Listening to 1440-AM out of Montgomery in the morning on the
way to work a month ago and, as is typical, the discussion turned to race
relations. While the host Kevin Elkins
usually implores his audience to not dwell on past perceived injustices, his
guests and callers to the contrary constantly recall the prejudice and bigotry
of a half century ago as though it was yesterday although most of the audience
was not even alive at the time and simply regurgitate the recollections they
have been told or taught in the sterling educational system which is the
Montgomery school system. This
particular morning, an alleged Professor hosting a conference in Bessemer
maintained blacks don’t own enough wealth or possess enough power to be
racists. Racism is a team sport
influencing group politics and group economics he said where whites seek to
make and keep blacks disadvantged.
Looking even further back, he reminded the listeners that for the last
400 years, lynchings, slavery and Jim Crow laws and other institutional methods
were designed to keep blacks subjugated.
Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas’ and President Barry Soetoro, umm,
Barack Hussein Obama’s rise to positions of prominence and power notwithstanding.
It has been claimed that Obama’s presidency has actually worsened race
relations and certainly the attacks on police officers around the country and
on the Confederate flag across the South would testify as evidence of
this. If the last 50 years of social
engineering and federal and state programs meant to raise the black populace up
through every institutional advantage imaginable are a failure still, perhaps
we need to reevaluate these and perhaps return to a merit based system and
allow natural segregation which most blacks and whites migrate to naturally
anyway. But while MLK espoused everyone
be judged by their character and while our Constitution guarantees equal access
and opportunity, these malcontent instigators like Professor Bessemer demand
equality without being earned or deserved.
It’s always interesting to hear Kevin Elkins thoughts on
race relations as he relatively recently relocated to Montgomery after a career
in the Army and he is a small business owner, an entrepreneur, regularly confronting militant race baiting callers. This
morning Kevin stated white people and black people are not the same other than inside
their skin. That in and of itself is
debatable even in current scientific, forensic, and anthropological, for
example as found in this article- http://what-when-how.com/forensic-sciences/determination-of-racial-affinity/.
Differences in blacks and whites are not simply physical and skin deep but
cultural. Obviously their histories and heritage are strikingly dissimilar to
Anglo-Americans. Elkins accused blacks and whites of romanticizing a history we
know nothing about, specifically for blacks referring to their African
“Roots”. He pointed out that while
American blacks embrace an identity of coming from Africa, they are not
accepted by aboriginal Africans as having lost their “African soul”. But an interesting observation that whites
don’t know their own history is sadly true.
It is our Confederate history and Southern heritage that we are
encouraged to learn and educate those in our communities per the SCV Vision
2016 initiative.
The following radio talk show host attorney Mark Montiel took
the microphone and claimed Elkins spent an hour suggesting that every white
person who did not attend the past weekend’s MLK parade in Montgomery was a
racist. Supposedly though, Montiel
indicated the MLK parade/rally speakers used their speaking platform as a
political opportunity to pander to the largely black audience instead of
speaking more meaningfully of the need to address crime in the capital city and
the recent surge in murders. Elkins rebutted
the second host by saying, “You’ll never know what it means to grow up
black.” The exchange lost me. But, it continues. Is equality of opportunity the goal or preferential
coddling treatment? One thing certainly,
we need to embrace the Vision 2016 initiatives to become a highly educated
historical organization but also to market the SCV, to engage and reach out to
our friends and neighbors, contributing in a valuable and tangible way to our
communities as an organization and as individuals.
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