I believe, as the author has stated, that Trump’s shutdown of DEI programs will have little effect on the black community. We blacks have been refusing to see that the big problems that we are having come primarily from the broken black family that raises an unbelievable 64 percent of our kids without fathers is no longer there to transmit proper social values to them. This is the stuff that is essential for successful lives.
We have been blaming racism and requesting breaks from the system to make up the slack, but the problem is us. For example, this far out from Jim Crow, our 12th graders score significantly lower in all high school subjects than all other races. Since social science research has concluded that academic success is linked to what the student brings when entering the school system, I have support for my point.
And Trump's actions on the Department of Education will have no effect, either way, until our first educational institution, the black family, gets its act together.
John: Excellent. Of course, for me to even raise issues related to race is to be immediately accused of racism. What the fuck, here goes anyway.
It’s far past time for society to quit pandering to the black community and to demand that it take the lead in correcting the problems it faces. Here are a few suggestions. There is a systematic lack of respect for education within the community. Tolerance of disruptive students by black school administrators and lack of effective discipline hinders learning in many black majority schools, stifling students’ potential achievement. The simple answer is to expel repeat offenders so that those who desire to learn can learn.
There is a casual acceptance of criminal behavior within the black community that results in a failure to cooperate with police in solving crimes. Until this is reversed there will be zero economic development within areas where they live.
Finally, someone must find a way to make black fathers love and care for their children and especially their boy children. Young black men (15-34) are just 2% of the population and commit about half of the nation’s homicides. A rate fifty times higher than the average American. The lack of a father’s involvement in raising their sons is at the heart of this problem yet no one acknowledges it and seeks answers to it. Where the hell are the black men (and especially black politicians) who even publicly acknowledge this problem? What are they waiting for?
The problem is a racial grievance industry of Sharpton types that generates their prosperity and prestige by convincing the black community that we are the prey of a strain of racism that is everlasting. These people are very well protected due to white guilt, the blaming-of-the-victim taboo in link with the charge of racism against nonblacks, as you mentioned. And people like me who know that our troubles come from nonproductive cultural traits are criticized harshly.
The issue in generating effective leadership against these liars is that some forceful voices that believe as I do have fallen for the conservative falsehood that family values and self-reliance are conservative only and merge with the Republican camp. When they reach out from this perimeter into the black community, they are rejected right off. Having come up under Jim Crow, I understand this, for when I hear the word conservative, I reflexively run.
These black conservatives simple-mindedly fail to see that family values and personal responsibility are, in fact, liberal values as well, or at least they were when I grew up. You cannot get this into us from the group that has historically oppressed us.
The liberal community must cleanse its ranks of workerism, for workerism is not liberalism; it is illiberalism! Once that is done, it must begin to parade under the responsibility banner.
That is a bit of my opinion. Take care. Sorry, I am late in response owing to being sloppy in checking my mail.
I am white, and I have heard incessant complaints over the past few years about white privilege. While there may be some amount of white privilege in the US in 2025, it pales in comparison to “stable two parent family” privilege, in my opinion. And unfortunately, that form of privilege is dangerously low in the black community.
All the civil rights laws are still in place- nothing is repealed- it is the ideology that interprets them that is being contested. And to the extent that impacts- likely depends who wins the ideological fight- maybe will depend on the extent that folks buy into Patrick Deneen critique about post- liberalism- and hard to tell what is left/right liberal or conservative or progressive anymore- from last year: https://youtu.be/yFJO3XhorjI?si=RBt_x0M8tMQ5Ztm-
Noteworthy was Trump's statement to black and latino communities -- that he owes them a debt in his election and he will respond. Also of interest are articles like the one in Inside Higher Education that details the perception of DEI mid-level staff on DEI bans. More could be said about why DEI has been substituted for existing institutional channels against harassment and discrimination. An interview with Kaleb L. Briscoe
Q&A on the experiences of DEI professionals under DEI bans
"To the Black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records, and I will not forget it. I've heard your voices in the campaign, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come."
Alot of the issues that black people have is accepting that capitalism is here to stay, we can't all be rappers, entertainers and sports stars. However, wholistically urban centers have relied on factories in the past have been victims of antiquated neo-liberal policies. Then alot of governmemt agencies and non-profits have no incentive to solve problems, because they would lose funding. Federal politics has helped the black middle class, because the country rewards business owners and pushes laborers.
Education: parents need to remember that their excitement/involvement, or lack there of, about their child’s education is more often than not a direct correlation to their student’s academic success. At/ after 4th grade there is a social shift between boys and girls. There is also an academic leap instead of an academic step up in regards to reading and writing. This period is crucial for parents to really stay on top of reading.
Parents have to be their child’s first teacher in any and all things.
We should stop airing our grievances outside of our community. It’s futile, they aren’t reliable and they don’t care. Build our own, AGAIN.
In a way that whatever we build and support circulates dollars and knowledge back into the community.
They (Republicans) said last year to expect the first two years of this administration to be economically tragic but the payoff would happen once all the changes were made. I can see why.
What, if anything, can Trump & Co. do to address the absence of loving fathers in the homes of so many black children? Trigger warning for Truthophobes, I'm about to allude to evidence. The evidence of the importance to children of a loving father in the home is overwhelming. It should be common sense. The systemic "ism" we should be honest about is absenteeism... of fathers.
The narrative highlights enduring issues associated with white supremacist ideologies. There seem to be no apprehensions regarding the risk that white violent extremists involved in the January 6 insurrection that received a blanket pardon. This situation underscores a concerning distortion of law and order with white privilege.
“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.” ― Thomas Sowell
"White supremacist ideologies" had nothing to do with the mind-numbingly dumb January 6th attacks, and nothing to do with the pardons, which I have opposed in writing many times.
Around 1965, sociologist Patrick Moynihan wrote a controversial paper about the out-of-wedlock birthrate reaching 25%. Of course, he was attacked by some as racist. What he predicted came to pass. With the rate now at 70%, "epidemic" is the correct word. It was no less than Barack Obama who made an important "Father's Day Speech." It was Jesse Jackson, the reverend who created his own love child with someone other than Mrs. Jackson, who got caught saying he wanted to cut Obama's nuts out for talking down to black folk. The evidence is overwhelming that good fathers matter.
Because we all know white people disproportionately commit crimes and that is why so many people want to move out of a neighborhood when it gets too white. Sorry, I thought it was April 1st.
Now, you should stop dodging the point and explain to us how systemic racism or "the Aryan Brotherhood" explain the epidemic of children growing up without the benefit of a positively-involved father. After you evade addressing that, or come up with some cockamamie explanation, you can inform readers whether the presence or absence of a loving father has on the subsequent outcomes for the children, regardless of the race of the parents.
I criticize any man of any color that fathers a child but is not a positively-involved father. Children's lives matter and they should matter more to their parents than anyone else. Feel encouraged to demonstrate a talent to refute that.
When it comes to "what's fueling that fire?," it is an effort to address the cancer of political correctness/DEI/wokeness that causes people to fear speaking their opinion and alluding to inconvenient facts. It is because so many people play the race/gender/Islamophobia card that this fear has, demonstrably, worsened.
When achieving "equity" requires viewing people as members of a group instead of as individuals, we get things such as Asian-Americans being held to higher standard in college admissions. We get lower standards for women when those standards, e.g. being a firefighter or police officer, matter.
You're dodging the point! So what if I swooped in to save some clueless guys from the clutches of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang? I can be a little wild myself, you know!
"Coming in very late to this discussion, I want to stress that there is a point at which black Americans will reach a level of individuation such that there cannot be a 'black' message. A fair look at history will always show that there is some fraction of a population that will care, and another that will not care about X Y or Z. It's somewhat annoying to hear agendas aimed at getting a critical mass of black Americans to do Z, and the question of Z is always central to racial politics. But as long as it's race, the goalposts will always move.
When are we going to get Irish to stop drinking gin? When are we going to get Italians to stop mobbing up? At some point you'll just be talking about drunkeness and crime. You'll have affinities towards or against such things. It will be the content of your character.
Today, people are too afraid to say some fraction of black Americans are just wrong. No politics is going to raise all boats of a particular color."
I'm fully aware of Mr. Bowen's history. His point was and is that black Americans cannot and should not be "aggregated" for any reason. You violated that principle and were rightly called on it. Black people, like white people, and any other racial or ethnic category you may choose are individuals with agency and boundless capacity. Focus on that and drop the tired and trite nostrums and bromides for one or another "community."
As long as people can be described as "black," then we can talk about them in the aggregate, just as we can talk about "people under 6 ft," or "people with red hair," or "Coca-Cola drinkers," or "Trump voters." In any event, your comments here suggest that you haven't read the article that you're commenting on. 😅 There isn't any hint in the article that black people are not "individuals with agency and boundless capacity" and there were no "trite nostrums and bromides" offered in it. It appears that you were looking for an opportunity to enlighten people with your wisdom and thought this would be the spot to do it. You were wrong. Focus on that.
You're a hack with nothing to offer your readers or (I've now ample reason to suspect) your students. Go tell your lies and slippery elisions elsewhere, and provide others the clean and fresh space to write things worth thinking about and acting on.
We'll be sure to advise Glenn Loury and the dozens of other authors who publish with us that no less an authority than Richard Bicker thinks their work that we've showcased here is hackery that is not worth thinking about.
I just finished skimming your article, and the first thing comes to mind is that your organization is a collective bunch of over-educated, pseudo intellectual snobs. Apparently you learned nothing from election. Americans, all Americans from all colors and cultures have had enough of the lies, deceit, the gaslighting, and the legalized theft of Americans income. President Trump may not be the most elegant speaker, but he's a hell of a lot better than the corpse who was supposedly our leader four the past four years. At least Trump shows up, and he's not afraid to answer any questions.
How is the president's question regarding Kamala's race controversial? Everyone knew that she runs as an Indian when it's convenient. Other tines she's slings the jive like she grew up in projects. And what about her phoney southern accent, or her Spanish accent? If you really cared about the Black race, you would be outraged at the way she exploits Black America with some obscure past of a black person in her family. Kamala fakes her way through the Black community, and many blacks, (especially Black men) know she's a fraud.
President Trump is real, and people can feel that. He wants America first, every American should come first. You have every right to lobby the Black caucus to "stop Trum", but we are thinking like you anymore. The invasion of our southern boarder has united Black and White Americans. You can maintain this course of dividing Americans with your identity politics. The rest of us are moving forward with our plans to unite every American towards the common goals of liberty, opportunities, prosperity and America first.
This takes the record as the dumbest comment we've ever received on any post, ever. The icing on the cake is that the guy who wrote it admits up front that he only skimmed the article, so he really has no idea what he's even responding to. But dammit, he's got something to say, even if it doesn't really make contact with anything in our post!
Oh, isn’t it just fascinating how many white male child molesters seem to pop up in my community? I mean, who would’ve thought that some white mothers might actually enable this behavior just to keep their financial security intact? What a shocker!
I believe, as the author has stated, that Trump’s shutdown of DEI programs will have little effect on the black community. We blacks have been refusing to see that the big problems that we are having come primarily from the broken black family that raises an unbelievable 64 percent of our kids without fathers is no longer there to transmit proper social values to them. This is the stuff that is essential for successful lives.
We have been blaming racism and requesting breaks from the system to make up the slack, but the problem is us. For example, this far out from Jim Crow, our 12th graders score significantly lower in all high school subjects than all other races. Since social science research has concluded that academic success is linked to what the student brings when entering the school system, I have support for my point.
And Trump's actions on the Department of Education will have no effect, either way, until our first educational institution, the black family, gets its act together.
John: Excellent. Of course, for me to even raise issues related to race is to be immediately accused of racism. What the fuck, here goes anyway.
It’s far past time for society to quit pandering to the black community and to demand that it take the lead in correcting the problems it faces. Here are a few suggestions. There is a systematic lack of respect for education within the community. Tolerance of disruptive students by black school administrators and lack of effective discipline hinders learning in many black majority schools, stifling students’ potential achievement. The simple answer is to expel repeat offenders so that those who desire to learn can learn.
There is a casual acceptance of criminal behavior within the black community that results in a failure to cooperate with police in solving crimes. Until this is reversed there will be zero economic development within areas where they live.
Finally, someone must find a way to make black fathers love and care for their children and especially their boy children. Young black men (15-34) are just 2% of the population and commit about half of the nation’s homicides. A rate fifty times higher than the average American. The lack of a father’s involvement in raising their sons is at the heart of this problem yet no one acknowledges it and seeks answers to it. Where the hell are the black men (and especially black politicians) who even publicly acknowledge this problem? What are they waiting for?
The problem is a racial grievance industry of Sharpton types that generates their prosperity and prestige by convincing the black community that we are the prey of a strain of racism that is everlasting. These people are very well protected due to white guilt, the blaming-of-the-victim taboo in link with the charge of racism against nonblacks, as you mentioned. And people like me who know that our troubles come from nonproductive cultural traits are criticized harshly.
The issue in generating effective leadership against these liars is that some forceful voices that believe as I do have fallen for the conservative falsehood that family values and self-reliance are conservative only and merge with the Republican camp. When they reach out from this perimeter into the black community, they are rejected right off. Having come up under Jim Crow, I understand this, for when I hear the word conservative, I reflexively run.
These black conservatives simple-mindedly fail to see that family values and personal responsibility are, in fact, liberal values as well, or at least they were when I grew up. You cannot get this into us from the group that has historically oppressed us.
The liberal community must cleanse its ranks of workerism, for workerism is not liberalism; it is illiberalism! Once that is done, it must begin to parade under the responsibility banner.
That is a bit of my opinion. Take care. Sorry, I am late in response owing to being sloppy in checking my mail.
They thrive on the exacerbating this tragedy.
I am white, and I have heard incessant complaints over the past few years about white privilege. While there may be some amount of white privilege in the US in 2025, it pales in comparison to “stable two parent family” privilege, in my opinion. And unfortunately, that form of privilege is dangerously low in the black community.
All the civil rights laws are still in place- nothing is repealed- it is the ideology that interprets them that is being contested. And to the extent that impacts- likely depends who wins the ideological fight- maybe will depend on the extent that folks buy into Patrick Deneen critique about post- liberalism- and hard to tell what is left/right liberal or conservative or progressive anymore- from last year: https://youtu.be/yFJO3XhorjI?si=RBt_x0M8tMQ5Ztm-
The teachers unions thrive on black students’ failures. They must be curbed.
I learned a lot from this piece and appreciate the lack of ideological bias. Well done!
Thank you.
👍
Noteworthy was Trump's statement to black and latino communities -- that he owes them a debt in his election and he will respond. Also of interest are articles like the one in Inside Higher Education that details the perception of DEI mid-level staff on DEI bans. More could be said about why DEI has been substituted for existing institutional channels against harassment and discrimination. An interview with Kaleb L. Briscoe
Q&A on the experiences of DEI professionals under DEI bans
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/diversity/race-ethnicity/2025/01/21/qa-experiences-dei-professionals-under-dei-bans
Trump "owes" black and latino "communities"? Really?
I was under the impression that the majority of both black and latino voters did NOT support Mr. Trump in last year's election? Am I wrong?
I suggest your read Mr. Bowen's statement (posted elsewhere in these comments) and consider his point in relation to President Trump's "debt."
"To the Black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records, and I will not forget it. I've heard your voices in the campaign, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come."
Politics operates on a principle of reciprocal exchange.
Alot of the issues that black people have is accepting that capitalism is here to stay, we can't all be rappers, entertainers and sports stars. However, wholistically urban centers have relied on factories in the past have been victims of antiquated neo-liberal policies. Then alot of governmemt agencies and non-profits have no incentive to solve problems, because they would lose funding. Federal politics has helped the black middle class, because the country rewards business owners and pushes laborers.
Good read, thank you!
You’re welcome!
Education: parents need to remember that their excitement/involvement, or lack there of, about their child’s education is more often than not a direct correlation to their student’s academic success. At/ after 4th grade there is a social shift between boys and girls. There is also an academic leap instead of an academic step up in regards to reading and writing. This period is crucial for parents to really stay on top of reading.
Parents have to be their child’s first teacher in any and all things.
We should stop airing our grievances outside of our community. It’s futile, they aren’t reliable and they don’t care. Build our own, AGAIN.
In a way that whatever we build and support circulates dollars and knowledge back into the community.
They (Republicans) said last year to expect the first two years of this administration to be economically tragic but the payoff would happen once all the changes were made. I can see why.
What, if anything, can Trump & Co. do to address the absence of loving fathers in the homes of so many black children? Trigger warning for Truthophobes, I'm about to allude to evidence. The evidence of the importance to children of a loving father in the home is overwhelming. It should be common sense. The systemic "ism" we should be honest about is absenteeism... of fathers.
The narrative highlights enduring issues associated with white supremacist ideologies. There seem to be no apprehensions regarding the risk that white violent extremists involved in the January 6 insurrection that received a blanket pardon. This situation underscores a concerning distortion of law and order with white privilege.
“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.” ― Thomas Sowell
"White supremacist ideologies" had nothing to do with the mind-numbingly dumb January 6th attacks, and nothing to do with the pardons, which I have opposed in writing many times.
Around 1965, sociologist Patrick Moynihan wrote a controversial paper about the out-of-wedlock birthrate reaching 25%. Of course, he was attacked by some as racist. What he predicted came to pass. With the rate now at 70%, "epidemic" is the correct word. It was no less than Barack Obama who made an important "Father's Day Speech." It was Jesse Jackson, the reverend who created his own love child with someone other than Mrs. Jackson, who got caught saying he wanted to cut Obama's nuts out for talking down to black folk. The evidence is overwhelming that good fathers matter.
My prison caseload was like my neighborhood: a sea of white child molesters trying to outdo each other in the ‘bad choices’ Olympics!
Because we all know white people disproportionately commit crimes and that is why so many people want to move out of a neighborhood when it gets too white. Sorry, I thought it was April 1st.
Now, you should stop dodging the point and explain to us how systemic racism or "the Aryan Brotherhood" explain the epidemic of children growing up without the benefit of a positively-involved father. After you evade addressing that, or come up with some cockamamie explanation, you can inform readers whether the presence or absence of a loving father has on the subsequent outcomes for the children, regardless of the race of the parents.
It seems you’ve developed quite the talent for dishing out criticism—especially when it comes to Black folks. Care to share what’s fueling that fire?
I criticize any man of any color that fathers a child but is not a positively-involved father. Children's lives matter and they should matter more to their parents than anyone else. Feel encouraged to demonstrate a talent to refute that.
When it comes to "what's fueling that fire?," it is an effort to address the cancer of political correctness/DEI/wokeness that causes people to fear speaking their opinion and alluding to inconvenient facts. It is because so many people play the race/gender/Islamophobia card that this fear has, demonstrably, worsened.
When achieving "equity" requires viewing people as members of a group instead of as individuals, we get things such as Asian-Americans being held to higher standard in college admissions. We get lower standards for women when those standards, e.g. being a firefighter or police officer, matter.
You're dodging the point! So what if I swooped in to save some clueless guys from the clutches of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang? I can be a little wild myself, you know!
"black America"? Please define. Michael David Cobb Bowen might be able to help you (again) as he did in response to your March 2022 piece on "Closing the Racial Achievement Gap" https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/closing-the-racial-academic-achievement
Michael David Cobb Bowen (July 2022):
"Coming in very late to this discussion, I want to stress that there is a point at which black Americans will reach a level of individuation such that there cannot be a 'black' message. A fair look at history will always show that there is some fraction of a population that will care, and another that will not care about X Y or Z. It's somewhat annoying to hear agendas aimed at getting a critical mass of black Americans to do Z, and the question of Z is always central to racial politics. But as long as it's race, the goalposts will always move.
When are we going to get Irish to stop drinking gin? When are we going to get Italians to stop mobbing up? At some point you'll just be talking about drunkeness and crime. You'll have affinities towards or against such things. It will be the content of your character.
Today, people are too afraid to say some fraction of black Americans are just wrong. No politics is going to raise all boats of a particular color."
Here, "black America" merely means black Americans in the aggregate. (You may or may not realize it but Michael Bowen is a co-founder of FBT.)
I'm fully aware of Mr. Bowen's history. His point was and is that black Americans cannot and should not be "aggregated" for any reason. You violated that principle and were rightly called on it. Black people, like white people, and any other racial or ethnic category you may choose are individuals with agency and boundless capacity. Focus on that and drop the tired and trite nostrums and bromides for one or another "community."
As long as people can be described as "black," then we can talk about them in the aggregate, just as we can talk about "people under 6 ft," or "people with red hair," or "Coca-Cola drinkers," or "Trump voters." In any event, your comments here suggest that you haven't read the article that you're commenting on. 😅 There isn't any hint in the article that black people are not "individuals with agency and boundless capacity" and there were no "trite nostrums and bromides" offered in it. It appears that you were looking for an opportunity to enlighten people with your wisdom and thought this would be the spot to do it. You were wrong. Focus on that.
You're a hack with nothing to offer your readers or (I've now ample reason to suspect) your students. Go tell your lies and slippery elisions elsewhere, and provide others the clean and fresh space to write things worth thinking about and acting on.
We'll be sure to advise Glenn Loury and the dozens of other authors who publish with us that no less an authority than Richard Bicker thinks their work that we've showcased here is hackery that is not worth thinking about.
Not them. You. Just you.
It means…Melania’s back! Love the look!
I just finished skimming your article, and the first thing comes to mind is that your organization is a collective bunch of over-educated, pseudo intellectual snobs. Apparently you learned nothing from election. Americans, all Americans from all colors and cultures have had enough of the lies, deceit, the gaslighting, and the legalized theft of Americans income. President Trump may not be the most elegant speaker, but he's a hell of a lot better than the corpse who was supposedly our leader four the past four years. At least Trump shows up, and he's not afraid to answer any questions.
How is the president's question regarding Kamala's race controversial? Everyone knew that she runs as an Indian when it's convenient. Other tines she's slings the jive like she grew up in projects. And what about her phoney southern accent, or her Spanish accent? If you really cared about the Black race, you would be outraged at the way she exploits Black America with some obscure past of a black person in her family. Kamala fakes her way through the Black community, and many blacks, (especially Black men) know she's a fraud.
President Trump is real, and people can feel that. He wants America first, every American should come first. You have every right to lobby the Black caucus to "stop Trum", but we are thinking like you anymore. The invasion of our southern boarder has united Black and White Americans. You can maintain this course of dividing Americans with your identity politics. The rest of us are moving forward with our plans to unite every American towards the common goals of liberty, opportunities, prosperity and America first.
This takes the record as the dumbest comment we've ever received on any post, ever. The icing on the cake is that the guy who wrote it admits up front that he only skimmed the article, so he really has no idea what he's even responding to. But dammit, he's got something to say, even if it doesn't really make contact with anything in our post!
Right? It was entertaining, though. I got a great laugh out of it. 😂 Keep on truckin’…
Oh, isn’t it just fascinating how many white male child molesters seem to pop up in my community? I mean, who would’ve thought that some white mothers might actually enable this behavior just to keep their financial security intact? What a shocker!