In the first installment of this series, I discussed the book "The Content of Our Character" by Shelby Steele. It was one of those books that, after reading through for the third time (and I did read it, for the most part, three times), you notice that virtually every sentence is underlined. And the underlining is in 2 or 3 different colors of ink and on nearly every other page a large section of already underlined text has been highlighted in those wonderful iridescent yellow or orange colors. Shelby Steele is one of those concise writers who use words as lasers to give precise meanings and crystal clear principles. There is no "obfuscation through verbosity" in any of Dr. Steele’s works. Mark Twain once said "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightening bug." Dr. Steele has taken these words as a creed.

In the second installment of this series I will discuss another book by another author. Thomas Sowell. The authors - not to say their books, as well - share many things. They are both Senior Fellows of Stanford University’s Hoover Institute. They both hold Ph.D.’s from prestigious institutions and are the authors of many popular and seminal texts that comment on racial relationships (or the lack thereof) and other aspects of American life. They are both thoroughly published in their respective academic fields - Sowell, an economist, and Steele, a sociologist. Further, their insights as syndicated columnist are widely read in magazines, newsprint and cyberspace.

More to the point, they are not the sort of black intellectuals you are likely to see appearing with the more publicized (idolized?) "leaders" of the fawning liberal mainstream media. I was not at all shocked when viewing the list of participants in the latest gathering of populist black spokespersons - Tavis Smiley’s "State of the Black Union - 2007" from Hampton, Virginia last month - to see these two scholars omitted. Those at that illustrious gathering did, however, get "enlightened" by the usual suspects and the customary (dare I say obligatory?) "call to action." I will spend more time on the specifics of this particular event, hopefully, in the future.

It is apparent to me, at least, that the learned, thoughtful, intellectual dissection of black problems and racial issues by "counterrevolutionary" thinkers such as Steele and Sowell (and Ward Connerly, John McWhorter, Juan Williams, Walter Williams, et al) is not the manifesto those who hold the liberal media’s (and, even more so, the Democratic Party’s) rapt attention would have their audience hear. For to hear the words of these men would release the half-century old chains these special interests have had on the black voter finally and forever. Alas, this also is another story for another time.

Thomas Sowell’s "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" is a wide-ranging series of essays that shed new light on many of the chronic, perplexing and seemingly-insurmountable problems of the post-Civil Rights Act era. To read simply the first - the title discourse - would send every proponent and apologist for the urban rap culture and those who attempt to champion it as a "uniquely black (or African) experience" running from the glaring light of Sowell's painstaking research and reason. If only the youth - black and white - who revel in this violent and deadly lifestyle realized who and what they were really imitating, they would change their tune (so to speak) forthwith.

Sowell, in this opening salvo of his book, traces the popularly glorified "gansta" mentality that is inexplicably perpetuated with lemming-like suicidal devotion to what its followers revile most: the Southern redneck. While the history is clearly mapped for the discerning eye to see and the tributaries flow clearly from this ancestral wellspring, no one seems to want to see it. But the urban "gang banger" is - no more and no less - the 21^st century version of the rural, white cracker.

While I beg the reader to rely on Dr. Sowell for a much more erudite explanation, I will attempt a simplistic summery. The primarily English settlers in the New World were, in actuality, two very distinct groups. Those who settled New England were primarily from southeastern England near its urban centers, principally London. They were more educated and more sophisticated. A second wave of immigrants from England settled the southern colonies - Virginia. South Carolina, Georgia. These immigrants were mostly from the "hinterlands" of northern England, Scotland and Ireland. These Southern settlers were distinctly different from their Massachusetts Bay predecessors. They were uneducated, rural, reckless and, well, rowdy. These were the "rednecks" - described by one author as "some of the most disorderly inhabitants of a deeply disordered land." [see David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed] This regional dichotomy remained so through the 19^th century.

Sowell describes their "value system" (or lack thereof):

"The cultural values and social patterns prevalent among Southern whites included an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship, reckless searches for excitement, lively music and dance, and a religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery...Touchy pride, vanity, and boastful self-dramatization were also part of the redneck culture. 'They boast and lack self-restraint,' [Frederick Law] Olmstead said after observing their descendants in the American antebellum South."

Long before there was "black pride," there was "cracker pride." If a cracker received an affront - or even perceived there to be one - fighting would immediately ensue. Dueling was the formal form but hand to hand fist and knife fighting ("rough-and-tumble" style, as it was called then) was much more common. In today’s parlance, to "diss’" a prideful cracker was fraught with risk of life and limb. And there was a certain tacit approval of this sort of "honor" among the fellow crackers. As long as a duel or "rough-and-tumble" (invariably fought with a large audience) was deemed to be a fair fight, even the death of one of the combatants was seldom punished. More common than an arrest or trial, rounds at the local bar were the usual climax of hostilities.

That the Southern cracker was averse to labor, was also well documented by observers of these times. Southern farms was inefficient and often out-produced by nearby farms run by recent immigrants, particularly from Germany. The non-cracker farmer put up fences for his livestock, milked his cows regularly, and produced butter and cheese and stored feed for the winter. The cracker farmers - "too poor to keep slaves and too proud to work" - his free grazing livestock and never produced anything more than he needed to feed his family. Economic interests - running a business - was beneath the cracker pride.

Living beyond their means was also common amongst the Southern cracker mentality. The celebrated (often written off as mere eccentricity) spendthrift ways of one famous cracker - Thomas Jefferson - are legendary. The dueling and fighting exploits of another "good old boy" - Andrew Jackson, he of good Scottish stock - are American folklore at its "best." Even the largest plantation owners were constantly in debt and spent exorbitantly. One only has to think of the financial state of Scarlet O’Hara (the war did not cause Scarlet's "Tara" to go bankrupt; her cracker father did!) to see the reigning cracker culture in full bloom. [I might interject that the discerning "Gone With the Wind" aficionado may also recall a scene that perfectly depicts the Southern cracker disposition. At the first appearance of Clark Gable’s character, he is among the gentlemen at the ball discussing the South’s prospects in a war with the North. While the young cracker bucks are spouting their bravado, he - the prototypical "anti-cracker" - throws cold water on their boasting by saying the North has all the industry, all the weapons and 3 times the manpower. He is confronted for his "cowardice" and almost called out to a duel by one of the young crackers. Gable dismisses himself from the cracker crowd with a humble bow and an apology for his "offense." If there was ever a more cinematic contrast between the Southern cracker and the reasonable, cultured gentleman, I am not aware of it.] With this majority cracker mentality, is it any wonder that the South was so eager for a Civil War and so ill-prepared to execute it?

So, you may ask at this point: What does this have to do with contemporary urban black culture? The blacks who did not migrate north after emancipation continued to live in the cracker-dominated South and, over the ensuing generations, assimilated the ways of their white contemporaries. The blacks who did move to the northern states postbellum absorbed a totally different way of life. They started businesses, went to college, lived freely in predominantly white neighborhoods and cast off, forever, their cracker husks. Just as America was divided culturally along geographic lines, so became the American blacks. In his discourse, "The Philadelphia Negro," W.E.B. Du Bois - himself the first black to earn a Ph.D. of Harvard - bemoaned the general state of the recently transplanted blacks in 1890. Among many rather uncomplimentary, he observed:

"Probably few nations waste more money by thoughtless and unreasonable expenditure than the American Negro, and especially those living in large cities. Thousands of dollars are annually wasted...in amusements of various kinds, and in miscellaneous gewgaws...The Negro has much to learn of the Jew and the Italian, as to living within his means and saving every penny from excessive and wasteful expenditures." [Du Bois would also say that "the Negro should exercise his brain more and his lung less," among other sage bits of advice] Sowell quotes another observer of the same period, Jacob Riis, who wrote that "the Negro loves fine clothing and good living a good deal more than he does a bank account."

Then, further migration threw the calm into the tempest in which we now live. With the World Wars on the first half of the 20^th century, Southern "cracker" blacks began a second migration north. With the war industry demanding workers, Southern blacks with their ingrained redneck customs and values moved, en masse, into northern cities. Whereas in cities like Detroit (where blacks were voting in 1880 and being elected public officials in the 1890s), Chicago (where legal restrictions on access to public facilities were removed from the law also in the 1890s), and New York (where Harlem was a renowned hotbed of black entrepreneurship) racial harmony had been moving forward, the massive influx of Southern blacks overturned the applecart. [For a thorough discussion of black business accomplishments in the 1890-1930 period, see John McWhorter's "Authentically Black," Chapter 7 - "We Don't Learn Our History"]

The black crackers overwhelmed the relatively small northern blacks and, with their violence and antisocial lifestyles, began the tide of white hostility. Here is an excerpt from Dr. Sowell:

"In the late 19^th century, racial segregation in housing in Northern cities was no longer what it had once been - or what it would become in the years ahead. In Detroit, as early as 1860, no neighborhood was even 50 percent black. In Chicago, as late as 1910, more than two-thirds of the black population lived in neighborhoods where most residents were white but, after the mass migrations of blacks from the South, attempts by blacks to move into white neighborhoods in Chicago were met with violence including bombings. New York, Philadelphia, and Washington were also cities which began to restrict blacks to ghettos only after the massive influx of Southern blacks and their redneck culture. [Italics mine]...according to W.E.B. Du Bois, [native born blacks] were "overwhelmed and dragged back" by black migrants from the South."

I earlier listed the prevailing morays of he cracker culture. Which of them, relisted now, do we not see transmogrified in the urban gangster lifestyle?

• aversion to work
• proneness to violence
• neglect of education
• sexual promiscuity
• improvidence
• drunkenness
• lack of entrepreneurship
• reckless searches for excitement
• lively music and dance
• touchy pride, vanity, and boastful self-dramatization

May Dr. Sowell rest his case? For all its claims to being "genuinely black," the mythology of the rap culture is - when stripped of all its "bling-bling" (Du Bois' "geegaws") and media-generated faux glamour - nothing but a transplanted 19^th century redneck way of life. And, when all is said and done, it will have the same future: that is to say, no future at all. Those who aspire to live it (whether they are the white cracker bootleggers of "Thunder Road" fame or today's curbside "slingers") will continue to drag their fellow citizens - be they white or blacks - down with them in flames and bloodshed. And as long as it continues to be glorified in cinema, music and fashion, it will strangle, constrict and limit the development of black youth throughout this country

To complete the "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" connection, I will conclude with a final paragraph from Dr. Sowell. It makes the connection and summarizes well the pathology as it exists today:

"By projecting a vision of a world in which the problems of blacks are consequences of the actions of whites, either immediately or in times past, white liberals have provided a blanket excuse for shortcomings and even crimes by blacks. The very possibility of any internal cultural sources of the problems of blacks have been banished from consideration by the fashionable phrase "blaming the victim." But no one can be blamed for being born into a culture that evolved in centuries past, even though moving beyond such a culture may do more for future advancement than blaming others or seeking special dispensation."

I will end here, as there remains little to be added to this essay from Dr. Sowell. However, I will revisit his wonderful book in the near future as the remaining articles are just as thought-provoking as "Black Rednecks and White Liberals." Thomas Sowell is a man with much to add to the national conversation on race and the future of America. Comments, as always, are appreciated.

 

If you are the least bit aware of the current, rapidly-growing body of literature on race relations in America, you should be familiar with the name Shelby Steele. I will leave the biographical background and his academic credentials to his Hoover Institute entry. and will say simply that Dr. Steele is an accomplished scholar and prolific writer. His work has appeared in Harper's, the New York Times Magazine and the Washington Post. He won the National Magazine Award in 1989. But who could better describe the author than himself. This is from the second chapter of his first book, The Content of Our Character, winner of the Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction in 1991 .

"I am a fortyish, middle-class, black American male with a teaching position at a large state university in California. I have owned my own home for 10 years, as well as the two cars that are the minimal requirements for life in California. And I will confess to a moderate strain of yuppie hedonism. Year after year my two children are the sole representatives of their race in their classrooms, a fact that they have difficulty sometimes remembering. We are the only black family in our suburban neighborhood, and even this claim to specialness is diminished by the fact that my wife is white. I think we are called an "integrated" family, though no one has ever used the term with me. For me to be among the large numbers of blacks requires conscientiousness and a long car ride, and in truth, I have not been very conscientious lately. Though I was raised in an all-black community just south of Chicago, I only occasionally feel nostalgia for such places. Trips to the barbershop now and then usually satisfy this need, though recently, in the interest of convenience, I've taken to letting my wife cut my hair."

Not a very typical portrait for an "angry black man" is it? I question my use of "angry" sometimes when discussing any of the authors to be included in this series. Perhaps, "frustrated" would be better for they all share that to some degree. "Indignant" would be another descriptor that might apply. But, for now, I will stick with "angry" because, when I read Dr. Steele's books, I sense the same righteous anger that I felt listening to or reading the speeches of Dr. King from the 1960s. Reverend King spoke as a man who knew he was thoroughly right (and righteous) and that would make his point - as often as necessary - until his opposition would hear and acknowledge his message. The calm, dignified, steely-resolve and steadfast character of Reverend King - combined with the undeniable logic of his words - was what came through to the people of this country.

It is that same passionate, clear, concise (his books seldom exceed 200 pages) and irrefutable logic that I hear as I imagine the voice of Dr. Steele while reading his books. He is not of the pulpit; he is of the classroom. And, while the language expressing his thoughts is not as lofty as that of Dr. King, the words are no less powerful. He speaks analytically and with a matter-of-fact tone of many things that people of both races do not care to hear. For the white reader it is uneasiness for we seldom hear words such as these. For the black reader - I can only imagine - the same words must elicit a wide range of emotions. The words of Steele are not words of comfort for either race. Often, the words provide us with a mirror that reflects back all of our hypocrisy and failings.

Dr. Steele has advice for both black and white readers. For the white reader he says things that, personally translated by me - sound like "Stop being so damned helpful!" To the black reader he seems to say "Enough! Enough with the continued embracing of the "victim mentality" and enough with the false excuses it provides. It is time we reaffirmed and embraced our individuality and our potential."

He coins new (at least to me) phrases that he sees operating in the integrated society that is America. He describes two important concepts - "integration shock" and "race-holding" - using a personal story to show the "mechanics" of both:

"I have a friend who did poorly in the insurance business for years. "People won't buy insurance from a black man!" he always said. Two years ago, another black man and a black woman joined his office. Almost immediately, but did twice the business my friend was doing, with the same largely white client base. Integration shock is essentially the shock of being suddenly accountable on strictly personal terms. It occurs in situations that disallow race as an excuse for personal shortcomings and it therefore exposes vulnerabilities that previously were hidden. One response is to face up to the self-confrontation is brings and then act on the basis of what we learn about ourselves. After some struggle, my friend was able to do this. He completely revised his sales technique, asked himself some hard questions about his motivation, and resolved to work harder."

In "The Content of Our Character," the initial response for the insurance salesman is termed "race holding." This phenomenon is a culturally-ingrained and has lingered despite a decline in overt racism. A remnant of the origins of the 1950s and 1960s when blacks welded power principally through group action, race-holding - according to Dr. Steele - has now become a negative force. It prevents blacks from moving beyond the group and toward individualism. For the insurance salesman, his initial response to business failure was race. Once he was confronted with the success of his new coworkers - eliminating the race-holding excuse - he had to deal with the painful self-examination and, eventually, the acceptance that perhaps he, as an individual was the problem. And not his race.

In a society where blacks are immersed and competing at all levels of American society, they are often confronted, like the insurance salesman, with the second phenomenon, "integration shock." The author defines this as the psychological pain of being suddenly accountable for success or failure on strictly personal terms. Steele submits that the race-holding permeates large segments of the minority culture as a natural (if negative) adaptation response to integration shock. Race holding allows those who rely on it to evade a more productive response - personal responsibility. And the race holding excuse is a restraining and limiting factor on achievement of the individual. Further, it reinforces the "self-fulfilling prophecy" concept often held in the same people. The opportunity to succeed - without the security that race-holding provides - is also a chance to fail. I will allow Dr. Steele to summarize:

"The theory of race-holding is based on the assumption that a margin of choice is always open to blacks (even slaves has some choice). And it tries to make clear the mechanisms by which we relinquish the choice in the name of race. With the decline in racism, the margin of black choice has greatly expanded, which is probably why race-holding is so much more visible today than ever before. But anything that prevents us from exploiting our new freedom to the fullest is now as serious a barrier to us as racism once was."

According to Dr. Steele: "I think black Americans are today more oppressed by doubt than by racism and that the second phase of our struggle for freedom must be a confrontation with that [self] doubt." He exhorts the black American to reject the long-standing "victimization" philosophy and to reject clinging to race-holding and a "group think" mentality. Only by striding confidently into the national mainstream as competent, talented and unique individuals will black Americans achieve the things of which they are fully capable.

White Guilt...

In the fourth chapter of his book, Dr. Steele discusses what I think is the ultimate and most enlightening discussions of the entire book and boldly wades into issues yet to be faced in race relations. He, unlike most of the reigning contemporary black leaders, trumpets it for all to hear and, hopefully, to learn from. Steele notes that in the mid- to late-1960s there was a fundamental shift in black/white relations. The black people had acquired "equality." The recognition was legislated, widely-supported and the long-overdue "law of the land." The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was truly the "Second Emancipation Proclamation." But the real power shift occurred within the hearts and souls of white people. They were confronted with their guilt. And, equally, a shift of truly tectonic proportions, blacks had a newfound sense of power. "Black power" became a reality. The times, indeed, were a changing.

Dr. Steele discusses the "negotiations" that began to take place. Each "side" had debits and credits. The blacks were negotiating from a position of power and offered the whites something they craved: forgiveness and, ultimately, redemption. The whites had the power, earned from hundreds of years of oppression. But, confronted at long last by their centuries-old guilt, white people craved redemption Almost at an unconscious level (no on would discuss what was taking place in those heady days of "The Great Society" with such clinical starkness), the white establishment began trading power to the blacks in the hopes they could be pardoned. While this was not possible in either race’s heart, it was a dream nonetheless. The first tentative steps in the bargaining that came to pass were just and right and long overdue. But, as the handing over power to the blacks progressed and the whites began to feel the first glimmers of their renewed collective souls, the whole process of negotiating for what was fair and just became progressively distorted.

You see, Dr. Steele makes the point that the whites, in their selfishness, were not merely seeking black uplift and reconstructive assistance. White people began making their "white guilt" not about genuine concern for the blacks but about regaining their lost innocence and filling the "moral vacuum of the white people. And the contemporary black leaders were complicit and enabling in the process. He explains it this way:

"...the difference [is] between self-preoccupied guilt and the guilt of genuine concern, where fear for one’s innocence is contained. The former grants entitlements as a means to easy innocence and escape from judgement; the latter refuses the entanglements and blindness of self-concerned guilt and, out of honest concern, demands black development. Escapist racial policies - policies whereby institutions favor black entitlements over development of a preoccupation with their own innocence - have, I believe, a dispiriting impact on blacks. Such policies have the effect of transforming whites from victimizers into patrons and keeping blacks where they have always been - dependent on the largesse of whites."

My first response to reading these words was...well...WOW! Someone finally made sense of the racial quagmire that I see in my country today. We - American citizens of all hues - have really mucked up a once noble endeavor. I wrote an entry several years ago giving my view (verified by the second Kerner Commission Report) that segregation is more a problem today than it was 25 years ago.

In my opinion - I do not rely entirely on Dr. Steele for these thoughts - the racial problems continue to fester in our society for a several reasons. These reasons include but are not limited to:

1. The recognized leaders of both blacks and whites remain mired in white guilt-black power bartering that has long since been proven to help few. I would have said "proven to help no one" but that would be clearly wrong. This sort of outdated quid pro quo has helped elect many a white politician willing to make pie-in-the-sky promises to blacks that if and when they are actually implemented do nothing to constructively uplift poor blacks. And these same horse-trading gambits have kept the same outdated and out of touch black leaders prominently leading the monolithic black voting block down the same barren roads.

2. Feelings of inferiority among blacks are continually subtly reinforced, entrenched and psychologically ingrained. With ineffectual entitlements, preferences and "largesse" from the overflowing cup of white guilt, young blacks are lead to believe that they must be inferior or why would they need anyone’s help?

3. The white liberal establishment who, themselves, are more concerned with regaining their lost innocence and getting points to be redeemed for a "free from white guilt" card than in truly reconstructing black communities and families, continues to flourish and promise deliverance. The white liberal’s pursuit of clean hands and a pure heart - never historically obtainable - continues the same policies decade after decade when, by every measure in every time and in every way, they clearly are failing the black citizenry.

Ultimately, it all comes down to personal responsibility, hard choices, and a change in values on all sides. The white liberals must stop trying to be so damned helpful. The old methods of "helping the blacks" are, clearly, counterproductive. As Dr. Steele (and others) point out "After 20 years of racial preferences, the gap between white and black median income is greater than it was in the seventies." Further, 70% of black college students drop out and never graduate. Again, Dr. Steele sadly notes "Fewer blacks go to college today than 10 years ago; more black males of college age are in prison or under control of the criminal justice system than in college. This despite racial preferences."

Old solutions have consistently and tragically failed. Yet leaders of all races dare not profess such a heresy. If they were to do so, they would immediately be labeled "racist" (the most universally fatal of all political brandings) or worse. And without a national debate of these imminently important issues by leaders who are willing to openly and honestly face our national hypocrisy, the tragedies and the "nation within a nation" chasm will continue to grow.

Fortunately, though they continue to be ignored by the reigning "arbiters of blackness" (Steele’s term) currently in power and the recalcitrant political establishment that prefers the status quo barter system, there are emerging voices like Shelby Steele who would be heard. I hope to discuss more of these proud men as they call upon their fellow citizens - both black and white - to stop the posturing and the tired old rhetoric of the last half-century and look at today’s problems with fresh eyes and a new honesty. Like all mass movements, it all begins with Hoffer’s "men of words." And Shelby Steele is a man of words who should be heard. I will close with this final quote from "The Content of Our Character." It speaks volumes about the author and his passion for change.

"It was my good fortune to go to college in 1964, when the question of black "inferiority" was openly talked about among blacks. The summer before I left for college, I heard Martin Luther King speak in Chicago, and he laid it on the line for black students everywhere: "When you are behind in a footrace, the only way to get ahead is to run faster than the man in front of you. So when your white roommate says he is tired and goes to sleep, you stay up and burn the midnight oil." His statement that we were "behind in a footrace" acknowledged that, because of history, of few opportunities, of racism, we were, in a sense, "inferior." But this had to do with what had been done to our parents and their parents, not with inherent inferiority. And because it was acknowledged, it was presented to us as a challenge rather than a mark of shame."

That challenge was certainly exceeded by Shelby Steele and many more like him. We need more willing to accept that challenge today.

 

I have, for all my life, been the product of my times. As a mid-century "baby boomer," I grew up in the Deep South during the height of the Civil Rights battles. In fact, the city of my youth was the home of the infamous "Bull" Conner - the police chief who so graphically brought the contrast between Southern white hate and black victimization to the nation's eyes. As Conner unleashed the full fury of Southern white racism - manifested by snarling German shepards, high-pressure fire hoses and police batons - the nation's eyes where fixed on the streets and people of my city. Although I was only 10 or 11 at the height of these ignominious events, even I - in the insular life I was in - knew that something was very, very wrong and that change was in the wind. I had my on little drama at the time. My family had disintegrated. My parents divorced. My two sisters - one older and one younger - was mysteriously with their mother for the remainder of their lives. Equally, mysteriously, I was divvied up to my father and my grandmother. The family as I knew it was drastically and permanently torn apart. I cannot recall seeing my sisters at all for many years and, more tragically, I do not recall seeing my biological mother at all. To this very day, the suddenness and completeness of this fracture remains an undiscussed part of my past. To the point again, the early 1960s were a time of personal and cultural cataclysm. I remained comparatively untouched by the seething, conflicted cauldron that Birmingham had become. My father remarried within a year and my cobbled but we joined the other white families and fled the city to the suburbs. But, our respite from the "Segregation Wars" was brought to an end my junior year of high school. There came the announcement that the segregated black high school was to be closed and its student were to enroll in the previously segregated white high school. My high school. I remember at the time there were, in other places, continued confrontations between angry white parents (it was always mostly the parents and not the kids my age) at schools all over the South. But integration came to my school without a whimper or any organized posturing from enraged parents or posturing politicians. The black students came to our high school with the same values, character and goals that the white students had - to learn, to compete and to find their rightful place. Our newly-integrated school went promptly about the work of making our high school - and ourselves - better. Everything improved immediately. The academics were challenged by bright young minds who could bring new points of view. The music department was infused with the voices of youth that had been singing in their church and schools all their lives. And the athletic department went from mid-level teams to top-tier teams. Our football team, of which I was a proud member, was the first and (still) only undefeated team in school history. My high school, as I remember it today, was what integration could be - if given a chance with open minds and open hearts. When Dr. King said "I have a dream that my four little 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," he was dreaming of a school like mine. In 1968, he smiled down on my high school from his place in eternity. But, that place from the late 1960s seems so distant today. Almost 40 years later, we have fallen into a societal morass of failed programs and broken promises. As I began to examine a totally different subject Edmund Burke once wrote "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." After reading Mr. Steele, I would add this addition: "...or to do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons." The latter will be the thesis argument for several upcoming entries. In case you haven't noticed, there are a growing number of angry black men in America these days. And it's not the "usual suspects." It's not Al Sharpton who, while not electing (yet!) to call for an American Idol boycott for racism, has managed to stay on TV screens everywhere expressing his outrage over the "Strom-Thurmond-owned-my-ancestor" thing. It's not Jesse Jackson. Reverend Jackson, apparently, has had some difficulties finding a cause celebre since the Sean Bell incident. It's not even Louis Farrakhan though I am quite sure he still has some choice words for American ears despite his recent illness. No, the really "angry black men" today are names like Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Juan Williams and John McWhorter. You could add Bill Cosby in there as well. But, unlike Cosby, the men I listed first are "academics" - professors and highly-respected writers who, coincidentally, are black. They would not, in my opinion, prefer to be characterized, conversely, as "black writers" or "black academics." I assume this because of the thesis that runs through most of their writings and studies is, to whit, black society has a problem and that problem is not, principally, external. "We have met the enemy and it is us." According to these writers and thinkers, black society's principle restraining factor is not white racism. Instead, it is black underachievement and a fatalistic grasp onto the "victimology" lifeboat. In political terms, these men have stepped outside the "party line." Whereas the more conspicuous "black party" members - the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton, film-maker Spike Lee, and others - march to the drumbeat of historical racism and ongoing bigotry, these men have spoken out on "lost opportunities" and "promises unfulfilled." And, taking their sacrilege even a step further, they propose that it is not the white man's boot on the necks of the current blacks, it is the boot of their fellow blacks. I will continue. soon, I hope, with the analysis of the first of these authors, Shelby Steele. Dr. Steele primarily is a "cultural commentator." The order I will follow after that will have to be a unruly flow for, as of this moment, I am anxious to discuss them all, equally. I think they provide a plethora of ideas that are worthy of examination. I know, at least for me, it will be a rewarding examination.

I have previously discussed the rather strange way my brain appears to process and connect divergent information and, after a period of "excogitation," spews forth some semblance of personal truth. With that, I offer this for your consideration:

In the early 1990's the elephant population In Krueger National Park, South Africa, had what can only be described as a "elephant boom" The elephant population, better protected from the species' only predator - man, was exploding beyond the capacity for the park's resources. I am sure there were the inevitable outcries from naturalists, ecologists and - most assuredly - P.E.T.A., the country's government decided that the elephant population needed to be culled. "Culled" being the politically-correct (PC) way of saying "We need to kill some of the adult elephants." And they did.

Now, over a decade later, Karl Popper's "Law of Unintended Effect" has reared its often ugly head. First, the good news: the elephant population of Krueger National Park is thriving and, in fact, they are moving some of the healthier members of the herds to other African preserves with smaller indigenous elephant populations. The bad news? There were a sudden, unexpected and, initially, unexplainable series of "hate crimes" by elephants against - who would have thought it? - the rhinoceros (f.y.i. according to Wikipedia, the plural can be either rhinoceros or rhinoceroses.) According to the BBC and a susequent Animal Plant special I viewed some years ago on the same topic, over 30 rhinoceros (including a rare black subspecies) have been found slaughtered at the hands...er...tusks of elephants.

Where it gets interesting - beyond the usual "Of my God! Human encroachment has driven the poor animals mad!" reaction - is which elephants are doing it and why. Investigation by diligent zoologists and veterinarians have discovered (I'm not making this stuff up, folks) that the deaths were caused not in a competitive turf war over shrinking resources but due to teenage angst. It was, for want of a human explanation, a gang war in the animal kingdom.

Perhaps, further background will add clarity. When the culling process was undertaken, older adults - primarily female - were sacrificed. This, of course, led to the orphaning of several hundred young elephants. These young animals were raised lovingly and carefully in a tiered system which introduced them to more and more independence as the calves grew older. When they reached an adolescent age - 8 to 12 years old, much like humans - the young females were allowed to be around older females and began to form family units. The social system of the elephant is strongly based on family links and are always headed by a matriarchal female. The family is usually composed of that matriarch's daughters and her sisters, etc. Male calves stay with the family group for the 6-8 years but gradually begin to move to the fringes of the family. When a male reaches "adolescence," he typically strikes out on his own. These adolescent males were subsequently moved out into areas of the African game reserves where there sparse adult males and they could, presumably, thrive and reach normal adulthood.

It is at this point that elephant biology trumped the "interventionist sociology" that the wildlife experts had implemented. The young adolescent bull elephants - all in the early teens - went on their rhino-cidal rage. Rhinocerous carcasses were being found with increasing regularity at water holes throroughly trampled and, often, stabbed repeatedly with tusks. What could be the cause? Why would two giant herbivores species be having a such a deadly conflict?

It seems the reason would have been more easily explainable if wildlife experts simply read more about human behavior. These young males, who had grown up without old male "role models" to emulate and, yes, be kept in line, were simply taking out their rage on the rhinoceros. It turns out that when teenage males reach puberty in the absence of older, dominant bull elephants, they enter puberty (for the animal purists, "musth") too fast and too young. The surge of testosterone makes the young bulls aggressive and they lash out and display hostility - against park rangers, the Range Rovers they drive or, tragically, the unfortunate rhinos.

And what solved the problem of the raging, murderous teenagers? Adult role models. The park personnel introduced 4 or 5 older, dominant bull elephants into the territories inhabited by these juvenile delinquents and almost instantly the problem was solved. The teenage misfits went immediately out of musth and stopped killing rhinoceros. Their stampede into testosterone intoxicated was immediately quashed.

Now, in that cluttered and often chaotic neural network between my ears, this has certain distinct parallels in human society. In most of the sociological literature it has been demonstrated repeatedly that juvenile crime is linked to "broken homes" - i.e. where one parent is missing. Statistically, this is a fatherless home. If I may quote one study "According to the professional literature, the absence of the father is the single most important cause of teenage crime, particularly violent crime. (M. Anne Hill and June O'Neill, "Underclass Behaviors in the United States: Measurements and Analysis of Determinants (New York: CUNY, Baruch College, 1990). Another study adds historic depth to the issue:

"Research into the idea that single-parent homes may produce more delinquents dates back to the early 19th century. Officials at New York State's Auburn Penitentiary, in an attempt to discern causes of crime, studied the biographies of incarcerated men. Reports to the legislature in 1829 and 1820 suggested that family disintegration resulting from the death, desertion, or divorce of parents led to undisciplined children who eventually become criminals." (Wright and Wright, "Family Life and Delinquency and Crime: A Policy-Maker's Guide to the Literature.")

Finally this pearl of wisdom: "The growth of crime is paralleled by the growth of families abandoned by father." (Rolf Loeber, et al. Initiation, escalation and Desistance in Juvenile Offending and their Correlates." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 82 (1991), pp. 36-82.)

While the elephant is, undoubtedly, quite different from the human, the societal correlates are startling. Elephants are reared from birth in, strictly speaking, a one-parent household. The matriarch is queen and ruler and guides the calves in the early development. The females remains in a hierachical society. The males, at they enter puberty, leave - physically and emotionally. Their control and "restraint" is dictated by the mere proximity of dominate, older males who, just be their presence in the teenagers environment, control their hormonal urges and their interspecies behavior. Whether or not this is a "role model" type relationship - to use human terminology - or simply a scent/suppression neural axis, one cannot determine without more study.

The message to take away from this bit of disjointed thought is that perhaps the cure to urban youth violence is to find the biggest, baddest alpha-males we can find (think Goldberg, Brian Urlacher or Tank Johnson), dress them in full body armour (tusks might add to the effect) and give them the most powerful weapons we can find (maybe a long-range Taser device) and let them stroll the streets where crime flourishes. Perhaps, they can suppress some of the raging testosterone and posturing among the gangs and the thugs - our adolescent males is their musth.

At least, it's a thought.

 

One of the truly remarkable thinkers and writers of the 20^th Century was Eric Hoffer. His family immigrated from the Alsace region of eastern France in the late 1900s. Eric was born in New York City in 1905. His mother died when he was 5 and he was blinded in an accident when he was 7 years old.. His sight was unexpectedly - some say "miraculously" - restored at age 15. He became a voracious, lifelong reader. His father subsequently died when Hoffer was 20.

Orphaned and alone, he became a vagabond observer of mankind and a self-styled philosopher. He made his way across the country, working all sorts of manual labor jobs including gold miner and dishwasher. He ended up on the streets of Los Angeles’ notorious "Skid Road" in the about 1940 and finally settled in San Francisco in 1943. I imagine that was a pretty tough existence even more than the homeless life is today. After Pearl Harbor, he became a longshoreman on the docks which he remained for nearly 20 years. He would work his shifts, scribbling his ideas into dozens of notebooks during work breaks. At the end of the his work days, he would head to the San Francisco Public Library where he continued his love affair with books and personal inquiry.

What is remarkable about the story of Eric Hoffer, an orphan just one generation removed from the Franco-German pinball that was the Alsace-Loraine region, was not that he survived the backbreaking labor on the mean streets of a very rough city. The really remarkable aspect of the life of Eric Hoffer was that in the course of his life, he thought, analyzed, and observed his fellow humans - without any formal education - and formulated truths about his mankind that are still studied and quoted a half-century later. As best we can tell, he never attended any school, even as a child. Despite (some might say "because of") this academic vacuum, he wrote and published - several seminal books. The first and most acclaimed of these works was the aphoristic "True Believer" published in 1951. Others include "The Passionate State of Mind" (1955), "The Ordeal Of Change." (1963) and "The Temper of Our Times" (1967).

But it was about "True Believer" that renowned historian Arthur Schlesinger said "This brilliant and original inquiry ... is a genuine contribution to our social thought." In the book, Hoffer characterized the "true believer" as one who holds so strongly to a cause that the person is willing to unthinkingly die for it.

I suspect he was thinking, primarily, about the recently concluded World War II. Perhaps, specifically, he was thinking of the Nazi regime. But his words resonate clearly today when we think of suicide bombers who strap C-4 vests on to blow up whomever or, clearly, the tragedy that is 09/11/2001. He wrote:

"Passionate hatred can give meaning to an empty life. Thus, people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new context not only be dedicating themselves to a holy cause but by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunity for both."

Remember this is not someone commenting on the roots of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East or New York or London. This is a voice from 1951, warning us and waiting to be reheard. Also from "True Believer" we hear these warnings:

"The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustration in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They ask to be deceived." [emphasis mine]

He then references, as he seldom does, another author in saying:

"What Stresemann said of he Germans is true of the frustrated in general: ‘They pray not only for daily bread, but also for daily illusion.’ The rule seems to be that those who find difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led."

People with empty lives seek out the "Big Lie" whether it comes from a Hitler or a Stalin or an ayatollah or an iman. Hate is much more palatable when directed not within but without. No logic is required. With the anger and hate of the true believer, there is no room for analysis, self-doubt or reason. With the Islamic radical "the miraculous" that their leaders allow to "seep through" the irrefutable, crushing, inescapable reality of their desolate lives is clear. The "miraculous" is a place with Allah where they will be rewarded. For the bomb-wielding "True Believer," it is enough.

Once again, as so many times in the dark history of our world, there is a mass movement suicidally-committed to eliminate a perceived enemy. It has happened periodically for time immemorial. Does Hoffer have any advice about how to fight or neutralize the "true believer." Thankfully, he does. According to Hoffer, you can only fight a fanatical mass movement by substituting another, more powerful movement. He says:

"The problem of stopping a mass movement is often a matter of substituting one movement for another. A social revolution can be stopped by promoting a religious or nationalist movement. Thus, in countries where Catholicism has recaptured its mass movement in spirit, it counteracts the spread of communism. In Japan, it was nationalism that canalized all movements of social protests...In pre-war Italy and Germany practical businessmen acted in an entirely "logical" manner when they encouraged a Fascist and a Nazi government in order to stop communism."

Obviously, there can be dangers when you substitute one movement for another. The businessmen in Italy and Germany who chose the Nazi movement over the communist movement lived to regret that decision.

The remainder of this essay will be my thoughts only. Obviously, mass movements can be arrested. The attempts of the West to use the carrot of the "beauty and gifts of democracy" are taking a page from the "True Believer." This gambit might have succeeded were this conflict arising in the great glory that was American democracy in the mid-20th century. We stood as a beacon against the oppression of the Iron Curtain. Our Presidents were statesmen and stood for freedom and exalted the individual - his intellect, enterprize and ingenuity. Even in the early 1960s when the country was torn apart by racial tension, the undeniable and inextinguishable light of nonviolent and righteous protests would have shown the jihadist, even in his hopelessness and destitution, that there could be a brighter tomorrow. Even for the most oppressed people in our American democracy, there was always hope which, eventually, was realized.

But, when confronted with the view of democracy as it exists today in America - "The Great Satan" - has little power to sway, much less persuade. Conspicuous consumption, national hedonism, and a decadence and immorality that would make ancient Romans blush has no attraction for the fanatic consumed with visions of Allah and the ethereal bliss that is promised in their scripture.

Once, our beautiful democracy - "the last, best hope of mankind" - could stand resolutely against any mass movement - religious, economic, or otherwise - it now seems beyond impotent. To the "true believer," there are only images of us as depicted on the hundreds of satellite channels with the endless stream of degrading and debauching "reality shows." This can have no possible appeal for the zealot bent on its destruction in the name of his holy war. When our Presidents vary from demagogic adulterers to incompetent (if well-meaning) fools and the people who vote them into office are more concerned about who gets to bury a dead stripper’s corpse or why a disturbed, washed-up singer shaves her head than what we, as a people, can do to solve our countries real problems (poverty, educational collapse, health care inequities, etc.), who can blame them for not being dissuaded in thei quest to destroy our "shining city on a hill?"

They see what we show them and we show them much of our very worst. And their leaders add the spice and the side dishes.

 

As I mentioned in the first piece I wrote on the observations of Eric Hoffer, he was addressing, primarily, the historical cycles of "mass movements." Whether they were driven by religious (Islam in the 5th and 6th centuries), political (democracy in 18th century America), or other factors, he concluded that all "mass movements" share many features across the spectrum of organization, leadership and their ultimate endpoints. I would now presume to apply some of Hoffer’s - and some of my own - observations to one such movement that resonates to all of my age and my citizenship. No one can deny that one of the most positive and productive "mass movements" in history was the American civil rights struggle of the mid-20th century. Led by what Hoffer (recall that he published his seminal work, True Believer, in 1951, well before civil rights became a "mass movement") would identify as a "man of words," Reverend Martin Luther King, was an articulate, charismatic and forceful man. In Hoffer’s chronology, it is the "man of words" who always begins any mass movement. As Reverend King led the nonviolent marches and spoke his words of the principled rights for America's "second class citizens," he and his followers became an immutable and irresistible movement. The "devil" (Hoffer would say the mass movements may begin without god but they "must have a devil") was segregation and few - even the racists whites - could deny the movement's true righteousness. The "fanatics" (used merely as Hoffer would have categorized them in his discussion) - i.e. those ready and willing to die for the movement were called into action by the "man of words." That is the way of the mass movement throughout all of history. The spark is the man of words. The action is through the "fanatics" (again, Hoffer’s term) who sacrifice and, if need be, give their lives for the cause. These are Hoffer’s "true believers." The "mass movement" that was civil rights, with the words and truths of the "man of words" and the legions of "true believers," after much struggle and sacrifice, bore the fruits of success. First, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The "man of words," Dr. King, was there for both. He received the Noble Peace Prize awarded in 1964. He was untimately martyred - as many "men of words" in many movements throughout history -  in 1968 doing what he was called to do: standing with the Memphis Sanitation Workers in their strike for a living wage. Hoffer sums up the natural history as follows: "A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of action." It was with the death of Dr. King that the "mass movement" that was civil rights was taken over by the "men of action." Hoffer observes that the appearance of the end of action "usually marks the end of the dynamic phase of the movement." He elaborates: "The chief preoccupation of the man of action [the last leader(s) of any mass movement] when he takes over an 'arrived' movement is to fix and perpetuate its unity and readiness for self-sacrifice. His ideal is a compact, invincible whole that functions automatically. To achieve this he cannot rely on enthusiasm, for enthusiasm is ephemeral. Persuasion, too, is unpredictable. He inclines, therefore, to rely on drill and coercion [emphasis mine] It is at this point that I will undertake some observations of my own while continuing to draw on some "Hofferian" parallels. The personal musings that follow, such as they are, spring from a body of literature, quite separate from Hoffer, that I will comment more on in the near future. It will suffice, at this point, to say that the writers of these wonderful books have struck me with such startling clarity that I am still sorting through the wisdom offered. These authors have also empowered and emboldened me to write about something that a white man has always been reluctant to address - namely, race. My points, in brief, are as follows: 1. The civil rights "mass movement," so nobly fought for by Dr. King and many others, has been usurped and, subsequently, perverted from its principles by those that lead that movement today. Hoffer's "men of action." 2. When the "men of action" assumed leadership of the movement, they - as Hoffer has observed - became more concerned with personal power and aggrandizement. As Hoffer writes: "In the hands of the man of action, the mass movement ceases to be a refuge from the agonies and burdens of an individual existence and becomes a means of self-realization for the ambitious." These means transform "a movement into an enterprise." Reverend King was simply seeking a time when Americans could look at their fellow citizens and see the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. His vision was principled, grounded in our own Constitution and single-minded. He wrote, as early as 1946 of his crystal-clear vision of America: "We want and are entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens: The right to earn a living at work for which we are fitted by training and ability; equal opportunities in education, health, recreation, and similar public services; the right to vote; equality before the law; some of the same courtesy and good manners that we ourselves bring to all human relations." He succeeded on a scale for which he is, rightfully, honored. Against all odds and against a powerful, well-entrenched enemy with centuries of training - the "devil" of racism - he made it to his mountain top. Undoubtedly, Dr. King would say today that there is still a great deal of work to be done. But, in my opinion, it will not require the institutional and governmental work of the 1960s. Instead, it will require personal and individual examination and reflection. We will have to mend our souls and our minds. That is most difficult work of all. But, Dr. King's movement for principled and just government and institutions is no longer about equality. Civil rights, garbled and contorted as it is today, has become more about quotas, affirmative action, multiculturalism, and diversity. These are a few of the watchwords of the current "men of action." Dr. King's driving vision - the opportunity to compete equally - not as black Americans but, simply, as fellow Americans - has become, in the hands of his successors, something much different. The movement's second-generation "men of action" have remained extraordinarily effective. The leaders keep their followers regimented and thinking as one through "fervent propaganda." American citizens who coincidentally are black (not the other way around as some would have it) are encouraged to believe and vote as one mind and one race. And this is accomplished by "keeping the faith." Again, Hoffer describes this phenomenon in terms of power: "[The new "men of action"] cannot help being awed by the tremendous achievements of faith and spontanieity in the early days of the movement when a mighty instrument of power was conjured out of the void. The memory is still extremely vivid. He takes, therefore, great care to preserve the new institutions an impressive facade of faith, and maintains an impressive flow of fervent propaganda, though he relies mainly on persuasiveness of force. His orders are worded in pious vocabulary, and the old formulas and slogans are continually on his lips." If anyone threatens this power consolidated by the movement, they must be silenced. If anyone - black or white - were to suggest that the old enemy is beaten and in retreat, they must be suppressed. And the tools for suppression are potent, painfully effective and well-established in the movement's history. If a black man or woman would dare to speak these words (and some have), they are called an "Uncle Tom." This moniker remains an extremely powerful culturally-negative word. The phrase depicts the speaker as a traitor to the group and calls for their being ostracized by the movement. If a white man or woman dare to hint that racism is receding in American society, the source of such a blasphemous utterance would be silenced by the all-purpose "racist" calumny. Since American whites have been relegated, in the post-civil rights era, to a "moral vacuum," they simply have no voice in matters of race. For where there is an enemy (though it be retreating or even vanguished) to be conjured, the "men of action" can continue to lead. To admit victory would be to lose power and that, in the movement they inherited, would be untenable and would be fatal to their grip on power and control. Only by leading the charge against windmill after windmill - real or simply agrandized for benefit - can the movement's leaders cling to power. And their power remains only as long as they are able to dictate (or at least focus) the thought processes of their followers. Let not the followers hear of individual responsibility or self-determination. Let them not hear that the battle is won and they are masters of their own destiny. If they were to do that, they would begin to see that they are, in the fullest measure, free and capable individuals. The anti-segregation movement has culminated (remember, Hoffer said movements "imitate those they hate") in its own form of segregation - "us against them." I will have a great deal to more say on these and related topics in the future. But, I feel it is only fitting to close with this quote from "The True Believer": "Thus, at the end of its vigorous span the movement is an instrument of power for the successful and an opiate for the frustrated."

 

As we enter the next Presidential election cycle, the first since 1928 when neither the sitting President nor Vice-President are running, we will see the full fury of what is the minefield of media-refereed national politics. I am reminded immediately of the "Saving Private Ryan" scene where Tom Hanks is reporting back to Dennis Farina about his assignment of taking out a German battery after the Normandy landing. It goes something like this:

Farina: What's you situation?

Hanks: Section 4 is secure. We took out towed 88s here, here and here. They got 4 of our Shermans and a number of deuce and a halves. These 2 minefields were actually one big one. We tried to move up the middle of it but it turned into a mixed high-density field. A bit of everything: Sprengmine 44s, Shumine 42s, pot mines, A200s, the little wooden bastards that the mine detectors don't pick up. On this road here they placed big mushrooms and Tellermine 43s. We marked them fr the engineers.

Farina: It was a tough assignment; that's why you got it.

Hanks: Yes, sir. (Pensively)

The minefields that lay before political candidates make those devised by the Nazi war machine seem predictable and easily defeatable. We have seen these minefields in action throughout American history. The booming echoes of political missteps stretch all the way back to the days of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. When they faced off in the the 1804 election, Jefferson was lucky to have escaped with his limbs intact after the quintessential muckraker journalist James T. Callender (ironically, formerly used by old Tom against Adams' 1800 candidacy) wrote in a Richmond newspaper, "...[Jefferson] keeps and for many years has kept, as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is Sally [Hemmings]." Jefferson won a second term despite the explosion. Somewhat later, Andrew Jackson vowed death and eternal damnation to Henry Clay for setting the "You married your wife before she was divorced" booby trap in his path to the Presidency.

In this day and age of high-density media minefields, we know that even Vice-Presidential candidates are not immune to minefields. Dan Quayle stepped on the maiming (but not ultimately fatal) "You are no Jack Kennedy, Sir" mine, improvised by the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro stepped on the "I should have filed honest tax returns" mine. In that same year's Democratic primaries (1984), Jesse Jackson stepped on the "Hymietown" mine and lost more than face. Democrats in 1988 found out just how debilitating the lack of effective mine sweeping can be in a campaign. First, Gary Hart's candidacy was decapitated with the "Don't let a picture of Donna Rice on your lap get published (especially when you are married)" pot mine. Once Michael Dukakis was nominated, he activated the "Willie Horton" mine and was finished off by the "I'll dress like Patton and ride in a tank" bomb. More recently, Al Gore stepped on the "I'm not only smarter than you, I will make you feel it" mine - one that is not too well received by the American voters. One of the more famous minefield accidents was set off by Howard Dean. It was the deadly and permanently crippling "When I get excited, I lose control of my emotions" fragmentation mine. Then there was the unfortunate (but deserved) torso-splintering "Macaca mine" - an old racial mine in a new and more devastating version, tripped by Virginia's George Allen. Even before the myriad Democratic candidates started to get into the starting gate, John Kerry clicked off the "Really dumb and ill-timed it-was-meant-as-a-joke!" Bouncing Betty. Very, very ugly.

As communication technology has advanced, the minefield has become infinitely more and more dense. Trying to predict where to step during the 24 months of campaigning is fraught with lethal and perilous threats. The best PR and media people are not 100 per cent effective is defusing these devices. Even well-qualified candidates are not immune. Poor Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusettes, despite his glowing state credentials and strong public record is perilously close to the "Mormon/Polygamy" mine. It could go off at any time. Even his own staff know it. Senator Hillary Clinton has tripped a new modification of the "Geraldine Ferarro" tax loophole mine just this week. Senator John McCain announces his candidacy on Letterman and, BAM! The "Wasted Lives" mine cripples his the next day. The very next day!

The internet "blog-o-sphere" is an entirely novel area for possible improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Senator John Edwards has already stepped on one such device and suffered some minor damage. And then there is YouTube, disseminator of the aforementioned "Macaca mine." In the new "Internet Math" it is:

one slip + one cellphone video = disaster

It is a shame that our wacky world of democracy has become this but, it's not like we weren't warned. To whit:

"A perfect democracy, therefore, is the most shameless thing in the world."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

[The full quote is: Where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power. They are themselves, in a great measure, their own instruments. They are nearer to their objects. Besides, they are less under responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on the earth, the sense of fame and estimation. The share of infamy that is likely to fall to the lot of each individual in public acts is small indeed; the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favor. A perfect democracy is, therefore, the most shameless thing in the world. As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can be made subject to punishment.]

 

I begin this little commentary with a disclaimer: I have not decided who I would prefer to see elected President of the United States in 2008. I have some vague, biased ideas about who I would NOT like to see as POTUS but, from both Democratic and Republican parties, I have not - nor do I expect to any time soon - made a pick. End of Disclaimer.

I have read and re-read Senator Obama's speech from the 40th anniversary of the "Selma Voting Rights March Commemoration" as delivered March 4, 2007. As in most political speeches - particularly early on - there is not much beef in the speech. But, I do have some observations.

Observation 1: Senator Obama clearly sees his "roots" (pun intended with a nod to Alex Haley) in the black community as an area that needs to be addressed and fortified. His "Don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama." allegory is testament to that campaign concern. I think we will hear more of that in future addresses.

Observation 2: The Biblical references of the speech (the "Moses generation" now giving way to the "Joshua generation") was, I thought, well played without overplaying. Senator Obama has apparently been advised that a candidate (black or white; see Bill Clinton) must sound, when apropos, as though you have some "reverend" in your words. The civil rights movement was initiated by ministers and, to establish deep, genuine and lasting black support (especially in the Deep South), you must be able to call upon the sound of the pulpit and the "call to arms" righteousness of the 1960s. He did that well.

Observation 3: He can indulge the civil rights leadership (despite their increasing irrelevance, still a powerful voting block) with the best of them. Perhaps, even as well as Bill Clinton. He mentioned (with appropriate contempt) what he called the "empathy gap" (Katrina versus 9/11) and the "hope gap" (more education spending, raising the minimum wage - presumably yet again), etc. In order to give hommage to civil rights, one must point to what are perceived as continuing injustices.

Observation 4: He can also pander a bit (it's early yet) to the blacks (and whites) who believe that the youth are losing site of the sacrifices they have been the beneficiaries of. In a nod to the Bill Cosby's "Spelmen Speech," Senator Obama said:

"I have to also say that , if parents don't turn off the television set when the child comes home from school and make sure they sit down and do their homework and go talk to the teachers and find out how they're doing, and if we don't start instilling a sense in our young children that there is nothing to be ashamed about in educational achievement, I don't know who taught them that reading and writing and conjugating your verbs was something white."

And, then this almost blasphemous (from a Democratic candidate) declaration:

"Sometimes it's easy to just point at somebody else and say it's their fault, but oppression has a way of creeping into it. Reverend, it has a way of stunting yourself. You start telling yourself, Bishop, I can't do something. I can't read. I can't go to college. I can't start a business. I can't run for Congress. I can't run for the presidency. People start telling you-- you can't do something, after a while, you start believing it and part of what the civil rights movement was about was recognizing that we have to transform ourselves in order to transform the world. Mahatma Gandhi, great hero of Dr. King and the person who helped create the nonviolent movement around the world; he once said that you can't change the world if you haven't changed."

Overall, I grade the speech an "B+". It's early in the race but I have to admit I am encouraged.