A Project 21 Press Release

Black Activists Criticize Nagin's Convoluted Comments to Senate Committee

New Orleans Mayor Uses Unfounded Race and Class Allegations to Obscure Own Failings


For Release: January 30, 2007
Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or dalmasi@nationalcenter.org


Washington, D.C. - Calling his testimony a "smokescreen" to cover up his own failings at the outset of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, members of the black leadership network Project 21 are criticizing the racially-charged rhetoric of New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin (D) before the Senate Homeland and Government Affairs Committee yesterday.

"Mayor Nagin continues to do everything to deflect blame from himself," said Project 21 member Darryn "Dutch" Martin.

At a January 29 Committee field hearing that was held in New Orleans, Mayor Nagin complained that President George W. Bush did not mention the rebuilding efforts in the Gulf region in his State of the Union address on January 23. He further criticized the Bush Administration for not making enough aid available to the region, claiming that the White House is more interested in rebuilding Iraq than New Orleans. He testified: "I look at what we're doing in Iraq and how we spend money at an unprecedented level there, how we can set up temporary hospitals and designate money to rebuild their economy, and we have this dance going on in New Orleans."

Nagin says that aid to New Orleans is not being delivered quickly enough. While the federal government has allocated $334 million for repairing the infrastructure of the city, state officials controlling the flow of money through agencies such as the Louisiana Recovery Authority have only released $145 million. State officials cite a lack of proper budgetary documentation on the part of city leaders, which is something Nagin has called "cumbersome."

Nagin further implied that a hold-up in the flow of aid is due to discrimination. He said: "I think it's more class than anything, but there's racial issues associated with it also."

"In playing the race and class cards in his whining to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is singing the same old anti-Bush tune touted in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," said Project 21's Martin. "Evidently, Mayor Nagin will never own up to the fact that, with ample time to prepare and get the most vulnerable citizens out of harm's way before Hurricane Katrina struck, he and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco failed miserably. Nagin should be ashamed of himself for taking political cues from rapper Kanye West by insinuating that the Bush Administration and other government entities are inherently racist. It's all just a smokescreen to hide his own failure."

"It seems Mayor Nagin wants the money with no accountability. That is not how things should work with public monies," added Project 21 member Geoffrey Moore. "While cumbersome bureaucracy is never a good thing, there do need to be safeguards against the fraud and mismanagement that New Orleans has become known for. To blame race and class is ridiculous."

Project 21, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research, has been a leading voice of the African-American community since 1992.

Remember the NY Times article a few weeks ago saying that, according to new Census data, for the first time ever the majority of American women are living without a husband? Not surprisingly, the findings were greeted with "Hallelujahs!" from the radical feminist, anti-man, anti-marriage crowd. Almost before the ink was dry on the Times report, newspapers and other media outlets as well as feminist bloggers across the country were running headlines such as:

"Who needs a man? Not most women."

"Watch out, men! More women opt to live alone."

"More women saying 'I don't.'"

"Hurray for all single women! You Go Girls!"

After the initial euphoria wore off, more responsible people in the media began to take a closer look at the data, and in doing so discovered that the NY Times grossly distorted the Census data to write a report that was decidedly anti-marriage and anti-male. And now the NY Times - more specifically, the author of the piece, reporter Sam Roberts, is being called on it.

Conservative radio talk show host and Townhall.com columnist Michael Medved takes Roberts to the woodshed in a recent article, referring to him as an “ax-grinding, irresponsible, agenda-driven journalist for the New York Times.” Medved details how Roberts willfully distorts the Census findings and shows what the numbers really say.

According to the most recent available figures (from 2005), a clear majority (56%) of all women over the age of 20 are currently married.

Moreover, nearly all women in this country will get married at one time or another. Among those above the age of 50 (a group that includes the celebrated Baby Boomers of the famously revolutionary ‘60’s generation), an astonishing 94% have been married at one time or another and some 79% are either currently married or widowed.

Even including the younger, supposedly “post-marriage” generation, and considering all women above the age of 30, some 61% are currently married and another 12% are widowed. In other words, nearly three-fourths (73%, a crushing majority) of all women who have reached the tender age of 30 now occupy a traditional female role as either current wives or widows – avoiding the supposedly trendy status of divorced, separated, co-habiting or single…

Men’s and fathers’ issues radio talk show host and writer Glenn Sacks also points out the errors in the Times report. In an article entitled “Men Blamed for Marriage Decline but Women’s Relationship Wounds Often Self-Inflicted,” Sacks and co-author Jeffery M. Leving, as with Medved, also point out Roberts’s male-bashing bias (which, considering Roberts is a man, sounds eerily self-loathing to me).

[T]he message from the Times and numerous other news outlets is clear--marriage is in decline because men don't measure up, and are no longer needed nor often even wanted. Since women have careers now, we are told, men's traditional contribution--financial support--has become largely irrelevant, and men do not now nor did they ever contribute much more than that.

In reality, men give a lot to their families--as much as women do. The current trend away from marriage and towards divorce and/or remaining single has more to do with overcritical women and their excessive expectations than it does with unsuitable men…

Nobody would dispute that, in selecting a mate, women are more discerning than men. This is an evolutionary necessity--a woman must carefully evaluate who is likely to remain loyal to her and protect and provide for her and her children. If a man and a woman go on a blind date and don't hit it off, the man will shrug and say "it went OK." The woman will give five reasons why he's not right for her.

A woman's discerning, critical nature doesn't disappear on her wedding day. Most marital problems and marriage counseling sessions revolve around why the wife is unhappy with her husband, even though they could just as easily be about why the husband is unhappy with the wife. In this common pre-divorce scenario there are only two possibilities-either she's a great wife and he's a lousy husband, or she's far more critical of him than he is of her. Usually it's the latter.

Despite this week's media homilies, it's doubtful that many men or women are truly happy alone. Much of women's cheerful "I don't need a man/I love my cats" reaction has a hollow ring to it, and sounds a lot more like whistling in the dark than a celebration.

Yes, there are some men who make poor mates, but not nearly enough to account for the divorce epidemic and the decline of marriage. While it's easy and popular to blame men, many of the wounds women bear from failed relationships and loneliness are self-inflicted.

I’d be happy to know your thoughts on this hot-button issue.

Isn’t it funny how those whom Thomas Sowell aptly calls “the anointed” always try to impose their liberal vision on the rest of society with ridiculously counter-intuitive policies, regulations, bills and laws, even though they themselves pay neither price nor penalty for the negative consequences thereof? Today’s example comes from the great state of California, where a childless liberal female state legislator is drafting a bill that would – get this – punish parents who spank their children.

According to the San Hose Mercury News:

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, wants to outlaw spanking children up to 3 years old. If she succeeds, California would become the first state in the nation to explicitly ban parents from smacking their kids.

Making a swat on the behind a misdemeanor might seem a bit much for some -- and the chances of the idea becoming law appear slim, at best -- but Lieber begs to differ.

``I think it's pretty hard to argue you need to beat a child 3 years old or younger,'' Lieber said. ``Is it OK to whip a 1-year-old or a 6-month-old or a newborn?''

The bill, which is still being drafted, will be written broadly, she added, prohibiting ``any striking of a child, any corporal punishment, smacking, hitting, punching, any of that.'' Lieber said it would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine up to $1,000, although a legal expert advising her on the proposal said first-time offenders would probably only have to attend parenting classes.

In her new article, family and relationship expert Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse outlines the errors (to put it diplomatically) of this anti-spanking bill, and states how Californians are rightly p.o.’ed: such a bill would basically usurp their authority as parents to properly discipline their children. Dr. Morse also cites a respected scholar on child discipline who says that, along with reasoning with a child and non-corporal punishment (e.g. time out), spanking as a form of non-abusive corporal punishment is an effective last-resort disciplinary tactic for parents with non-compliant children.

As someone who was spanked as a child, as well as having seen how unruly children can behave who have not been spanked or otherwise properly disciplined, I am 100% old school on this point. Talking with your children is important, but sometimes a trip to the woodshed is necessary to really keep rowdy kids in line.

My dearly departed mother raised six children (mostly on her own), and…, let’s just say she would have had a few choice words for any legislator child rearing “expert” who tried to admonish her not to spank her kids.

Mr. Williams, a dear older friend of mine, would also take issue with Assemblywoman Lieber and her thou-shalt-not-spank ilk. He has his wife have been happily married for over 50 years, raised three well-adjusted and well-mannered children into adulthood. Mr. Williams has told me that when his children were younger, all he had to do was shoot them a look the moment one or all of them began to misbehave. No words were necessary. They saw the look on their father’s face, got the message, and immediately behaved. (I remember a similar look that my mother would give. I still get goose bumps just thinking about it.)

In fact, Mr. Williams told me, strangers would come up to him and his wife and compliment them on how well mannered and polite their children were!

Parents who don’t discipline their children will end up being dominated by them. I see it all the time in supermarkets and other public places where kids are allowed to just go nuts, while their parents do next to nothing to control them.

(I’ve even heard cases where underage children will actually cursing out their parents in public. Had I even thought of swearing at my mother, public place or not, my mother would have taken a belt, switch or whatever firm, stiff object she could get her hands on and worn me out right then and there!)

Bottom Line: Spanking, as non-abusive corporal punishment, is a way that parents can (and should) instill a healthy fear and parental respect in their children. Lieber’s bill, which, fortunately, probably won’t see the light of day, would deny parents of young children the ability to do just that. It will also give unruly children carte blanche to defy their parents’ authority with impunity.

Dr. Morse discusses other negative consequences of the bill.

The essence of Sally Lieber's proposal is that otherwise competent parents will be presumed abusive if they swat their children. The parents can be put in prison for a year. The kids will be put into the already overcrowded and ineffective foster care system. The parents of difficult children will be the most likely to run afoul of these rules. Being in foster care is certainly a more traumatic experience than being swatted on the bottom.

All because some adults pretend they can’t tell the difference between a swat and child abuse.

Perhaps the voters will give Assemblywoman Lieber a time-out until she calms down.

Forget time-out! This lady needs a trip to the woodshed.

Well, the Academy Award nominations for 2006 have been announced.  The big surprise is that the celebrated musical "Dreamgirls" was shut out of the Best Picture category.  With that, here are my "taken 'em with a grain of salt" predictions for who will (or will not) win the Oscar and why.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:  I got a gut feeling (don't ask me why) that Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) will score a major upset over front-runner Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls). The Academy likes to award female child performers. (Case in point: Anna Paquin, age 11, beating out Wynona Rider for Supporing Actress in 1993.) Plus, Little Miss Sunshine picked up four nods, including Best Picture, so this might be the category in which the Academy might want to reward this critical indie hit overall.  Then again, I could be wrong. 

SUPPORTING ACTOR:  I think it's a toss-up between Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls) and Djimon Honsou (Blood Diamond). Possible Upset: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine for the same reason as in the Supporting Actress category.

LEAD ACTOR:  The Academy also is fond of awarding aging actors who are long past their prime and have never won, while snubbing other more deserving contenders. Although Forest Whitaker is THE FRONT-RUNNER IN THIS CATEGORY AND SHOULD DEFINITELY WIN for The Last King of Scotland, some voters might give the sympathy nod to Peter O'Toole for Venus.

LEAD ACTRESS:  Helen Mirren (The Queen) is a lock.

DIRECTOR:  If the Academy doesn't award Martin Scorsese this year, then a plague on the houses of all its voting members! This ain't about sympathy. The Departed is an excellent movie, one of Scorsese's all-time best. Practically every film critic in the country has handed its Director prize to him this year (including the Golden Globes). It goes without saying that Scorsese is long overdue (I still say he was robbed when he didn't win for Raging Bull, in my mind his #1masterpiece), and it's time for the Academy to finally do the right thing and bestow Best Directing Honor on one of the greatest American filmmakers of all time.  Period!

BEST PICTURE:  This one is a toss-up, especially since Dreamgirls was snubbed in this category.  My personal pic is The Departed, but Babel could still it since it won the Golden Globe for Best Drama.

We'll see.  The Oscar telecast will be Sunday, February 25.

The Truth About Clarence Thomas
by Jan Crawford Greenberg

Clarence Thomas has borne some of the most vitriolic personal attacks in Supreme Court history. But the persistent stereotypes about his views on the law and subordinate role on the court are equally offensive -- and demonstrably false. An extensive documentary record shows that Justice Thomas has been a significant force in shaping the direction and decisions of the court for the past 15 years.

That's not the standard storyline. Immediately upon his arrival at the court, Justice Thomas was savaged by court-watchers as Antonin Scalia's dutiful apprentice, blindly following his mentor's lead. It's a grossly inaccurate portrayal, imbued with politically incorrect innuendo, as documents and notes from Justice Thomas's very first days on the court conclusively show. Far from being a Scalia lackey, the rookie jurist made clear to the other justices that he was willing to be the solo dissenter, sending a strong signal that he would not moderate his opinions for the sake of comity. By his second week on the bench, he was staking out bold positions in the private conferences where justices vote on cases. If either justice changed his mind to side with the other that year, it was Justice Scalia joining Justice Thomas, not the other way around.

Click here to read the rest. 

Although I am not a lawyer and have no legal training, I have always admired Justice Thomas for his high intellect and faithfulness to the U.S. Constitution.  He renders his opinions based upon a strict and meticulous reading of the U.S. Constitution, which is exactly what all High Court justices are supposed to do.  That he has stuck to his conservative principles and refused to "have my ideas assigned to me like an intellectual slave, because I am black," despite the almost incessant personal attacks against him by liberals, verbally and in print, throughout the 1990s, should serve as an inspiration to conservatives of all stripes to stick to their guns.

For an excellent analysis of Justice Thomas's Supreme Court opinions during his first 14 years on the High Court, I urge you to read Henry Mark Holzer's The Keeper of the Flame: The Supreme Court Opinions of Justice Clarence Thomas (1991-2005), as well as Scott Douglas Gerber's First Principles: The Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas.  A fair and balanced (in my humble opinion) biography of Justice Thomas is Ken Foskett's Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas.

In my life, I have met two former U.S. presidents (George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter), a secretary of state (Colin Powell), and a former United States Congressional representative (Dick Gephardt of Missouri).  I would give anything to meet and shake the hand of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.  He is role model and a great American.

Burt Prelutsky's got guts. 

How dare he make the grossly inflammatory and racially insensitive claim that "in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted"?

Who does he think he is insinuating that if a black person, like, say, Bill Cosby, were to say that blacks themselves are their own worst emenies - and not white racism! - that s/he'd be labeled an "Uncle Tom" or a "Sellout?" 

Where does he get off chiding white people who are mortally terrified of speaking the obvious about the negative, self-defeating aspects of black American culture, lest they be labeled as "racist?"  He actually has the nerve - the utter audacity! - to say the following in his new article:

Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate n***ers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration.

Actually, what most whites are is cowardly. When we see black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are,” and we pretend that theirs is a different, but equally fine culture as our own, we’re no better than those enablers who give money to drug addicts or booze to alcoholics.

When we finally stop patronizing loafers, louts and criminals, stop encouraging people who were born 120 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 20 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, to pretend that their sloth and ignorance are the fault of whites, only then will blacks come one step closer to having that colorblind society they claim they want.

Mr. Prelutsky, I have just one thing to say to you:

BRAVO!!!

Whites like Prelutsky who speak the truth are NOT - I repeat, NOT! - "racist."  They, unlike they're liberal butt-kissing counterparts, are actually care about the social, economic and educational advancement of African-Americans.  Yet, because they don't pander, grovel and slobber at the alter of Black Victimhood by not viewing pathological behavior - behavior that they would condemn among their own poorest relatives - as "understandable" when committed by blacks (poor or not), they are labeled "racist," or at the very least "racially insensitive."  Meanwhile, white liberals who want to bring back open-ended welfare and make race-based affirmative action permanent are supposedly our "allies in the struggle for racial equality."

(President Bush gets criticized by rapper Kanye West for "not caring" about black people after Hurricane Katrina, while former President Bill Clinton, "the first Black President," gets an NAACP Image Award soon after leaving office.  Go figure!)

Kudos to Burt Prelutsky for speaking the truth.  I just hope that others will follow his lead.


Black racism
by Burt Prelutsky
Monday, January 22, 2007

Whenever I start thinking about all the damage that’s been done to America by the social engineering Socialists, I have to remind myself that some of my best friends are left-wingers. That doesn’t do much for my blood pressure, but at least it serves to remind me that they’re not all as self-righteous as George Soros, as fatuous as Michael Moore, as smarmy as Jimmy Carter, as shrill as Nancy Pelosi, as hypocritical as John Murtha, Ted Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, or as deceptive as Barack Obama, the fellow with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate who has managed to convince millions of people who should know better that he’s a card-carrying centrist.

I didn’t include Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton among the usual suspects because it’s probably not fair to even call these two cheap race hustlers Democrats. In truth, they’re nothing but a couple of con men who’d probably be peddling the Brooklyn Bridge to foreign tourists if this black leader gig hadn’t panned out so well.

The whole question of race is a dicey one. Pity the poor fool who wades into those troubled waters. Well, here goes. If a black person tells the truth -- namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted -- he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom. If a white person tells the truth -- namely, that with a 70% illegitimacy rate, no amount of government hand-outs will do anything but provide the cancer victim with a very expensive band-aid -- he’s condemned as a racist.

When blacks say they wish to have a dialogue with whites, it only means that they want a forum at which to bash whites, while their victims provide a Greek chorus of mea culpas, provide the coffee and Danish, and drop a little something in the collection plate on their way out.

There is such a thing as white prejudice. No doubt about it. But it has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with character, culture and values. What blacks refuse to acknowledge is that whites are intolerant of crime and the creeps who commit it, be they black thugs or white trash. The latter are those lowlifes who form Aryan gangs; tattoo themselves with skulls and swastikas; and produce, distribute and use methamphetamines. I don’t know a single white person who isn’t ashamed to be of the same race as these vicious cretins.

But if a person such as Bill Cosby says he’s ashamed of the promiscuity, drug use and illiteracy, that plague the black underclass, he’s called names. The real shame should be that millions of black kids are fatherless; that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud; that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets; whose language skills are embarrassingly abysmal; and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library.

Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate niggers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration.

Actually, what most whites are is cowardly. When we see black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are,” and we pretend that theirs is a different, but equally fine culture as our own, we’re no better than those enablers who give money to drug addicts or booze to alcoholics.

When we finally stop patronizing loafers, louts and criminals, stop encouraging people who were born 120 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 20 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, to pretend that their sloth and ignorance are the fault of whites, only then will blacks come one step closer to having that colorblind society they claim they want.

W. Burt Prelutsky is an accomplished, well-rounded writer and author of Conservatives Are from Mars (Liberals Are from San Francisco): 101 Reasons I'm Happy I Left the Left.

One of the hammers that radical feminists like to throttle people (especially men) with is the subject of domestic violence.  Particularly, they constantly harp on the fact that married women or otherwise in intimate relationships are disproportionately the victims of domestic violence at the hands of their male significant others.

Although domestic violence is a problem that needs to be vigorously dealt with, an often-ignored yet no less important aspect thereof is the fact that men are also the victims of domestic violence at the hands of their female spouses and/or significant others.

Radio talk show host and columnist Glenn Sacks has recently co-authored an article entitled "New DOJ Domestic Violence Study Undercuts Male Victims."  According to the Justice Department's new findings, domestic violence seems to have declined by over half from 1993 to 2004.  However, Sacks and co-author Mike McCormick point out that male victims of domestic violence are far less likely than female victims to report such attacks to the authorities.

Many men feel, with some justification, that officers will not take their claims seriously, or that once they report violence in their families, their female abusers will claim abuse, and the women will be believed. Perhaps most important, fathers trapped in abusive relationships do not want to report abuse because it may create a divorce or separation, and they fear losing custody of their children to the abuser.

Survey respondents were told that they were being asked "crime questions," yet research demonstrates that men are less likely to see the abuse they suffer as a "crime" or a matter for public intervention, and often don't mention domestic violence in crime surveys. Also, seeking outside help because of a spouse's violence - or even complaining privately about it - is seen as unmanly and cowardly. And men tend to see a female partner's attacks or threats of violence as isolated examples of her being "angry," "hormonal" or "moody," instead of as part of a pattern of violence.

That women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat cannot be reasonably denied. The National Institute of Mental Health funded and oversaw two of the largest studies of domestic violence ever conducted, both of which found equal rates of abuse between husbands and wives. Professor Martin S. Fiebert of California State University, Long Beach maintains an online bibliography summarizing nearly 200 academic studies that conclude that women are as physically aggressive in their intimate relationships as men.

Women often employ the element of surprise and weapons to compensate for men's greater strength. An analysis of 552 domestic violence studies published in the Psychological Bulletin found that 38 percent of the physical injuries in heterosexual domestic assaults are suffered by men.

Sacks and McCormick also cite the fact that the DOJ domestic violence data has been reported by various media outlets in a misleading way.

For example, the most widely published news article on the report states that in intimate relationships, "women are far more likely than men to be battered or assaulted. While crimes at the hands of an intimate partner represented nearly one-quarter of violent assaults against women in the period of the study, they accounted for 3 percent of such incidents against men."

This is misleading. According to the Justice Department, the survey found that "males experienced higher victimization rates than females for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault." Domestic violence inevitably constitutes a much smaller percentage of the overall violence men experience. The survey found only a 3-to-1 ratio of abused women to abused men, not 8-to-1, as the article implies.

Press reports have also focused on the legitimate possibility that women in the survey have significantly underreported the domestic violence committed against them. Yet no major press report has even mentioned what is not simply possible but instead very likely: The survey undercounted male victims.

This brings me to the story of NBA superstar Jason Kidd, who recently filed for divorce from his wife, Joumana, claiming that she physically abused him.  Joumana Kidd's attorneys are countering that the New Jersey Net's all-star point guard's accusations are "absurd ", given his wife's comparably small pysical stature (she's 5-foot-3 and 110 lbs., while Kidd is 6-foot-4 and over 200 lbs.).

Let me just say that I wouldn't wish such a situation on anyone, male or female, especially when children are involved (Jason and Joumana Kid have three young children together).  And, yes, Kidd was charged with domestic violence against his wife in 2001.  However, one cannot assume that Joumana Kidd is completely without fault, if the NBA star's accusations are indeed true (and I'm not saying they're not).

In discussing the Jason Kidd story with Dennis Prager on January 12, Sacks recounted the stories from some of the callers to Prager's radio show:

One male caller explained that his wife had physically abused him for years but he never called the police. When neighbors called the police, they came in and arrested him, and he went to jail.

Another caller, a woman, explained that she had grown up in a household where her father physically abused her mother. She says that now she is worried because she often punches and hits her husband. I explained that research summarized by DV expert John Hamel shows that children who witness abuse in their homes are more likely to abuse as adults--regardless of gender.

Another caller, from Boston, said he was helping his little boy take a shower to get ready for school when his wife snuck up behind him and assaulted him, leaving him bleeding and injured. He called the police but they left without helping him in any way. They did do one thing, however--they handed his wife some pamphlets on services for battered women!

Given the fact that domestic violence is a two-way street, and that, for the reasons Sacks and McCormick cite above, men are less likely to report being victimized, I'm going to give Jason Kidd the benefit of the doubt until all the facts are out.  Hopefully, his situation, as painful as it must be for him, will cause everyone to take a closer look at the issue of domestic violence from the abused man's perspective.

The following is an excellent essay by Project 21 members Joe R. Hicks and David A. Lehrer.  (Also, check out my previous blog on the subject of interracial marriage.)  In this day and age, what matters most between two people who love and are committed to each other are just that - two people who love and are committed to each other.  Period.


Bowl Game Proposal a True Indicator of Race Relations, Not Kramer's Racist Rant
By Joe R. Hicks and David A. Lehrer

Some have said that Michael Richards's recent on-stage racist tirade indicated that America's racist past is not so distant.  Some black leaders used it to drive the message that racism lies just beneath the surface of American life and that Richard's antics were a true indicator of the state of the nation's race relations.
 
But, over the New Year's weekend, another incident occurred in the world of sports that stands as a strong counter to the claims that racism is still a prevailing force in American life.
 
On New Year's Day, Boise State University and Oklahoma University squared off in the Fiesta Bowl.  It was a game won in overtime - to the surprise of all the football experts - by the underdog Boise State.  While the game was one of the most exciting in recent memory, our interest was captured by something that happened after the game ended.  In the midst of chaos and uproarious celebration, Ian Johnson - the Broncos' sophomore running back who scored the game-winning two-point conversion, proposed to Broncos cheerleader Chrissy Popadics.
 
As fans cheered their approval, Johnson proposed marriage on bended knee and Popadics said "yes."  A fitting end to a bowl game that was perhaps one of the most exciting ever played.
 
The additional flavor to this only tangentially sports-related story is provided by the fact that Johnson is black and his soon-to-be bride is white.  Once an American taboo, what is notable about this incident is just how unimportant race is to the storybook tale of the handsome, talented football star who proposed to his pretty and wholesome girlfriend.  The race of the two didn't rate a mention in the after-game coverage, nor should it have.
 
Is love colorblind?
 
Understand this: Boise, Idaho is mid-America in spades.  Some have argued that interracial relations and marriages are more common in the diverse environments of Los Angeles or New York City but still frowned upon in "mid-America."  That's arguably true, which makes Johnson's proposal to his sweetheart all the more notable.  The skin color of Johnson and Popadics seemed to matter not at all to the Boise State fans.  They gathered behind the two as the proposal was made and accepted (and captured by a television camera crew) and noisily endorsed the union as a welcome part of the victory celebration.
 
This scene would have been unthinkable not all that long ago.  Up to the 1960s, many states had anti-miscegenation laws on the books that barred sexual relations or marriage between people of different races - with such activity deemed a felony in many states.  It took the United States Supreme Court to strike down such laws in the 1967 Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia case that ruled anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.
 
Proof of how far the nation has come since 1967 was provided by the visit of presidential candidate George W. Bush to South Carolina's Bob Jones University in the spring of 2000.  Dating across the lines of race was forbidden on this southern campus. As Randall Kennedy pointed out in his excellent essay "Interracial Intimacy," not a single nationally-prominent figure defended the university's policy against interracial dating - causing Bush to distance himself from the institution and ultimately forcing the school to drop the outdated ban.
 
In 1970, only 0.7 percent of marriages were between people of different races. However, when the 2000 Census was taken, that number had increased to 4.9 percent of all marriages.  In other words, 2,669,558 couples at that time ignored skin color as a factor in who might make a good marriage partner. Perhaps an equal number are engaged in romantic relations across the once taboo line of race.  Whatever the case, what was clear from the images on our television screens was that the Boise State fans who traveled to Arizona for the game weren't in the least bothered by the scene of two attractive young people of different races kissing passionately for all to see.
 
According to writer and social critic Steve Sailer, when soon-to-be U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and his wife had their hearts set on a house in a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C three decades ago, they couldn't legally live together because of the state's anti-miscegenation laws.  Marshall was black and his wife was East Asian.  Nowhere in the country would that be the case today, nor would their relationship today raise any eyebrows in the tony suburbs of the nation's capitol.  Leaving aside the issue of same-sex marriage, Americans have long ago decided - with the exception of a shrinking sector of bigots in various shades of skin color - that race is not a particularly important factor when it comes to affairs of the heart.
 
Where a few race-obsessed figures saw Michael Richards's self-immolation on the stage of a comedy club as a good barometer of the nation's race relations, most folks saw a has-been jerk.  As a better indicator, on New Year's Day we witnessed two young people in love declaring their intention to form a family.  Few cared that one was black and the other was white.
 
Ian Johnson's on-camera proposal to his girlfriend ruffled no feathers and served notice that America has moved much further away from an odious past then the race-mongers would ever admit.  Let's hear it for the home team!
 
 
#  #  #
 
 
Joe R. Hicks, a member of the national advisory council of the black leadership network Project 21, is vice president of Community Advocates, Inc. and a talk show host for KFI in Los Angeles, California.  David Lehrer is president of Community Advocates, Inc.  Comment may be sent to Project21@nationalcenter.org.
 
 
Note: New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their author, and not necessarily those of Project 21.

From the editorial page of the NY Post:

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, an appalling scold from California, wasted no time yesterday in dragging the debate over Iraq about as low as it can go - attacking Secre tary of State Condoleezza Rice for being a childless woman.

Boxer was wholly in character for her party - New York's own two Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, were predictably opportunistic - but the Golden State lawmaker earned special attention for the tasteless jibes she aimed at Rice.

Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush's tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.

"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price," Boxer said. "My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young."

Then, to Rice: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family."

Breathtaking.

Simply breathtaking.

We scarcely know where to begin.

The junior senator from California ap parently believes that an accom plished, seasoned diplomat, a renowned scholar and an adviser to two presidents like Condoleezza Rice is not fully qualified to make policy at the highest levels of the American government because she is a single, childless woman.

It's hard to imagine the firestorm that similar comments would have ignited, coming from a Republican to a Democrat, or from a man to a woman, in the United States Senate. (Surely the Associated Press would have put the observation a bit higher than the 18th paragraph of a routine dispatch from Washington.)...
 
But put that aside.

The vapidity - the sheer mindlessness - of Sen. Boxer's assertion makes it clear that the next two years are going to be a time of bitterness and rancor, marked by pettiness of spirit and political self-indulgence of a sort not seen in America for a very long time.

Click here to read the rest.

That way, in my humble opinion, beyond a low blow.  Sen. Boxer's cheapshot sunk to the gutternsnipe level à la Rosie O'Donnell.  That remark was totally uncalled for and very disrespectful, Sen. Boxer owes Dr. Rice an immediate formal apology.

Here is what Ann Coulter, in her new column "Stripper Lied... White Boys Died," has to say about the crumbling Duke "rape" case.

In lieu of a gang rape perpetrated by high-stepping white male athletes against a poor black woman, the Duke lacrosse case has turned out to be another in a long string of hoax hate crimes in which whites are falsely accused.

The lacrosse players denied that any rape had occurred and immediately submitted their DNA to the state, confident that the DNA would prove them innocent.

It did: Not a trace of DNA from any of the lacrosse players was found on the accuser, though this girl had more DNA in her than a refrigerator at a fertility clinic.

She had DNA from five other men, which ought to have raised suspicions about her story that she had not had sex with anyone for the week before the alleged gang rape. Well, that was one of the several versions of events the accuser has offered police to date, although my personal favorite was the one in which Elvis came back from the dead and sexually assaulted her. (I think that was version No. 3—I'd have to check my notes.)

This is the second time this woman has accused a group of men of gang-raping her. One more time and it's officially considered a hobby.

And yet despite the vast privilege, untold wealth and bright shiny whiteness of the defendants, they are still under criminal indictment in this case. Three of the players face up to 30 years in prison for a crime every sane person knows they did not commit. Ah, the life of the privileged!...

If poor black women are constantly being raped by rich white men, then how about they produce one case?

Click here to read the rest of her new column.

First, it was Hilary Clinton's "plantation" remark a year ago.  Now, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) is accusing the Bush Adminstration of "ethnically cleansing" black people out of New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina.  Democrats love to use racially charged, button-pushing "buzz" words and phrases to stokes the flames of racial (read:anti-Republican) paranoia - that is, when they think they can get away with it.  Fortunately, black conservatives are calling them on the carpet for more and more for such nonsense that does nothing more than insult the intelligence of African-American voters 40 years after the civil rights movement.

But I don't think that the Dems will change their tactics anytime soon.    Desperation prevents them from doing so.

From CNSNews.com.

A Democrat's allegation that the Bush administration engaged in a calculated policy of ethnic cleansing after Hurricane Katrina to make Louisiana "whiter" has sparked outrage.

Addressing a group of bloggers at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., last week, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) renewed his criticism of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, particularly the housing crisis that ensued after the hurricane hit.

"At this point, you're not talking about incompetence, you're talking about ethical values," he said.

"In a calculated way, you refuse to do anything for well over a year after the disaster. The policy, I think, is ethnic cleansing by inaction," Frank added.

A YouTube video clip of the remarks spread on the Internet, drawing cheers from liberal bloggers and jeers from conservatives -- some of whom urged critics to phone Frank's congressional office to complain -- but virtually no attention from the mainstream media.

The statements have drawn the ire of conservative African Americans.

"His remarks are contemptuous of real struggles black people have gone through in this country and contemptuous of genocide and real ethnic cleansing that has taken place and is taking place," Niger Innis, spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, told Cybercast News Service.

Frank said during the speech, "it's not ethnic cleansing in the sense of killing people." But, he went on to say, "What they [Republicans] recognize is they're in this happy position for them where if the federal government does nothing, Louisiana will become whiter and richer."

"By simply not doing anything to alleviate the housing crisis greatly exaggerated by Katrina, they get the hurricane to do the ethnic cleansing and their hands are clean," Frank continued.

Lack of federal housing assistance, Frank argued, has forced many black residents to leave Louisiana, and that, he contends, is what the Republicans want.

"There are people who are happy as a result of Louisiana becoming a more right-wing Republican state," Frank said. "If you lose 100,000 black voters, you take a state that was marginally Republican, and you've made it solidly Republican."

The Bush administration, as well as the Louisiana state government and New Orleans city government, came under strong criticism in the summer of 2005 for their response to Hurricane Katrina, among the deadliest natural disasters to ever hit the United States.

Kevin Martin, an environmental contractor involved in the post-Katrina clean up in Louisiana, told Cybercast News Service on Monday that Frank's comments were "demagoguery and intended for nothing more than creating class envy and racial division."

"How many times has Barney Frank been to the lower ninth ward?" Martin asked, referring to one of the more impoverished areas of New Orleans. "I'm sure I can count on one hand and still have fingers left over. I have photographic evidence that the devastation cut across all economic scales."

Martin, who attended college in Baton Rouge, La., is also a member of the advisory council for Project 21, a conservative black group.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Dads Finally Get Fair Shake in the Media
By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks

The media image of fathers--long portrayed as bumbling, inept and irresponsible--is changing. This has been a good year for dads in the media. One example is Sony Pictures’ new movie The Pursuit of Happyness.

Happyness stars Will Smith as Chris Gardner, a homeless, hard-luck single father with a five year-old son. Through sheer force of will, Gardner raises his boy and pulls them out of poverty, eventually becoming a multi-millionaire. The movie is based on a true story and co-stars Smith’s eight year-old son as Gardner’s son Christopher.

As Gardner, Will Smith strives to create a ''normal'' environment for Christopher, even when the two were spending their nights on the floor of a public bathroom in Oakland. Gardner explains:

"We may not have known where we were going, where we were going to eat, or where we were going to sleep, but we were together every day. There are probably a lot of folks whose children live in million-dollar houses who can't say that."

Appearing recently on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Christopher, now 25, paid his father the greatest compliment any parent could receive:

"I didn't know we were homeless. I just remember that we were doing a whole lot of moving. I just know that when I looked up, he was there. I looked around, he was there."

Ford Motor Company‘s controversial ''Bold Moves'' divorced dad ad was another step forward for fathers. The ad begins with a stereotypically happy family taking a trip to the beach in a Ford Freestyle SUV. At the end of the commercial comes an unexpected twist--the car pulls into a housing complex, and dad gets out. He hugs his kids, tells them he’ll see them next week, tells his ex-wife, "Thanks for inviting me this weekend," and waves goodbye.

The ad does more than give heretofore invisible divorced dads some needed visibility; it also provides an important image of a divorced couple working to preserve their children’s relationships with both parents. Dad remains involved, and his ex, instead of putting forth her new husband as the children’s ''new dad,'' invites him along.

The controversy over PBS’s documentary Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories is an example of fathers’ ability to directly impact the way the media portrays them. The film stereotyped divorced fathers as abusers and molesters who were routinely winning sole custody of their children and driving mothers out of their children’s lives.

After the film aired in October of 2005, fatherhood groups responded with a storm of protest, and over 10,000 protestors called or wrote PBS. PBS responded by agreeing to make a new, balanced documentary on divorce and custody issues. Ken A. Bode, the Ombudsman for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, stated that this fall PBS "made good on its promise," airing a film which emphasized that "children want and need both parents and that two-parent involvement after a divorce is important."

The surprising success of Tim Russert's book Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons was another positive development. In 2004, Russert published Big Russ and Me about his father, and received an ''avalanche'' of letters from men and women who wanted to tell him about their own dads. Wisdom is largely a sampling of those 60,000 letters. It was an unlikely runaway hit, reaching #1 on both the New York Times bestseller list and on Book Standard’s Overall Bestsellers Chart.

In heartwarming and heart-wrenching stories, Russert’s readers remember their fathers as strong, devoted and honorable. Perhaps the book’s most striking feature is the overwhelming outpouring of love from women towards their fathers. One explains ''growing up in a rural area of the Deep South could have been a harsh experience for a little black girl, but I was insulated by his love and tenderness.'' Another describes how her dad who worked twelve-hour shifts to support his family but always set aside time for a special, early morning father-daughter coffee date.

While the ''Father Knows Best'' depiction of dads was always a distortion, the ''Father Knows Nothing'' media theme of the past couple of decades has been a far greater one. Dads deserve a media rehabilitation--hopefully 2006 was its beginning.

 
This column first appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times (12/24/06).

Jeffery M. Leving is one of America's most prominent family law attorneys. He is the author of the new HarperCollins book Divorce Wars: A Field Guide to the Winning Tactics, Preemptive Strikes, and Top Maneuvers When Divorce Gets Ugly. His website is www.dadsrights.com.

Glenn Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at www.GlennSacks.com or via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.

A young, attractive female school teacher engages in sex with an underage male student.  Though tried and convicted for, and even confesses to the crime, the teacher at best gets probation and counseling, but serves no jail time. 

Now where have I heard this before?

As reported by World Net Daily, a female high school substitute teacher in Utah will serve no jail time for performing oral sex on a 17-year-old male student, despite comments from the judge that such would not be the case it the perp were a man and the victim were a female minor.  Cameo Patch, a 29-year-old divorced mother of three and substitute teacher at Utah's Tooele High School, was sentenced to 36 months' probation, ordered to undergo a pyscho-sexual evaluation, and pay a $2,000 fine.

"If this was a 29-year-old male and a 17-year-old female, I would be inclined to order some incarceration," noted 3rd District Judge Mark Kouris during sentencing yesterday for Cameo Patch.

Well, duh!!!  Tell us something we don't know, your honor.  Seeing that female sex offenders of the school teacher variety have a track record of getting off with basically a slap on the wrist, it makes me wonder why Judge Kouris didn't make an example out of Ms. Patch and send her to the slammer.

World Net Daily has compiled a very long list of female teachers accused or convicted of having sex with their students, a phenomenon that has come to the forefront of national and international news in recent years.  Here is just a partial sampling:

Debra LaFave: Who can forget this "knockout" former Tampa, FL high school English teacher, who was convicted last spring of having sex with a male student who was 14 years old at the time.  (Less publicized were the lives this little jezebel ruined in the process, not the least of which was her then-husban, Owen.)

Kristen Margrif:  This former Mayvelle, MI teacher was given a one-year delayed sentence on three felony counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a student, meaning she'll only have to serve probation if she remains trouble-free for a year.  Margrif is also barred from schools and day-care facilities, will have to register as a sex offender for 25 years, and have no contact with people younger than 17 unless approved by a probation officer.  According to the original criminal complaint, Margrif and the teen had sexual relations eight times between June and July 2005. The trysts reportedly took place in her car or at the store where the boy had a summer job.

Adrianne Hockett: Accused of having sex with a 16-year-old special-needs student in a Houston apartment she rented for the get-togethers. The boy has testified the pair would "have sex, drink beer and smoke weed."

Amber Jennings, 31: Though Jennings was initially charged with having sex with a 16-year-old, the counts against the Sturbridge, Mass., woman were reduced to a single charge of disseminating harmful materials to a minor. She reportedly admitted e-mailing naked photos of herself to a former student. She received no jail time, only two years of probation after pleading guilty.

Amber Marshall, 23: Northwest Indiana woman allegedly had sexual contact, including intercourse, with several students at Hebron High School, and turned herself into authorities, telling police she knew what she did was illegal.

Amira Sa'Di, 30: Clayton County, Ga., woman remarked she didn't think her relationship was inappropriate based on her Internet research, learning the Peach State's age of consent is 16.

Amy Gail Lilley, 36: Inverness, Fla., woman and softball coach at Lecanto High School charged with a lesbian relationship with a 15-year-old girl. She received no prison time, being sentenced to two years of house arrest and eight more years of probation.

Angela Comer, 26: Middle-school teacher from Tompkinsville, Ky., fled with her alleged lover, her 14-year-old male student, before being tracked down in Mexico where she reportedly planned to marry the boy. She was indicted for illegal sex acts with a minor and returned to Kentucky. Charges include felony custodial interference, two counts of third-degree sodomy and four counts of unlawful transaction with a minor relating to sexual acts.

Angela Stellwag, 24: Delran, N.J., woman accused of having sex in her apartment with a 14-year-old boy she met in school. She was charged with sexual assault for activity that allegedly took place in August 2004. She pleaded not guilty in August 2006.

Beth Raymond, 31: Private-school employee from Pownal, Maine, charged with risk of injury to a minor and second-degree sexual assault of a juvenile male at Eagle Hill School in Greenwich, Conn. In July 2006, she was sentenced to 18 months prison.

Bethany Sherrill, 24: Daughter-in-law of school-board president charged with molesting a 15-year-old middle-school student. Reports state Sherill allegedly had oral sex with the boy and sent him coded text messages. She resigned her position at Jefferson Elementary School in Farmington, Mo.

Carol Flannigan, 50: Boca Raton, Fla., music teacher reportedly slept with 11-year-old former student, and also had a simultaneous sexual relationship with the boy's father. In a deposition, the boy's father said he had the same sort of sexual relationship with Flannigan that ex-President Bill Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky. In February 2006, Flannigan was sentenced to five years prison as part of a plea deal.

Diane DeMartini-Scully, 45: Mattituck, N.Y., woman was the school psychologist at East Hampton Middle School on Long Island when she was accused of having sex with the 16-year-old boyfriend of her own 13-year-old daughter. She allegedly had intercourse and oral sex with the boy on a number of occasions in May 2005 in her home and car. She was arrested after allegedly secretly visiting her young paramour at his new home in North Carolina.

Jaymee Wallace, 28: Basketball coach in Tampa, Fla., charged with having an 18-month lesbian relationship with a student. Authorities say the student, who was 15 when she met Wallace, voluntarily had sex with the coach more than 50 times, in a parking lot at Busch Gardens and often at Wallace's own apartment while a fellow classmate was in an adjacent room. According to the police report, the sexual relationship reportedly began in early 2003, after the student received a note from Wallace saying she "found her attractive and wanted to know if she felt the same way."

Joan Marie Sladky, 28: Redwood City, Calif., woman sentenced to six months in county jail for having sex with a 16-year-old student after pleading no contest to four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, oral copulation and penetration with a foreign object. The Spanish teacher's relationship with the boy spanned six months, as she reportedly had sex with him once at his home and three times at her residence, which was on the property of the private Baptist church and school where she taught.

Katherine Tew, 30: Married English teacher from Greenville, N.C., arrested for having sex with a 17-year-old boy. She taught at South Central High School in Winterville, N.C., and was convicted of taking indecent liberties with a child, but found not guilty of the more serious sex charge. She was not given prison time, and lost her teaching license for at least two years.

Kathy White, 39: Teacher at Lumberton High School in Lumberton, Texas, charged with having sex with a 17-year-old student. The victim, Michael Ferguson, alleges: "She just started grabbing me and hormones were on and it just happened." Ferguson provided KBTV-TV with an e-mail allegedly sent by White, in which the teacher told him, "I get these cravings for YOU and that's not NORMAL! If I had it my way, I'd do you once a week just because it's good."

Kelly Lynn Dalecki, 28: Elementary-school teacher from St. Augustine, Fla., pleaded no contest to charges she had sex with a 13-year-old boy in 2003. The boy's parents reportedly found more than 50 sexually explicit e-mails and pornographic pictures allegedly sent by Dalecki on his computer. Dalecki was sentenced to nearly a year in prison.

Click here for the full list.

Happy New Year, everyone.  I hope that 2007 is filled with immense blessings and good fortune for all of my blog readers.

Now, on to the topic at hand.

In an interview for newsmax.com, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Alphonso Jackson calls on the carpet the modern-day civil rights "leadership" for doing a disservice to the black community by constantly peddling an ideology of black victimhood.

"They [black leaders] have created an industry," Jackson, who is black, told NewsMax. "If we don't become victims, they have no income. They have no podium."

Rather than confronting real issues that face blacks, African-American leaders suggest that "it's racism that's stopping everything that we're doing," Jackson said.

"They are in the business of making excuses," he said. "White folks have nothing to do with the fact that seven out of every 10 black children born in this country are born out of wedlock," Jackson said. Nor do they have anything to do "with that fact that we have more black males in prison than we do in college."

While racism still exists, "Young black kids are getting every opportunity that they need, just like every other kid," Jackson said. "I think in 2006 to say that everything is the fault of our brothers and sisters of the lighter hue is ridiculous."

Until blacks "begin to focus in on the serious problems that we have in our communities, and begin to try to solve those problems in the most positive manner that we can, we're not helping ourselves," Jackson said...
 
By characterizing blacks as victims, making excuses for them, and suggesting that they cannot advance themselves without reliance on the government, black leaders exacerbate the problems that blacks face and give them the tools to become "losers," Jackson said.

"I am not going to let the black leadership — the so-called leadership — of this country tell me that I am a victim," he said. "I believe that if you work hard, strive to do the very best, things will work out for you. [That] doesn't mean you won't have obstacles — you will. But we can't keep living in an era that is bygone," Jackson said. "We need to begin today to teach blacks that they can look in the mirror — and that they have the ability, once they look in that mirror, to achieve."

In his book "Enough," Fox News TV commentator Juan Williams pointed out that blacks who emigrate to America from Africa and the Caribbean are more successful than blacks born in the United States. As outlined in an Oct. 20 NewsMax article, "Juan Williams Called Black Ann Coulter," Williams attributed that to a self-defeating black culture of victimhood, one that says doing well in school is a cop-out and that the way to be successful is to come off as threatening.

Agreeing with Williams, Jackson said, "All you have to do is look at Miami's Little Haiti. The average income of a Haitian in Miami is the same as his white counterpart. They work very hard. But they have not been conditioned that the government owes them something."

Jackson said Africans from such countries as Ghana, Nigeria, Gabon, and Senegal come to the United States. with "one attitude: that they're going to get the very best education and make as much money as they can."

It goes without saying that Secretary Jackson and Juan Williams are right on the money, particularly his point that They [black leaders] have created an industry.  If we don't become victims, they have no income. They have no podium."

This message needs to be shouted from the rooftops.  Appearing last night on Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes," the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of BOND, made the same point, that if black Americans were to finally stop drinking the victimhood/racism Kool-Aid, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and company would be out of work. 

Let's make 2007 the year in which Black America puts the modern-day civil rights "leadership" out of business by renouncing victimhood and racial paranoia, and start agressively adopting personal responsibility, self-help, and individual initiative.  The sooner we do so, the better.

This is my blog on Part IV of the Washington Times' series on the state of marriage in America.

This last article opens up  with the story of Murry and Trudy Grant, parents of five, grandparents of 11, married for an astouding 55 years (God bless 'em!).  Notice the use of the word commitment:

Murray and Trudy Grant, who were married Nov. 25, 1951, have had their share of disagreements, but never in a million years would they consider divorce.

"That's never even entered my mind," said Dr. Grant, a semi-retired doctor in Silver Spring. "When you're married, you've made a commitment."

Mrs. Grant, mother of five and grandmother of 11, joked that during disagreements in the early years, she would threaten to pack her suitcase and leave.

"But I never did because that would have creased my clothes," she said with a laugh...


What do the Grants think about young people's attitudes toward commitment? What is the current outlook for a resilient marriage, such as theirs?

"Not good. Not good at all," said Dr. Grant, his words sprinkled with a British accent and intonation. He's originally from London.

Dr. Grant is right. The risk for divorce in first marriages is about 50 percent. For second marriages, the rate of divorce is even higher.

According to David Popenoe of Rutger University's National Marriage Project, which analyzes the state of marriage in America, although the risk of divorce for first marriages is indeed 50%, certain socioeconomic and education factors can reduce that risk.  Popenoe, a sociology professor at Rutgers, says that the risk drops by 30% if the houshold income is more than $50,000; some college education is another risk reducer; and, a third one, accordint to the NMP, is the effect of having been raised in an intact two-parent household.

"We call it the 'marriage gap,' " said Mr. Popenoe, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "For the college-educated segment, the institution of marriage has gained strength. ... For everyone else, it continues to weaken."

(Check out the NMP's report, The State of Marriage 2006.)

The article also cites the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, marriage education clearinghouse, whose founder and director, Diane Sollee, believes that people who get educated on marriage will have a much better chance of having a stronger, happier marriage.

Gregory and Patricia Schnell Kuhlman, founders of Marriage Success Training, travel the country teaching marriage-education classes.

The following quote from the article is very instructive, especially the almost epidemic levels of broken families in our society.

Claudia Arp, who writes and teaches about marriage enrichment with husband David, said many young people today have unrealistic expectations, partly because they grew up in a broken home and have not seen a marriage at work through different stages. 

"Many couples today don't realize that a marriage goes through different seasons," she said.  The Arps, who have been married for 44 years, founded Marriage Alive International in 1983.

Despite the challenges entailed in a marriage, there are substantial benefits.  Studies have shown that married couples are generally happier, have better sex lives, and do better financially.  Specifically, married men earn 10 to 40 percent more money than single men with similar education and job histories, according to the National Marriage Project.  Furthermore, in looking at the benefits of marriage, the article goes, it can be helpful to look at the flipside:  Single life or multiple marriages and divorces, which, from an emotional and financial standpoint, can be extremely costly (not that I would know anything about that).

The Moral Of the Series

The Washington Times has done a yeoman's job in publishing this eye-opening series on marriage, arguably the most sacred institution in the world. 

As one who has been married a little over three years, I can attest to how challenging and rewarding marriage can be when two people are love, in tune, and in sync.  Personally, I feel that I am a more mature, and all around better man for being a married man.  I realized early on, and am constantly reminded, that it's not about me, anymore.  I have a wonderful woman to whom I am also responsible.  Right now (that is, until we have children), my top priority is not to advance in my career, nor is it to become wealthy, but to keep my wife happy.

It's a job I take more seriously than anything, and so far I'm pretty darn good at it.