Freedom Watch
Economic Freedom for Black Americans
When will black Americans finally be “free at last”?
The word “freedom” for many black Americans is inextricably linked with the word “slavery.” While it has been 148 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, and 47 years since the landmark Civil Rights Act, for many, the words of Martin Luther King in his famous speech still ring true: “The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” Many black Americans still find themselves spiritually and economically enslaved on the figurative 21st-century plantation.
Why is that still so? After all, for the last 47 years, our leaders have passed bill after bill ostensibly to free black Americans from the manacles of poverty and provide ever-stronger safety nets for those disadvantaged.
But two very formidable forces have conspired over these last 47 years — almost the span of my entire life—to shackle the economic freedoms and aspirations of the black community: liberal progressive policies, generally supported by Democrats, and the socialist ideology espoused by prominent blacks such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
It is always curious to me that black Americans typically vote Democrat, when it was a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and a Republican from Ohio, Representative James Mitchell Ashley, who brought forth the bill to support an amendment to end slavery throughout the United States.
Nearly 100 years later, when the initial Civil Rights Bill came before the full Senate in 1964, it was a group of 18 Southern Democrats who argued most fervently against its passage.
While the Civil Rights Act passed, finally ending the reprehensible practices of segregation, the liberal progressive policies passed during these last nearly five decades have perhaps done more damage to black Americans’ prospects than the racial policies of the past. Unemployment in the black community stands at 16.7 percent, food stamp enrollment is up, and nearly three-quarters of all black children do not live with their biological fathers.
Welfare policies devised by the left to aid single mothers have instead worked perversely to incentivize more young women to have children out of wedlock.
High minimum wages advocated by labor unions— from whom Democrats receive tremendous financial support — mean employers are less apt to hire unskilled black youths, or any youths for that matter.
For the left, “spending on education” generally means job protection and preserving benefits for teachers, rather than actually improving education for students in public schools, where black students can build a foundation for economic advancement.
But the effects of these so-called well-intentioned policies, while damaging, are certainly not as toxic as the socialist orientation and noxious rhetoric of “leaders” such as Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Words do indeed have meaning, and the defeatist and demoralizing screeds of these prominent speakers do not inspire, but instead reinforce the victim mentality, and generate class hatred and jealousy — further cultivated by our own President Barack Obama.
Since the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s founding in 1909, socialism has been, unfortunately, deeply ingrained in the black community. In fact, NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois received the 1959 “Lenin Peace Prize” and formally joined the Communist Party USA two years later.
One of the primary tenets of socialist ideology is the creation of a welfare state, which is precisely what has happened in the black community. It is, in effect, a virtual plantation, where black Americans remain enslaved to damaging economic policies and poisonous attitudes of the rhetorical “overseers” who continue to reinforce exploitive, negative mindsets.
The only way for black Americans — and all Americans for that matter — to enjoy the full fruits of economic freedom is by once again embracing the spirit of individualism and self-determination laid out in our Constitution and exemplified by true black leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. It is only by abandoning the damaging liberal progressive policies and throwing off the shackles of the victim mentality can black Americans finally be “free at last.”
About the Author
Allen B. West is a Republican U.S. representative from Florida.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (34) | Leave a comment
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c. j. acworth| 11.8.11 @ 7:28AM
Somehow it must be that the majority of black Americans see it in their own best interest to have the Democrat party in charge. Keep the government gravy train rolling, and have your basic needs handed to you, even if you could be far better off by staying in school, leaving the 'hood and applying yourself at a trade or profession. I can't help but believe that the politicians who foster the mentality of dependence have no respect for the people they are using as a springboard to their own political power. At the risk of causing offence, let me quote a definition from "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Beirce which I think captures their attitude.
" African: (noun) A n****r who votes our way."
Maybe when blacks realize they are being cynically used they will come around.
Alan Brooks| 11.8.11 @ 10:14AM
How about this for a start: exempt black youths from Selective Service registration.
You will have to fight your own wars from now on.
Stuart| 11.8.11 @ 10:58AM
You do realize that the draft ended about 40 years ago and that all of todays soldiers are volunteers? And who are the "you" that you reference? Black Americans are also part of the "you". Congressman West, who looks pretty black to me, volunteered and proudly fought for America. I also volunteered and fought along many Black (and White) patriotic Americans. Hopefully Mr. Brooks can say "Thanks" to a vet on Friday (Veterans Day) even if he or she is part of the "you".
pete66| 11.8.11 @ 11:28AM
so, Alan....you want to take away an option for young black men & woman to find a sense of direction and real pride in themselves? Sharpton Jackson, Wright, Farrakan....now Brooks. Congratulations!....you just locked into the 5th Stooge spot.
Alan Brooks| 11.8.11 @ 11:33AM
No, we will merely end REGISTRATION for conscription, and destroy all files and databases at Selective Service.
You make virtue from necessity, 'defense' isn't a good thing: it is only that other nations are worse than us- so we have to clobber them sometimes.
Curtis Rasmussen| 11.9.11 @ 12:29AM
Brooks, you are an idiot. Look up racism, read the definition, and slap yourself for being such a hypocritical tool.
Chalkdust| 11.8.11 @ 2:53PM
Brooks you are dyed-in-the-wool idiot. These days, for a precious few blacks, the military is the first and maybe the only stop on a life-time journey of personal responsibility. Sadly, if one peruses any group picture of past or currently engaged military unit, you'll find very few black faces in the group. I pray for the day when this trend is turned around.
SpiralArchitect| 11.8.11 @ 4:58PM
You guys realize you are attempting a dialogue with Alan Brooks, right?
Alan Brooks| 11.8.11 @ 5:50PM
"Sadly, if one peruses any group picture of past or currently engaged military unit, you'll find very few black faces in the group."
Perhaps blacks are smarter than we are in many ways?
Quartermaster| 11.8.11 @ 6:12PM
As I said on another thread, Brooks is the village idiot. We need someone to feed him a line now and again so we can laugh at his idiocy.
Most of his ravings are risible, but quite entertaining.
Alan Brooks| 11.11.11 @ 3:04PM
"These days, for a precious few blacks, the military is the first and maybe the only stop on a life-time journey of personal responsibility."
Responsibility for killing and maiming; nothing sacred about it. It isn't about freedom- it's about power; might makes right according to who has the bigger guns.
Michael Tomlinson| 11.8.11 @ 8:22AM
Sadly, modern African-Americans only know Republican Douglass as an icon and Republican Booker T. as an "Uncle Tom."
The key that most Americans fail to understand is that the welfare state is not about the empowerment or imporovement of people, but about government power and enshrinement of the bureaucratic status quo at the expense of individual liberty and corporately American exceptionalism founded in virtues and ideas rooted in the Reformation and Christian idealism and morality.
Sadly, when the government becomes the source of one's "bread" and freedom what it gives it can easily take away.
oldfart| 11.8.11 @ 8:32AM
Regardless of race all you have to do is look to the EU to see our potential future. When more people depend on the Govt to exist then the whole system will fall apart like a house of cards in a thunderstorm. People (regardless of race) who depend on them selves to provide their basic needs will be successful.
Chalkdust| 11.8.11 @ 8:40AM
Col. West...Nobody needs to tell you that the gravitational pull of the tribal instincts of America's socialist black community is almost impossible to break away from. Without knowing anything about your personnel circumstances, I'm betting you had very strong parent figures who insulated you from the constant catcalls of "Acting White" by your contemporaries, which was enough to launch you out of what would have been a spiraling death fall, into a life in the military and personal responsibility
Anybody want to bet that Brack Obama would have been President of the USA if he had been raised by his father's people rather than, for the most part, by his mother's parents despite the fact they were both "commie-lite".
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.8.11 @ 9:09AM
Mr. West,
please keep your gasoline can handy!
All of us out here appreciate your courage and commitment to your oath.
David W| 11.8.11 @ 10:01AM
I believe that the media has a lot to do with it. I would bet that the race baiters (Jackson, Sharpton, etc.) are given much more air time than those who believe in freeing the blacks from their economic masters. How many of the new crop of black conservatives (Star, Alfonzo Rachel, etc.) are given the chance by the MSM to speak their piece uninterrupted? Not many. What TV reports or shows actually encourage blacks to become independent? How many continue the same 'victim' mentality or reduce blacks to comic relief?
I have hope for blacks, but the odds are against them and it will be as big a struggle (since the new slavery is hidden and harder to fight) as it was in the 1800s and early 1900s.
ArmyAviator| 11.8.11 @ 10:11AM
Allen West has already proven himself as a GREAT AMERICAN. On the battlefield as one of our great military commanders, to the gallery of Congress in Washington. His leadership is sorely needed in the sorry morass of DC. His article today is so absolutely "right on." Thanks, Colonel, your soldiers still love and respect you!
fmm| 11.8.11 @ 12:01PM
This article is right on as far as it goes but one huge point is missing. The liberal progressive goal is not to only keep black americans on the plantation, but to move all americans to that plantation. Progressive policies gone a long way toward achieving that goal since democrats took over congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008. Such needs to be understood to be able to design an effective means of combatting progressive takeover of our entire society.
CrackerHound| 11.8.11 @ 12:41PM
The lack of push back from the American public I see on what is an absolute march towards heavy handed socialism (not socialism-lite) leads me to believe that we will be there before the end of the decade. Total, all out global communism would not surprise me in the least by the end of this decade. To ask the average American to define freedom, the Constitutional role of government, or really anything of substance outside of tabloid fare, is to witness hilarity ensue.
I don't blame it on our politicians. They are not serious people to begin with (with some exceptions). I blame it on the American people first and foremost. We are willing sheep being led to slaughter and enslavement. Who would have EVER thought it could happen here? I guess the old adage of the frog and boiling water was true.
All of the upheaval and the imminent collapse of economic systems in Europe and the US combined with the apathy leads me to believe that it is too late.
JimH| 11.8.11 @ 1:26PM
I heard on the radio today that in another great blow for the oppressed worker, the Democrats in their convention in Charlotte will only be contracting with businesses which employ union labor. The result being, since NC is a right to work state, is that virtually no locals businesses will benefit. And where it is unavoidable to use local facilities, such as hotels, the regular staffs will be furloughed or laid off while out of state union members are brought in.
John Navratil| 11.8.11 @ 4:18PM
JimH,
Perhaps there will be a stimulus program to aid these people put out of work by the Democrats. If not, I'm sure these people with extra time on their hands will be welcome in the convention hall, don't you think? A few verses of Kum baya will surely give everybody that lovin' feelin'.
shipley130| 11.8.11 @ 2:48PM
When they stop expecting everyone to like them due to their skin color.
Stormzeye| 11.8.11 @ 4:15PM
I am proud to have you serve as my Representative in Congress. I wish you continued success and will continue support you in your endeavors. You are a great American.
Dave Williams| 11.8.11 @ 5:30PM
...and I'll raise, and say that if you EVER decide to run for higher office, you can count on my financial support and my vote, sir. If this country is to survive, it'll be people like you who pull us through.
ArmyAviator| 11.8.11 @ 6:03PM
fmm is right on the money.
Castro and his chief executioner Che, early on realized that they could NEVER raise Cuba's down and out, up to the level where most Cubans had risen. So, they systematically TORE DOWN all classes (except for the Party elite) to the level of poverty and dispair that IS CUBA today. Obama and his "czars" along with his mentor Bill Ayers, have decided to TEAR DOWN all classes of American society to the POVERTY LEVEL. Well, that hopey changey thing is workin' out, for the Progressive Socialists for sure. If they have their way, only the Progressive Socialist elite will have homes, cars and food on the table. The rest of us will live off the scraps, left behind in the wake of "Progresiveism."
Richard Baker| 11.9.11 @ 6:49AM
Congressman West:
My only response to your article is "Airborne" and FIDO.
fwb| 11.9.11 @ 1:29PM
Funny, My grandfather, God rest his soul, would not join the Republican party because it was the party of the black man. He held steadfast to the Roosevelt democrats.
I believe that blacks in the US need to recognize the alternative to having arrived here under nefarious conditions. Yes, their ancestors were brought as slaves. And yes, there was much abuse. But the alternative is that their ancestors were left in Africa to live in the squalor and horrendous conditions there today.
Was the arrival of their ancestors problematic? Yes. Do blacks today have a better chance at life than their counterparts in Africa? Yes. Should whites carry the burden of what happened long before any of use were born? No. There comes a point where we move on and learn fro the mistakes of the past and that does not mean we hold the past up as a stick with which to beat each other.
Qwilly| 11.9.11 @ 5:12PM
I would ask all my American countymen and woman to review the discussions between Booker T Washington, and W.E.B. Deboise, there you will find the correction that needs to be made. As to the challenges to Mr. Herman Cain there is a name you need to encapsolate EMMIT TIELE. The time refferences where not mentioned but you can fill in the blanks. Rep Allen West , I am not in congress but I have been to combat for my country. Lead Sir, we are following you .......
Kim Bruce | 11.10.11 @ 12:27PM
Dear Congressman West,
Please throw your hat in for President of the United States. God is calling you to run. America is at a dangerous crossroads right now. The tipping point is leaning towards a national socialist or communist state. That is within the realm of possibilities with the current administration.
The list of current candidates for President from the GOP side are dwindling due to slanderous accusations from the left as well as prevarications of all sorts. Skeletons of many shapes and sizes are being pulled or intricately manufactured and then spread to the left-wing media in an effort to derail the Conservative candidacy. They are succeeding.
If you decide not to run for President then consider VP. America loves you and needs a strong leader, somebody who knows how to handle "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and send them flying, full-throttle, back at the enemies of freedom and liberty in America.
smmallon| 11.10.11 @ 6:49PM
Hooah West! There are still carpetbaggers around, and they are democrat.
Soljerblue| 11.10.11 @ 9:25PM
Allen Wesy for President -- 2016
Soljerblue| 11.10.11 @ 9:26PM
Ooops -- typo -- sorry, Col. West.
Soljerblue| 11.10.11 @ 9:29PM
This is the soldier who told an Article 32 hearing -- trying to "hang" him for "harsh" interrogation of an Iraqi terrorist, that he'd -- quote --"walk through hell with a gasoline can" to save the lives of his troops.
Lordy, how we need this man!
Janet| 3.13.12 @ 9:00AM
This is really late. Mr. West, just like there are those who will mot budge on their opposition to abortion, there are those who refuse to join a party that has overtly shows they don't want them.
Am I wrong in my understanding that the democrats of yesteryear are the republicans of today?
Also, if i read one more comment that democrats want a hand-out I will scream.
You republicans who have fallen for that lie are the deluded ones. Most blacks who actually vote, vote for democrats because we truly believe that republicans want to continue with the segregation that is these United States.
It is the whites who do not want hard working, honest blacks in their community and who blame the blacks who do move in for the decline in the market value of their homes who keep blacks from becoming republicans. Market value is not just about the upkeep of a home, it can also be affected by prejudice and perception, btw. We don't want to be republicans because we are not willing to give up our pride to join people who don't think we are equals.
Most of us don't want a handout. However, we do want a party in power we think cares about their fellow citizens. Allan West, i would not vote for you even if you paid me.
My parents encouraged me to work hard. If Obama had parents of any race who did not support him like his mom's family, he probably would not be the president. It has NOTHING to do with the race of his father's family. Thinking like that - believing blacks are not capable of raising intelligent children is the epitome of why blacks don't vote republican.