Years ago I started reading about the critical race theory and post traumatic slave syndrome. Now we are hearing more about the theory of ‘white privilege.” Simply put, white privilege is the belief that by just being white you are given privilege not given to blacks, and that blacks suffer from the legacy of slavery and pre civil rights, even those that were born well after slavery was history, and and civil rights were passed.

Let’s be clear about one thing. I know racism still exists. I don’t deny the reality of ‘driving while black” or a store clerk following around a black person, but not a white person, or people like Mark Cuban and Jesse Jackson saying they fear black kids on dark streets late at night. I don’t deny that blacks are arrested in greater numbers than whites for the same crimes. I don’t deny the injustice in the criminal justice system. I don’t deny the inequity in black inner city schools compared to majority white schools. All these things are real and disturbingly unfair. But I contend they are not the result of ‘white privilege.’

White privilege, along with the critical race theory and post traumatic slave syndrome, are liberal false theories and ideologies designed to ignore the real reasons for failings in the inner city black community. Liberals and liberal academia cannot face, nor acknowledge, that the true reason for these failings lie in decades of Democrat liberal policies. They can’t acknowledge that government dependency, welfare, food stamps, and a host of other government programs that were supposed to help the black community, actually proved to have the opposite effect. They can’t acknowledge this because they were the architect of these policies.

Let’s go back in time to Harlem in the 1950’s. Make no mistake, there was unrelenting racial injustices, discrimination, and unfair treatment, but if you look at Harlem solely within the black community itself, Harlem was a bustling part of New York where black owned businesses thrived, iconic music was born, and 90 percent of black babies were born into intact families. There were problems to be sure, but not nearly the gang related problems of today in the inner city with unemployment, drugs, single parenting, incarceration, and despair. There also wasn’t government dependency.

Government dependency is what infected the inner city black community, not the legacy of “white privilege.”

With the onset of equal rights, equal opportunity, and civil rights, I often wonder how different things would have been for the inner city black community if the big white liberal helping hand had been slapped away. I believe that it would have changed everything.

Now, let’s travel forward into the 60’s and 70’s. Did you know that by the mid 1960’s HALF of all blacks had moved into the middle class? Black families were intact, the door of opportunity had been opened, and discrimination became illegal. There was still plenty of racism and obstacles, but blacks were moving forward. Then, everything starts to change and unravel for the black family, as we see the big white liberal helping hand decide that government programs must be implemented. Welfare dependency soared in the 70’s. Government checks replaced husbands, gangs replaced Dads, and broken homes became the norm. By the 1980’s seventy to eighty percent of black babies were born to unwed mothers. These mothers lived their lives dependent on the government. Their children grew up and also depended on the government, and the vicious cycle of dependency began.

Boys without fatherly guidance turned to gangs, gangs made money by selling drugs, black kids were incarcerated for drugs. If you scroll up to the pictures above you see a black and white photo of young black men in the 60’s going to a formerly all white school for the first time. If Mark Cuban saw these boys walking toward him late at night, I doubt he would cross the street. Because crossing the street isn’t about skin color, It isn’t about white privilege, It’s about crime. When a disproportionate number of black males commit crimes, society becomes more aware of what these males look like. Fear is not borne out a hoodie that Travyon Martin wore, but the hoodies hundreds of men wore in the video footage of robberies society has watched on the nightly news for years. And crime is borne out of years with no father. And having no father is borne out of government dependency. The purveyors of the white privilege ideology don’t want to look at the realty of a black boy’s life without a dad, because they don’t want to look at the reason the father isn’t there. Their ideology is the reason the boy’s father isn’t there.

And just for the sake of clarity, this government dependency affected whites in the same way, it just affected poor blacks in a disproportional manner because they were targeted for their votes, and they still are. Driving through a poor section of Houston recently I saw several tents set up to give away free what is known as the “Obamaphone.” Where were these tents set up? In front of fast food restaurants. The most stereotypical ones you can imagine. This is how government works. It seriously seemed like something out of a Dave Chappelle skit.

What bothers me the most about the notion of white privilege isn’t that whites somehow have it better by the hue of their skin, but the idea that blacks cannot overcome the legacy of slavery. Of course they can, and have. Just as the Jews were able to overcome the legacy of the Holocaust and succeed. It isn’t slavery or white privilege that have caused failings in the black community, it’s the government programs that took away the dignity of the black man and decimated the black family. Liberals were full of good intentions. But we all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Even worst than all that, the purveyors of white privilege seek to divide us. They have been teaching their divisive race theories for decades in black colleges and universities, and generations of kids now believe it. What white privilege rhetoric does is violently overturn the table of brotherhood that Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently spoke of. It teaches blacks to resent whites for their “privilege.” It sows seeds of bitterness, and it causes us to judge one another by the color of our skin, and not the content of our character.

All the examples of white privilege given are really explained by two things; Racism or fear. If a cabbie doesn’t pick up a black man who is dressed like a thug, it’s because of fear. If a cabbie doesn’t pick up a black man in a suit, it’s because of racism.

Let’s stop pretending there isn’t a difference between the first two pictures above, and how black men are judged by their appearances. Guess what? White men are judged the same way. Women of all colors, for example, are also judged by the way they dress. When did we stop understanding this and attribute it to the color of their skin?

I am a child of integration from Mississippi. I went to formerly all black schools. I graduated from a formerly all black high school. I saw first hand the change in the black community from when I was in 3rd grade in 1969 to when I graduated college in 1982. I saw with my own eyes what government dependency did to the black community.

I really didn’t want to write this piece, but the ongoing false rhetoric of ‘white privilege’ forced me to. I didn’t want to because I know the black community is sick and tired of hearing about their problems. They are well aware of the problems. And I, like them, would rather focus on the positives. I would rather focus on people like Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Dr. Ben Carson, Clarence Thomas, Oprah, Bill Cosby, Beyonce, Michael Jordan, and all the black doctors, lawyers, and businessmen out there who prove everyday that being black is no obstacle. That color does not keep one from success. After all, we have a black President.

There is so much brilliance, talent, and goodness in the black community. I would rather focus on that. But I will not let race baiters control the conversation with false theories because they can’t face what their own ideology brought about.

Because of my background, I was determined that my children would never judge anyone by the color of their skin. I knew from my own experience, that integration is the key. I made sure they went to diverse schools, and that we lived in diverse neighborhoods. Judging from a college essay one of my son’s wrote a few years ago, I think I accomplished what I set out to do. I am not going to sit back and let race hustlers tear down all that I worked so hard for my children to believe. I will not be silent when they are teaching their black children to resent based on the color of skin. I wasn’t silent when whites were teaching their kids to do so a generation ago, and I won’t be silent now as academia and liberals try to do the same with young blacks.