re not prepared and think you have all the answers.  I know what that feels like... there was a time when I had all the answers.  I’m sure I did!  I think I did.  Maybe I didn’t.  The teen years can be boiled down to one thing –– what you want to do and what you end up doing... your behavior matters! 

Let me make it clear right from the start: the way you behave reveals how serious you are about being a Christian. It's that simple. If God's really in your life He will make some big permanent changes - and I’m are not talking about being some kind of goody-goody. It goes much deeper than that.

Some of you already know from experience that too many Christian teenagers behave badly. You may even wonder if they are really Christians at all. Some teens can tell you more about various types of music, celebrities and social media than any major truths of the Bible. 

Living God's way brings security, satisfaction, safety and purity. Ignoring God's instructions will lead to recklessness, impurity, indifference, worldliness, selfishness and restlessness in your adult. 

This next statement will hit you hard... there's no point in being a Christian if you don't intend to live the right way. God is always right and knows what you need. At times you may not like to admit that, but it's true. He loves you and He knows what's best for you. It makes sense to listen to what He says. If we don't draw close to Him and live for Him we will miss out on what we really need. What we want isn't really all that important. Christians only half-committed to God can turn people away from Him.  If people don't see sincerity and reality in the way you are living, they will have a good reason to turn their backs on hearing the gospel and truth.

So, how does God want you to live? What's the right lifestyle for you? What's right and what's wrong? Here, briefly, are just some of God's instructions based on the teaching of the Bible. 

Friends and those you associate with.  It's important to choose your friends carefully. You won't really connect with someone unless you agree. Common sense really. Clearly your closest friends must be Christians who are making an effort to live for God like you are. 

Avoid those who say they are Christians but obviously aren't interested in living Christ-like lives. Their general behavior will give them away. Take time to think about the way they live, then consider God's standards and all that He calls you to.  Consider the danger you place yourself in when you hangout with those who seek only after carnal things.

The Bible tells us that a Christian has nothing in common with someone who doesn't believe, or with those who obviously don't care about sticking to the Christian way of life (Amos 3:3,; 2 Corinthians 6:14,15). If you insist on regularly hanging out with such people, they will make it more difficult for you to do the right thing. 

There is a difference between casual friendships and serious close friendships. It's good to have unsaved casual friends - if you never had any acquaintances you would have less opportunity to share about the Lord! But close, steady relationships with those who are not Christians will most likely leave you compromised by muddling up your priorities and diluting your commitment to Christ. 

Try hard to keep your mind and body pure. Refuse sexual immorality the instant you're exposed to it. You'll find plenty of impurity on TV, in magazines, on the Net, in social media, in video games and among friends at school. Don't get stressed out about being different. Don't just cave in and be like everyone else. God offers you something that's pollution-free. Give your body to God for the rest of your life and keep your sexuality for your marriage partner.  That’s blunt and to the point teens, but you need to hear it straight, without any spin.

Reject anything obscene or crude. Avoid coarse or rude jokes.  Unless you are deaf, and you’re not, then you will hear all sorts of unsavory jokes and commentaries about many things.  But you don’t have to pick up that stuff and repeat it.   Try to control your sense of humor when hearing these kinds of things.  Maybe the best reaction is to be a happy person that speaks about worthwhile topics and tells funny knock-knock jokes.   Being happy and cheerful around those who are trapped in the vortex of coarse and crude talk is like medicine for them. So share a spoonful of happy-cheerful with somebody everyday.  A positive upbeat attitude is contagious, so let yours affect those around you. 

Try your very best to live a clean life. You belong to God, so set yourself apart for Him and allow Him to influence your conduct. Give yourself totally to Him and don't be afraid to be very different to the world. You should resist anything bad, no matter what and even expose it for what it really is. Get your mind tuned in to only good things and think about them. Check everything carefully to make sure God approves. If you're not sure, examine the Bible, talk to your parents [if you can], your grand parents or talk with a youth minister at your church.

Okay, let’s stop here for today.  This is enough to noodle on for now.  Back with you in a couple of days.