Monday, July 27, 2009

Sinking to the lowest common denominator

What bothers me about all this business with the black Harvard professor, and about the race situation in the US in general, is that many of what SHOULD be the better, more educated elements of the black community have decided that their 'identity' is defined by adopting the habits and demeanor of the lowest elements of black society.
I recall the elegance and grace of men like Duke Ellington, and compare that with Al Sharpton. There is no comparison.
While most whites of my acquaintance would be intensely embarrassed to be represented by the redneck jerks in our racial demographic, and most of them wouldn't adopt their mannerisms other than to growl 'git-r-done' or some other comic slogan, the black community has decided in their leap to the left that the worst of them have to be embraced in toto, as a statement of solidarity against "the man".
So while black America was once represented in the public mind by some amazing people, people with style and manners and quality, now they're content to let Ice Cube or Snoop Dog be their public face. I grant you that standards have slipped a lot across the board, and whites are too content to let Britney Spears be the face of white America, but not to the degree that black America seems to have fallen.
For a college professor to sink to a phrase like "yo mama" in dealing with a police officer, aping the style and words of a ghetto thug, is proof that they really do need to 're-calibrate' their thinking. He could have and should have tried to impress the officer with erudite phrasing and quality of behavior, but he was conditioned to act like a moron by his own doctrine of resentment.
I was raised to be embarrassed by such conduct. There was a time when black America was as well, but it's slipping away with the rise of the race pimps and the entitlement generation.


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