When I saw a story on the BBCs website entitled “African-American women struggle to overcome wealth gap”, I must admit I was sceptical. I thought that I would get an article about how western society tramples all over blacks who can’t get ahead of insurmountable obstacles thrown in their path, etc.
What I got, in part, was a surprisingly practical article about how some black women in America (I don’t say African-American.. doh!) are tackling their poverty with good approaches and good results.
The prospects, you'd think, are bleak. But Kenya Williams is far from downhearted. With the help of Allendale County ALIVE, a community development corporation, she's learning how to manage her finances.
"They show me how to budget my money," she says.
Treyonde Allen runs ALIVE's classes in basic book-keeping. She's on a mission to break a cycle of ingrained and inherited poverty.
"I'm trying to instil a culture of saving and budgeting for the entire household," she says.
Ms Allen also warns students of the dangers posed by predatory lenders and lives lived on credit.
"Don't sign up for a credit card just because they're going to give you a piece of pizza and a T-shirt," she tells them. "That stops something right there."
Right at the start of the piece, is an interesting fact.
A recent academic study found that the gap in wealth between white and black Americans had more than quadrupled between 1984 and 2007.
Are we to assume that the treatment of blacks has worsened by a factor of four from 1984 to 2007. Has the station of blacks decreased to account for that gap? No. Look at America now and as I have heard many leftists revealingly admit that they never would have thought that they would see a black man in the Whitehouse in their lifetime, but there he is.
By the way BBC, references please. Anyway. So far so good. Now on to the victimology.
"In this country we call America, for more than 250 years, African-Americans were property," says Anton Gunn, an African-American member of South Carolina's House of Representatives.
...
"African-Americans have just started... to be able to obtain and own anything," he says.
Mr. Gunn. The 60s were fifty years ago. What part of the sentence “African-Americans have just started... to be able to obtain and own anything” is even remotely true? Seriously. How can he say that? Bold faced lie? Or delusional distortion of reality brought on by a deep victim mentality. Probably the latter.
But Bernie Mazyck, president of the South Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations, says narrowing the wealth gap in America needs to start with a more honest conversation about how we got here.
"There are reasons why blacks are still behind the ball when it comes to accumulating wealth," he says. "It's a conversation of basic economics."
Yes it is basic. You live sensibly and take personal responsibility and you will accumulate wealth. If you work hard and live by some sensible rules (like don’t leave your current job until you have another, etc) then you will likely do well, you don’t live in the gulag. Over time, you will have more and your mentality will be passed onto your children who will likely grow up with more opportunity than you had and will succeed even more. Thus you have lifted yourself out of poverty.
The most acidic thing to destroy the potential of this happening is attitudes like Bernie Mazyck’s. Dwelling on the past is a road to the ruin of many black people’s lives. Does anyone here think Mr. Mazyck’s call for “a more honest conversation” is itself honest? I don’t think so. I think that at the first sign of arguments like the ones contained in this blog post will generate cries of “racist” and “bigot”.
Posted on: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 12:02 AM