Originally Posted by
WhistlePig
There’s a lot to unpack here. LBJ was a racist. As was Kennedy, Nixon, probably not Ford, certainly not Carter, Reagan (oh yes) ... but I digress. The Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights Act, and to a lesser extent and not nearly robust enough, the Fair Housing Act did more to shore up the Law of the Land for Civil Rights than any other signature legislation. Up to that point civil rights were a ragged and piecemeal collection of disparate Federal Circuit Holdings and Supreme Court Case Law. The Law of the Land WAS NOT the Law of all of the land in the same place at the same time. Brown was a bit different but even it took 40 YEARS to be fully implemented thanks to Arkansas and Alabama. (Alabama is my home state and it holds the distinction doing more than any other state to advance civil rights simply by being on the losing side of so many landmark Supreme Court cases. If you’re going to be wrong, be consistent).
However, you posit that it was some kind of ploy or conspiracy to disenfranchise and take away the agency of a group of people for control or gain is a bridge to far.
I do agree that the follow though was severely lacking but LBJ (and he was a sunova*****) was too busy micromanaging the daily target list in Vietnam to do everything. A war that affected the poor and minorities in much greater numbers than the rest of America by the way. Couple that with the murders of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy in ‘68, the way Tet was perceived back home, and quite frankly, there was a lot going on. And then came Nixon. And that paranoid drunk was no Uniter. But legislation can only provide the foundation. There must accountability and follow through and there was very little of that to be found I agree.
I’ve read Sowell and Williams for years, but they are educated opinion sharers, not oracles. One of my favorite jurists, the now retired Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit, a prolific writer of the Economic solutions and principles as applied to the law, has since repudiated many of his earlier stances that affected housing and zoning in Chicago for example, after seeing and living with the weight his economically defendable decisions had on real people. On their health, their reduced longevity, and their opportunities. He got it wrong and he’s not too proud to say so now.
You mentioned Charter Schools and I’ll just say this: Everything, including education, that this administration does is designed to shift public services into private hands for the profit of the 1%. It has nothing to do with accountability.
Ok now we are talking and not sniping.
Nixon was Quaker. They are not racist nor was he. Reagan, no idea. LBJ absolutely.
Voting rights, absolutely. Fair housing, absolutely although the profit motive would keep all but a committed few from refusing to sell a property to another race. Politicians red lining however, well they are after power as I posted earlier. Civil rights act, again absolutely. You left out the most important factor. Welfare. The Johnson administration went so far as sending people into black homes to make sure that black women knew that the additional child benefits were available to only single black women. The resulting catastrophic collapse of the black family in the following decade is the source of many of the problems today. Whites are seeing the same problems with drugs, crime, and suicide in poor white areas in Appalachia.
The other crushing blow to black youth is the minimum wage. It was instituted in the late thirties but due to inflation didn't really come into play to begin killing jobs until the early fifties with the campaign to raise it with inflation. This was the end of low wage jobs for entry level workers. Minimum wage doesn't hurt the wealthy, it hurts the poor. The proof is overwhelming that nothing kills jobs for low skilled and entry level workers more than the minimum wage.
Many of the leaders of blacks have spent decades telling them that they can't make it. They are being held down. There is a club and you ain't in it. Its BS. If you really do read Sowell you must have seen the evidence his outstanding research has uncovered. If you live with both your parents, get a good education, get married, and have children (in that specific order) you/anyone can succeed.
The marriage and children are optional, of course, but the first two are absolutely essential to success statistically. The people trying to make sure the marriage is no longer considered important and the people trying everything they can to keep the schools in a state of disgrace are the same ones telling you they are on your side and asking for your money and vote.
I am on your side. I want every one to succeed. The government and the activist group is not the way for people to succeed. Neither of those institutions has any interest in your success because if we all get along and help each other they lose their power.