Tuesday, March 4, 2014 was a seminal day in the history of American social policy. Seven thousand school kids, mostly black and Hispanic, went to Albany to protest NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attack on the charter schools that were giving them a good education. Their protest worked; Governor Cuomo sided with the kids and against his fellow Democrat in City Hall.
Why was this a big deal? Because racially paternalistic liberals – who really really hate charter schools, which are supported by hedge fund honchos and feared by teachers’ unions—could not play the race card, as they invariably do when anyone attacks failed liberal social policies. How are rich white guys like Bill de Blasio and Paul Krugman , or rich black guys like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, going to argue with a black mother in Harlem who believes she has found the right school for her son or daughter?
Republicans should take notice and push the charter school agenda aggressively. Follow the lead of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, whose recent New York Post column took de Blasio and the teachers’ union to task and went on to celebrate the expansion of charter schools in his own state. House Republicans should create a special tax deduction for charter schools and dare Democrats to oppose it.
Two Pauls: Ryan Assesses the “War on Poverty;” Krugman Plays the Race Card
Claiming Republicans are intrinsically, inherently, innately racist, the media will do all it can to prevent them from constructively addressing inner city poverty, which has worsened since Obama became President. The poverty rate has been stuck at 15% for an unprecedented three straight years. Median black household income in 2012 was 10% below the 2005-07 average. Over the past year the employment / population ratio for black males averaged 58.4%, down a huge 6.7 percentage points from the 2005-07 average; the ratio for white males is much higher (68.4%) and has declined less (5.1 percentage points).
On the 50th anniversary of LBJ’s declaration of “War on Poverty,” the House Budget Committee published a detailed analysis of why Federal anti-poverty efforts have largely failed. Commenting on the report, Paul Ryan noted that one cause of poverty was a “culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working.” As Rich Lowry noted, Ryan’s comments merely echoed various statements by Barack Obama. Nevertheless liberals attacked Ryan as a racist and, rather than get in an argument the media would never let him win, Ryan backed off, saying his comments had been “inarticulate.” Paul Krugman ludicrously accused Ryan of using a “racial dog whistle” “because American conservatism is still, after all these years, largely driven by claims that liberals are taking away their hard-earned money and giving it to Those People.”
Terrible Education for “Those People” . . .
Actually, conservatives favor policies that really do help folks in the inner city escape poverty and achieve The American Dream. Even leaving aside moral considerations, affluent tax payers obviously stand to benefit from rising prosperity in the inner city. A good place to start is education reform, which was a hot topic at a meeting of conservatives I attended recently. A measure of the challenge is results of tests to gain entry to New York City’s elite high schools. As an example, in 2013 Stuyvesant High School offered admission to 9 black students, 24 Hispanics, 177 whites and 620 Asians. Students in the worst schools are literally cheated out of an education and don’t even know it. Here’s a letter to the New York Post from a student at Murray Bergtraum High School, protesting the Post’s attack on the school’s corrupt and incompetent principal:
“Hi my name is M.B. I’m a junior at Murry Bergtraum high school I’m a junior at Murry Bergtraum high school , I was concern and surprised by what (a teacher) said of us that we are a fail factory With all respect who are you to be making false accusations we are not any of the things that he or you said instead of talking about how Bergtraum is scamming or is a fail factory why don’t you talk about our womens basketball team that we are known as having one of the best ones .
“What do you get of giving false accusations im one of the students that has blended learning I had a course of English and I passed and and it helped a lot you’re a reported your support to get truth information other than starting rumors for your information if it wasn’t for blended learning seniors wouldn’t be graduing come to Bergtraum one day and get information real information. Sincerely M.B.”
I’m guessing M.B. will have a hard time getting a good job. The Post provided writing samples from seven other students, showing that unfortunately M.B.’s writing skills were fairly representative.
. . . but Not for My Kids
Liberals’ opposition to charter schools is the height of hypocrisy. Rich liberals are strong supporters of public education for all students in the inner city – except their own. In Washington DC the Obamas and their peers send their kids to Sidwell Friends (middle school tuition and fees: $35,733 per year). In New York, they send them to Dalton, Trinity and the Little Red School House. If they are unable to afford private schools or get their kids into the best public schools, New York Times reporters move to Montclair NJ.
School choice for me but not for thee. Pathetic and, yes, racist.
Racism Inc. Exploits the Underclass
As far back as 1987 the sociologist William Julius Wilson highlighted a fast-expanding gap between the successful black middle/upper class and an “underclass” suffering poverty and high crime, mostly in inner cities. Part of the black middle class and elite, together with paternalistic whites, cynically exploit the woes of the underclass to maintain their America-is-racist narrative. Call it Racism Inc.—which is both an ideology and an industry supporting thousands of bureaucrats, lawyers, educators, affirmative action consultants and academics who pretend to assist poor blacks while promoting policies that have failed to alleviate inner city poverty for a half century.
Eugene Robinson . . . .
Exhibit A is Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. Early this year, when he was on a TV panel discussing likely big news stories for 2014, Robinson said:
“And one story, huge story in 2013 that we kind of don’t mention, was the acquittal of George Zimmerman and the racial issues and conflict that remain just under the surface that bubble up from time to time, that erupt. And I think you can predict we’ll have more eruptions in 2014. We come to big anniversaries of the Civil War, big anniversaries of the Emancipation and this and that. We’ll see more of that.”
Translation: Let’s hope we have another Trayvon Martin type story, whether real or fabricated, involving a white person killing a black person, to whip up racial tensions and divert attention from the pathetic record of Barack Obama and the Obamacare Democrats.
. . . . Meet James Hailey
On Christmas night 2013, on Schley Street in Newark New Jersey, Zainee Hailey age 13 and Kasson Morman age 15 were killed by a gunman while minding their own business. A third victim, Abdul “Scooter” Frazier, was critically wounded and died in mid-January. Zainee was taking out the trash. She was an honor student and cheerleader and sang in the choir at the New Zion Baptist Church in Elizabeth NJ. Her father, James Hailey, said, “She was just joyful. That’s all. She was just a fun person to be around, when I’m down, she keep me up, in so many words man, she was me and I was her.” It turned out that the gunman was a 15-year-old from the neighborhood.
To the Eugene Robinsons and Paul Krugmans of the world, the killing of Zainee Haily, Kasson Morman, and Abdul Frazier was no big deal because they were not killed by a white person. No news there. No racial “hook” for CNN and MSNBC. Happens all the time. B O R I N G. Robinson (and Sharpton, Matthews, Krugman, et. al) need a tale of white racism that the paternalistic liberal press can really sink its teeth into.
Copyright Thomas Doerflinger 2014. All Rights Reserved.
