Addressing black hate

Over the last several years there has been a wave of black anger against white people in American cities. On highways, in places of commerce, and on the Internet, black anger is in full force. And as is usual in case of blind anger, it is entirely misdirected and does more to harm the black people than it does to help them.

I write this as a white man who is in no way a racist. I was born in the Soviet Union, a nation that did a lot to fight racism. Black people figure prominently among my best friends and among people I hold in high regard. And while I am not a Communist and do not believe in class wars or in killing the propertied classes, I see racism as idiocy. That is as much the case for black racism as it is for white racism.

A useful scene for this is in the film Diehard, where Bruce Willis character asks a black man with whom he is working, "Did I oppress you?" The white Democrats in liberal cities are the last people whom the black people should be attacking. If they want to go after the white people who are actually against them, they should be going after white supremacists, white skinheads, and groups such as the Fatherhood Foundation that has run a poll about exiling American blacks. So to these people: Yes, there are white people who hate you. And no, they are not the white people whom you attack.

Such irresponsible behavior harms the black people more than does real racism. Conduct like this gives power to the actual racists among the whites. On the one hand it gives them credibility, as they can point to the ugly behavior of the people involved in these attacks and lead many people who otherwise wouldn't be racists to think that there's something wrong with black people. And on the other hand it alienates the white people who are sympathetic to the black people and denies the black people the allies that they and their children will need.

To the white people who actually are racists: Sub-Saharan Africa had a city of a million people, with advanced science and learning and mathematics, at the time that Europe was in the Dark Ages. The white people got ahead later through their embrace of science and rationality. There is nothing rational or scientific about racism; and the white people who embrace racism go against what made it possible for the white man to get ahead in the first place. As for black people, irrational and directionless anger on the part of black people only hurts black people. It makes them look like morons and scoundrels and gives license for the worst elements among the white people to have credibility and power in dealing with them in brutal, oppressive and ugly ways.

Among the black leaders it is Nelson Mandela that had the best idea. He had more reason to hate the white people than even the most victimized among the American blacks. Although the apartheid government of South Africa murdered and tortured his followers and held him for 27 years in conditions much worse than most American prisons, he had a vision of a nation that would work both for black people and for white people. And he has gone a long way toward realizing his vision, even after he was in power securely and had the blank charter to do pretty much anything he wanted in his country without needing support of the white man.

Currently, a black man is the president of the United States. This should be seen as a historic opportunity for black people in America to improve their condition, not be squandered on short-sighted and thoughtless hate campaigns. Many white people voted for Obama; but none of them voted for this foolish behavior. And the people who are a part of it need to take their heads out of their behinds and think long and hard about what actually is good for themselves, their children and the black race.