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To: The New York
Times
<letters@nytimes.com> |
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Dear
Sir/Madam,
After reading
the article, "Plight
Deepens for
Black Men,
Studies Warn"
in today's
NYT, I asked
myself if it
does not occur
to anyone else
that there
MUST be
something
fundamentally
wrong with
American
society?
No, of course
not (despite
the mountain
of evidence),
because it
serves
well-educated,
middle-class
Americans, and
anyone else
with an
adequate income,
whatever their
race, just
fine as it is,
and because
people have
got used to it
as just
another
insanity of
normality.
Ours is a
white man's
world, deeply
rooted in more
than 2500
years of
"hideously
white"
European
history. As a
native
European I
have no
problem with
that at all,
but I can well
understand
that many
black people
do.
To insist that
race doesn't
(or shouldn't)
matter is
ideological
nonsense
which, no
matter how
well intended,
has done
immeasurable
harm - and
will continue
to do so until
we face up to
it.
African
Americans need
to develop
their own
civilisation,
that they can
identify with
and be as
proud of, as
white people
are of
European
civilisation,
Japanese
Americans of
Japanese
civilisation,
Chinese
Americans of
Chinese
civilisation,
etc.
Unfortunately,
the African
Americans who
could make it
happen are too
busy enjoying
their material
success in the
white man's
world, and so
the tragedy
will probably
go on.
Middle-class
researchers
(and NYT
reporters)
make the
mistake of
applying their
own,
subjective and
very
unscientific (un-Darwinian)
standards of
success to the
African
Americans they
study and
write about.
Those they
refer to as
"failing black
men" manage to
survive, and
probably have
at least as (un)fulfilling
a life as the
average
American
office worker,
but more
importantly,
they father
children,
making many of
them
"biologically
"
at least as
successful as
most
middle-class
white men.
Ex-President
Clinton, who
many would
consider to be
one of
America's most
successful
men, as far as
I know, has
sired just one
child, while
many of the
African
Americans
considered to
be at the
other end of
the success
scale have
sired half a
dozen or more.
Instead of
just defending
Darwin, you
also need to
understand
him. In the
final
analysis, or
when future
historians
look back, a
man's success
will be
measured not
in the number
of bucks he
made, but in
the number of
surviving
descendents he
has.
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