It would be hard to know if it is correlation or causation but we can be sure that his point was incorrect.
As society has gotten better about equality, society’s responsibility has gone down with it. As a society we have been getting better and better especially over the last 60 years.
If racism were eliminated do you believe that there would be no statistical differences between the races?
I too am skeptical of the quote, having never found a source dated before 2010. It’s used often by conservatives to criticize liberals (which is sad because the full quote cuts them both from the same cloth and only gives the conservative the benefit of being openly racist). So at the very least it wasn’t fabricated to suit the current political climate.
Validity aside, there are lots of examples that fit the bill. Look at desegregation bussing. Tons of white people (liberal and conservative alike) fled cities because of school integration to the point that these cities are still shaped by it.
For what it’s worth, MLK Jr had similar issues with white moderates (the majority of Democrats and Republicans are arguably moderates) in his letter from a birmingham jail
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice
Blockquote
For what it’s worth, MLK Jr had similar issues with white moderates
Just recently the BBC broadcast here a documentary based around a projected script by James Baldwin (“I Am Not Your Negro”), making a similar point. In particular, he referred in the mid-60s to Bobby Kennedy pointing to “progress” and suggesting (presciently) the possibility of a Black president “in about 40 years”. Baldwin pointed out how patronising it was (particularly for someone with Bobby Kennedy’s career trajectory) that such a possibility was assumed to require someone else’s idea of progress, still founded on the assumption of collective difference.
iiandyiii, in your opinion, is there anything that is at fault that the blacks have done, or are doing NOW that is their responsibility or is it all the fault of the white man?
I bring up out of wedlock birth rates, you have an excuse.
I bring up culture things like music that denigrates women, excuse.
Criminal activity, excuse.
What can the black community do to better themselves, without trying to blame everyone and anyone else for their failings?
Again, I am not against helping but the last attempt to help them police themselves about crack cocaine brought about an inherently unfair difference regarding incarceration.
The help that I offer is when people realize what the problems are and how to fairly go about fixing them. All i hear are problems without solutions, or problems (like educational gaps, or income differences) but nothing addresses the CAUSES of those things.
I’m sorry, you’re going to have to narrow that one down 
(Okay, besides Orlygate, the Central Park 5 wasn’t really a conspiracy theory and you already obliquely referenced the conspiracy theory that Mexico is secretly helping criminal immigrants cross illegally, but I couldn’t resist.)
“The blacks” aren’t responsible for anything. Individuals are responsible for their own actions, but groups aren’t responsible for anything unless it’s under their control. There are no institutions or systems that are under the control of “the blacks” that regularly oppress and brutalize and discriminate.
Individuals are responsible for being good citizens and treating others with decency and respect. This is regardless of race or other category.
We as a society can and should control and change the systems and institutions that regularly oppress, discriminate, and brutalize. That’s the problem, and that’s always been the problem. The problem has never been “the blacks”, and I see no reason at all to believe this has changed.
You’re gonna’ have to spell it out for me please.
Recall from his autobiography that after his father was murdered and his mother suffered a nervous breakdown as a result, that Malcolm was fostered by white families. This rather colored his view of the white-run social welfare administration and supposedly well-meaning whites in general. The chapter in his book recalling this is titled “Mascot”, which is how Malcolm felt he was regarded.
The two groups in American history that were treated the worst, and treated poorly the longest, both by far, are native Americans and black Americans. This is indisputable. And the two groups at the bottom of so many educational, criminal, economic, and even medical statistics are native Americans and black Americans.
That these two two facts are inextricably and intimately entangled seems just incredibly obvious, and it still boggles my mind that anyone with even a little understanding of American history would dismiss this in favor of the supposition that at some point native Americans and black Americans just decided as a group to be more criminal, less educated, etc.
Nuts. But thus is the insidiousness and power of white supremacism in America.
I honestly think this is where the disconnect is, no one is dismissing the hardships they had, no one is saying that there are not still obstacles that they have, but you so frivolously give them zero credit for ANY of their problems they face today and instead lay it all at the feet of the white man…
That is wrong, and not only is it wrong, it is likely to NEVER work out in the favor of the black community unless they start to overcome the obstacles themselves.
Current white liberals want to FIX, but all they want to fix are outcomes but messing with the inputs. Opportunities are there, with the current legislation (in fact AA even gives them a leg up) and yet they are still underrepresented in places…
Your answer: It doesn’t go far enough. I don’t believe that to be the case.
For the reason I stated earlier, out of wedlock childbirths (and lack of a 2 parent household), black culture things like “fuck the police and dem hoes” as glorified by rappers, denigrating women, more criminal activity ALL lend themselves to keeping the black communities from exploring the opportunities that they have.
Fix the interior issues that happen in not only black communities but poor communities all over (but we are currently talking about only the one) and it will definitely be seen in resulting outcomes based on equality of opportunity. This doesn’t mean that ALL outcomes are going to be equal though and never will be.
And yes iiandyiii, i realize that individuals are responsible for their own actions, however, as a whole , there is a lot more of the things i mentioned in the black community than elsewhere
Most of this doesn’t even address what I’ve written. Just a series of straw men. Once again, the problem, as it’s always been, is systems and institutions that oppress, discriminate, and brutalize. The problem is not, and never has been, “the blacks”. Nothing you’ve offered disputes this premise. Just straw men about rappers and references to various symptoms (i.e. statistics about crime, births, etc.) that ignore the ultimate cause (those systems and institutions).
If you agree these systems and institutions are profoundly screwed up, then we should focus together on fixing them. If you think those systems and institutions are just fine, then that’s where the disconnect is - our difference of opinion is about these systems and institutions.
It addresses it, it just doesn’t address it in the way you want. Which i am sad to say is typical of your arguments.
So you say. Somehow I’m unconvinced. Maybe if you quoted my posts and pointed to the specific words you disagree with, we could have an actual discussion. But that’s not what you’ve been doing - you’ve been talking down straw men.
Consider something for a minute: imagine your entire race has been oppressed and enslaved for hundreds of years. Your grandparents (or maybe your parents even) lived through segregation. There’s almost no generational black wealth, no inheritances, no legacies, no estates.
You still face racism often, blatant and insidious. Your parents probably had to talk to you about the dangers of being black in elementary school. When you apply for a job you’re less likely to get it, when you apply for a loan, you’re less likely to get it. If you’re stopped by the police you’re more likely to be arrested, and if you’re put on trial you face longer sentences. Almost everything you do today, in 2020, is still viewed through the lens that you’re lesser.
How under these circumstances could you possible tolerate predominately white authority and culture? I’m often surprised that it’s not worse. Hell, monuments to your oppressors still stand.
And we’re supposed to believe that music contributes to this in a significant way? What?!
So I’m wondering how it came to be that “the Blacks” all decided to come together to decide to have a bunch of out of wedlock births. Not to mention out of wedlock births doesn’t necessarily mean single parenting, FWIW. Single parenting is something that plenty of Black leaders do not think is a great thing. So who exactly is championing it? I think that some of that issue is caused by massive incarceration rates of black men, especially due to the Drug War (out of proportion to their crimes - whites and blacks do and sell drugs at the same rates, but blacks are incarcerated at higher rates). Not to mention higher minimum sentencing for crack vs. cocaine.
As for music, there was a big trend in Outlaw County back in the day. I never heard that higher rates of Southern poverty were those people’s fault because they listened to too much Merle Haggard.
You must not listen to nor know the difference in “Outlaw” country and gangster rap eh? I suggest a listen.
Also “the Blacks” do things all the time that are cultural in association, as do “the Whites” and “the Hispanics”, i think the term is “cultural”, in this case though I think it is more about poverty than it is about being black. But you don’t hear much racism talk when white or hispanic poverty stricken folks suffer the same woes.
I have a strong suspicion there are a great deal of white people, not even particularly liberal white people, that are out there “protesting” in order to get a nice selfie they can post on social media to show everyone how good of person they are.
You are almost there… why is it that black people in the US have far higher rates of poverty than whites?