I have spent my life as a Democrat which probably isn’t that surprising considering that I am African-American. One of the things that always attracted me to the party were the ideals of equality, fighting for the little guy and our openness to differing opinions, but lately I have seen my party take a turn that makes me uncomfortable. Somewhere along the way we stopped fighting for the little guy and became the party of the smug, educated elites who look down on those with less education and deem them unable or unworthy of being able to make personal decisions for their own lives.
Over the last few years we have made incredible strides in diversity and inclusion, from the election twice of the nation’s first African-American President to the legalization of gay marriage, all things that I have loudly and happily cheered for and felt were a long time in coming. As an African-American professional from humble beginnings, I know firsthand the importance of giving everyone an equal opportunity to access the American Dream. I don’t take lightly the opportunities I have been given or the fact that many people, black and white, fought for and sometimes died for me to have these rights. I also have serious concerns about the lack of progress that I have seen for many African-Americans and I blame some of that lack of progress on ineffective liberal policies that are based upon wanting to help those in need, but in many instances end up causing more harm than good.
Although many African-Americans have made incredible strides in educational attainment we are still lagging behind in key indicators of success such as net worth, poverty rates, high incarceration rates and, as such, have some of the highest unemployment numbers. In addition we seem to be victims of a disproportionate amount violence. All of these issues are some of the most serious problems we face as a people and our culture of political correctness and liberalism has not only not solved them, but I believe has made them worse. I know many liberals who do incredible work to make the world around them better, and that’s not who I am talking about. I’m talking about the cocktail party liberals, the elites, who wear the cloak of liberalism to protect themselves from criticism and so they can keep a clear conscious.
My problem with Liberalism is that it’s more concerned with policing people’s language and thoughts without requiring them to do anything to fix the problem. White liberal college students speak of “safe spaces”, “trigger words”, “micro aggressions” and “white privilege” while not having to do anything or, more importantly, give up anything. They can’t even have a conversation with someone who sees the world differently without resorting to calling someone a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, bigot and trying to have them banned from campus, or ruin them and their reputation. They say they feel black peoples’ pain because they took a trip to Africa to help the disadvantaged, but are unwilling to go to a black neighborhood in the City in which they live. These same college students will espouse the joys of diversity, but will in the same breath assume you are only on campus because of affirmative action or that all black people grew up in poverty. My personal favorite is declaring with surprise how articulate a black classmate is despite the fact that we are attending the same institution of higher learning as they are.
The White Liberal culture encourages talking about diversity and shaming others for their alleged racism, but many times they themselves work in environments that are mostly white. When questioned they’ll defensively state that they promote strictly on merit. Black people aren’t suggesting that we want someone unqualified to get the position, but I find it telling that they assume that we are not qualified. These same Liberals are quick to be against school choice, while their kids go to private or well-regarded public schools. Leaving poor black children behind in underperforming schools and providing less opportunity to improve their lives is inconsequential to keeping true to their white liberal politics. Many people are quick to espouse the political values of liberalism without having to live with the often harsh reality of those policies.
Race, gender, religion and sexual orientation are such difficult discussions to have, and many of us don’t get it right, but my problem with some white liberals aren’t that they sometimes get it wrong, it’s their profound lack of self-awareness coupled with the smugness and self-righteousness that they use to lecture to others.
White Liberals have hijacked the conversation about diversity, political correctness and what topics we should be outraged about. When a terrorist attack occurs the media and liberals rightly remind us that it’s unfair to judge an entire religion by the actions of a small minority, but I haven’t heard similar unequivocal statements made in the media about the African-American community being unfairly judged by the negative actions of a few. The media lectures about intolerance of the Right, but is the first to show the mugshot of a young black suspect while showing the much more positive yearbook photo of a young white suspect. In fact the criminalization of African-Americans, especially men, has been turned into public policy in large part because of our negative portrayal in the media, which is predominantly filled with white liberal voices.
For so long, as a Black American, I have been told that the problem is Conservative Republicans. While I’ll admit they may have done little to try to improve African-American lives, they also don’t promise to every election season like the liberal elites. Instead we have given our loyalty and votes to Democrats, who paternalistically tell us they want to help us, but we have little to show for it since blacks started voting Democrat back in the 1960’s. I have never lived in a city as an adult that was run by Conservatives or Republicans, but I live in the biggest poor city in the country, Philadelphia. A city, for decades, run by liberal insiders.
I wonder what #ADOS thinks about her talking points
