Posted by Dan Ewert : 4/09/2002 12:49:00 AM (Archive Link)
A previous post of mine mentioned civil rights, so I think I will expound on that. The civil rights effort (I hardly think it deserves the term "movement" anymore) is in bad shape. This is due to two factors: leadership and a lack of open-mindedness. First, though, let us establish that there is a problem. Most would agree that there has been little progress in civil rights in the past ten to fifteen years. There have been gradual changes here and there but hardly anything significant. The importance of this takes on greater dimensions when most minorities will say they are still disenfranchised, there are still problems with the “system,” there’s still racism, etc., etc. Why do these conditions persist after so many years?

Let’s begin with leadership. Many will say that the two primary leaders in the civil rights arena and African American issues more specifically are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Neither of these men are paragons of virtue. Mr. Jackson, of course, has a child with a woman with whom he had a longstanding affair. Mr. Sharpton (you may notice I refer to the gentlemen as “mister” and not “reverend.” This is because they’re both as much reverends as I’m a bicycle. And I assure you that I am not a bicycle.) has gone on the record as an anti-Semite and a race baiter. He has also contributed to such shameful acts as the Tawana Brawley incident and the murder of a Jewish store owner but is shameless enough never to admit any guilt or responsibility or remorse. What I find especially aggravating about them, though, is the same quality I dislike in Bill Clinton. They’re more concerned with themselves than with their jobs or the goals they are entrusted to pursue. In short, they’re headline chasers and love the attention. I’ve consistently watched them fly around the country to big “crises” that have developed. They show up, say sweet words, and then when the publicity slackens, they leave for the next front page story. This behavior is detrimental on several points.

First of all, they don’t get the job done. When you’re jetting around the country, you are unable to give the proper attention due to each of the situations in which you’ve inserted yourself. When a community of people have put their trust in you to help with their problems, they deserve more than a cameo, lip service, and then the meager help of underlings.

Second, they often get involved in bad causes. I remember a case last year where Mr. Jackson made a fuss over a black man being restrained a little overzealously by police. He made claims about how this was indicative of the police’s attitude towards blacks (the only reason it wasn’t indicative of whites’ attitudes is because black officers were also involved) and he trotted out the man’s father to cry to reporters about his son’s treatment. This is all well and good except for a few problems. Prior to his capture, the “victim” in question had led police on a high speed chase in a vehicle he had just carjacked, had gotten into a shootout with them, and had even injured an officer. In that light, it’s understandable that when the police were able to subdue him, they were not casual about it. The point of this is that this criminal is exactly the wrong type of person to be made into a civil rights poster boy. This was no Rosa Parks, this was a violent felon. If civil rights is to be successful, then the sympathy and support of an entire society must be engendered, not just that of a segment. In a case like this, however, the vast majority will only feel that the police officers’ actions were justified.

Third, the majority has difficulty taking Messrs. Jackson and Sharpton seriously. When it’s obvious that they spend little time dealing with individual issues before moving on to the next and when it’s obvious they hold up bad people as victims, nobody wants to support such movements. Again, a majority is needed for progress.

Bad civil rights leadership, not just that of Messrs. Jackson and Sharpton but also that of the NAACP, Cornel West, et al., also contribute to a severe lack of public debate about how civil rights should be approached. This leadership has a set agenda involving affirmative action, slave reparations, and several other points. To deviate from this is anathema. If you dare to question the agenda, the leadership, or any other standard policy, you face one of two prospects that is determined by your race. If you are white, you are automatically labeled a racist and are anti-affirmative action (strangely enough, being against affirmative action is itself a sin… see the debacle over Lawrence Summers and Cornel West). If you are black, you are automatically labeled an Uncle Tom and a self-loathing race-hater. No reasonable counter-argument to your points is made or pursued, only the label is applied and that unfortunately is enough. Few can accept such terrible and awful epitaphs and still survive in whatever policy capacity they occupy. It’s disgraceful… not only in itself but because of the limitations it puts on the civil rights effort. Any movement, any ideology must be allowed to grow and evolve. For that, honest public discourse must be allowed. However, when you preemptively quash any dissent, the movement becomes stagnant, the leadership becomes complacent, and positive results diminish. Such is the case here.

Civil rights has failed to make significant progress in recent years. The leaders can’t blame the establishment, though they will try. They can’t blame politicians, though they will try. They can’t blame other groups, though they will try. The blame lies solely with them and their failed objectives. If civil rights were a corporation, the executives would have been fired long ago for their failure to adapt to current market conditions, for their outmoded, outdated business plan, and for their inability to produce benefits for the shareholders. For progress to be made, fresh voices must be heard and fresh leaders must take control. The opportunities are there. If only somebody were to take advantage.