King on the Dilemma of Negro America – Part 2
Thomas Allen
While King was a strong proponent of providing Negroes with better housing, he opposed urban renewal. (Much of urban renewal was done in the name of providing Negroes with better housing.) He laments that Negroes in the Chicago ghettos had sacrificed to save enough money to buy a house in the ghetto. Then the Urban Renewal Authority claimed their houses, not because they were substandard but because it wanted the land for a shopping center. Moreover, it paid less for some houses than the purchase price. Needless to say, such acts increased the bitterness of Negroes. (Apparently, King failed to realize that such urban renewal was a natural outgrowth of the despotic government that he advocated — especially since he preached that Whites needed to provide Negroes with better houses.)
About urban renewal projects, King complains that “the democratic process breaks down, for the rights of the individual voter are impossible to organize without adequate funds, while the business community supplies the existing political machine with enough funds to organize massive campaigns and control mass media.” (Pp. 124-125.) (Why did not King’s SCLC, other civil rights organizations, and Negrophilic White liberals come to the aid of these people and pressure the city to reverse its decision? After all, they had mustered enough resources to bring than the South.) King blamed this destruction of Negro houses on Northern ambivalence about the civil rights movement. (These Northerners were not ambivalent. Civil rights and related laws were to apply only in the South and never in the North.)
King reveals Northern and Western hypocrisy with their fervent opposition to open housing legislation. He writes, “Nothing today more clearly indicates the residue of racism still lodging in our society than the responses of white America to integrated housing.” (P. 125.) Continuing, King writes that opposition to open housing is based on “the fear that the alleged depravity or defective nature of the out-race will infiltrate the neighborhood of the in-race.” (P. 125.) (Generally, when the number of Negro families moving into a White neighborhood reaches a certain, but small, percent, that neighborhood begins to deteriorate toward the level of the neighborhood from which the Negroes fled. Consequently, this fear of depravity or defective nature of Negroes does have some foundation.)
King argues that opposition to Negroes moving to White neighborhoods is based on race and not moral character. After all, “professional white hoodlums and racketeers are located in the best neighborhoods of Cicero is fit proof that the opposition to open housing is not based on behavior or moral standards.” (P. 125.) (True, White criminals live in White neighborhoods. However, statistically, Whites are much less likely to be hoodlums or criminals. Statistically, Negroes are more likely to be rowdy and people of low moral standards. Nevertheless, King is partially right, race is at least part of the reason because most people prefer living among people of the same race.)
Continuing, King maintains that each person should be judged by “his individual culture, brilliance and character. . . . To the racist . . . every Negro, lacks individuality” (Pp. 125-126.) (Never did King practice what he preached. Never did he judge each individual Southerner by his individual culture, brilliance, and character. He just lumped them together as vile, evil, despicable, degraded degenerates. Never once did he make any effort to discover my parents’, grandparents’, aunts’, and uncles’ individual culture, brilliance, and character. He just lumped them in with all other Southerners. Thus, he judged by ethnicity and not by character.)
Then, King discusses real estate brokers. Shrewdly and subtly, they used the “racist doctrine [from the slavery era] to justify the profitable real estate business.” (P. 126.) They thrived by keeping the housing market closed. “Going into white neighborhoods where a few Negroes have moved in, they urge the whites to leave because their property values will depreciate.” (P. 126.) (Therefore, real estate brokers were the cause of White flight — so King claims.) They made huge profits from relocating Whites and from Negroes moving in.
Next, King states, “Many whites who oppose open housing would deny that they are racists.” (P. 126.) (First, by definition, all Whites are racist [racism is in their genes] and to claim that one is not a racist is proof that one is a racist. Moreover, since race precedes the cultural environment, race creates the cultural environment in which it lives. However, the cultural environment may influence the race once it is created. Furthermore, some races are connately more inclined toward criminal activity than others — probably because of genetic hormonal differences. Genetics has given some races greater intelligence and intellectual capabilities than others. Genetics also influence personality, temperament, character, etc. Thus, genetics has a great deal of influence on the cultural environment that a race creates. Consequently, people of one race not wanting people of other races polluting their cultural environment is not irrational or hateful.)
King writes “When Negroes move into a neighborhood and whites refuse to flee, property values are more likely to increase. It is only when blockbusting takes place and whites begin to move out that property values decrease.” (P. 126.) (What King inadvertently shows is that Whites keep property values up, and Negroes bring them down.)
Continuing, King remarks “that many white Americans oppose open housing because they unconsciously, and often consciously, feel that the Negro is innately inferior, impure, depraved and degenerate.” (P. 127.) (The last 50 years of open housing have done more to prove these Whites right than to prove them wrong.)
About Negro employment, King complains, “Some of the most tragic figures in our society now are the Negro company vice presidents who sit with no authority or influence because they were merely employed for window dressing in an effort to win the Negro market or to comply with federal regulations in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.” (P. 127.) (The reason that these Negro vice presidents had no authority was that they were incompetent. Still, not much has changed since then. Most Negroes in high-ranking jobs in corporations and especially governments hold their jobs because of their race and not because of their competence or capabilities. Competent Negroes who fill such positions work under the suspicion that they got the job because of race and not merit. Such is the penalty of affirmative action, quotas, etc.)
Then, King describes what it is like to be a Negro in America. (His description comes close to describing what is happening to today’s Southerners.)
King condemns the notion of “a separate black state or a separate black nation within the nation. This approach is the most cynical and nihilistic of all, because it is based on a loss of faith in the possibilities of American democracy.” (P. 130.) (Thus, King lacks confidence in Negroes governing themselves. They need White succor and rule to overcome their deficiencies — so King implies. Haiti and cities governed by Negroes support King’s lack of confidence in the Negro’s ability to govern competently.)
Also, King objects to Negroes trying to lighten their skin and straighten their hair so that they may look more like White people. He was an adherent of “Black is beautiful.” (Yet, he wanted the descendants of Negroes to be more White by encouraging interracial marriages.)
King writes, “From the inner depths of our being we must sing with them: ‘Before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.’” (P. 131.) (A large number of Negroes have opposed King on this issue. They prefer being a slave of governments through the welfare state to being free.)
Then, King asserts, that the first step “that the Negro must take is to work passionately for group identity.” (P. 131.) (Yet, integration destroys group identity because it leads to amalgamation and homogenization of all groups into an indistinguishable mongrel.)
Next, King states, “Group unity necessarily involves group trust and reconciliation.” (P. 131.) (True. Today, Negroes have a strong group unity, and Whites have almost no group unity. Although Whites greatly outnumber Negroes, Negroes have presented a united front and have gotten Whites to turn on and devour each other. Consequently, the Negro defeated the White race.)
Continuing, King recognizes that Negroes would disagree with each other. However, when confronting Whites, they needed to present a united front. (For the most part, Negroes have followed King’s advice and have presented a united front against Whites. However, for nearly 90 years or so, Whites have never presented a united front against Negroes. Worse, many Whites united with Negroes against Whites. Has this White disunity made the country better?)
Then, King condemns Negro newspapers for failing to fervently agitate for social change. He attacks Negro social and professional groups for “a preoccupation with frivolities and trivial activity.” (P. 132.)
Continuing, King writes, “that our women must be respected, and that life is too precious to be destroyed in a Saturday night brawl, or a gang execution.” (P. 133.) (Unfortunately, on this issue, too many Negroes have ignored King.)
Next, King writes, “While not ignoring the fact that the ultimate way to diminish our problems of crime, family disorganization, illegitimacy and so forth will have to be found through a government program to help the frustrated Negro male find his true masculinity by placing him on his own two economic feet, we must do all within our power to approach these goals ourselves.” (P. 133.) (Since most of these problems are as bad today, if not worse, as in the 1960s, neither governments nor Negroes have been effective in solving these problems. Yet, governments have expended enormous resources trying to solve them. Today, these problems cannot be blamed on segregation or discrimination against Negroes because they died decades ago. Nevertheless, Negroes blame their problems on slavery although slavery ended almost 160 years ago. But, then, could the real cause of the Negro’s problems lie in his genes? In any event, Negroes need to grow up and stop acting like little children who never accept responsibility for anything.)
King discusses the advancements that young Negroes were making. (Much of the advancements that he describes occurred before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related laws and court orders that followed. Negro advancement before the Civil Rights Era was based on merit. Negro advancement during the Civil Rights Era is based mostly on governmental force. Many Negroes who have advanced during the Civil Rights Era are tainted. People, including themselves, do not know if their advancement is because of ability or because of race.)
Further, King was not a patient man. According to him, time was an ally of the segregationist; therefore, it was the enemy of the integrationist.
Continuing, King writes, “Equally fallacious is the notion that ethical appeals and persuasion alone will bring about justice.” (P. 137.) (Therefore, governmental force, which is usually unethical, must be used. How using unethical force brings about justice, King does not explain. Probably, in his mind, all forces that suppress segregation and institute integration are ethical.)
King remarks that ethical appeals should not be abandoned. “It simply means that those appeals must be undergirded by some form of constructive coercive power.” (P. 137.) (For the victim of coercive power, that power is hardly constructive. Besides, whether coercive power is constructive or not depends on perspective. A segregationist may consider governmental force used to enforce segregation as a constructive coercive power, but King would not.)
Then, King writes that “we must agree that we will not violently destroy life or property; but we must balance this by agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted.” (P. 138.) (In other words, if the community did not surrender unconditionally to King’s demands, riots or some other forms of violence would follow. To King, Southerners and segregationists were per se persons of violence.)
Next, King asserts, “The American racial revolution has been a revolution to ‘get in’ rather than to overthrow.” (P. 138.) (Negroes got in, and then they overthrew.) “We want a share in the American economy, the housing market, the educational system and the social opportunities.” (P. 138.) (Negroes have received far more than their share. Their major problem now is to protect their share from the nonwhite aliens and immigrants with whom the White oligarchs are flooding the country. Unfortunately, for the Negro, he will not be able to control them with guilt as he has controlled Whites. Moreover, most of these nonwhites have less use for the Negro than does the stereotypical Klansman.)
Further, King complains that the Constitution does not assure “the right to adequate housing, or the right to an adequate income.” (P. 138.) He insists “that every person [should] have a decent house, an adequate education and enough money to provide basic necessities for one’s family.” (P. 138.) (King may not have been a card-carrying Communist, but he certainly advocated the progressive welfare state. He had no qualms about using the force of government to steal from one group of people and give the stolen loot to another group of people. Yet, while advocating violence, King calls himself nonviolent.)
Next, King discusses what Negroes must do to achieve their goals. He states, “The use of creative tensions that broke the barriers of the South will be as indispensable in the North to obtain and extend necessary objectives.” (P. 139.) (Would the North have restrained its hatred of the South if it had known that the monster that it sent to destroy the South would turn on it?)
Then, King condemns the Negro middle class for not enthusiastically pushing King’s agenda. “It is time for the Negro haves to join hands with the Negro have-nots. . . . The relatively privileged Negro will never be what he ought to be until the underprivileged Negro is what he ought to be.” (Pp. 140-141.) (In this and other essays, King gives the impression that all Negroes lived in severe poverty and barely at a subsistent level. So, how can a Negro middle class exist? Moreover, how could a Negro middle class ever have existed under the segregation of the Jim Crow Era? [During the Jim Crow Era, the Negro middle class was growing so robustly that Stalin sent agents to destroy it.])
Finally, King tries to draw Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, Indians, and Appalachian Whites into his movement by offering them federal bribes with the War on Poverty. Then, he claims that Negroes are winning rights for themselves and “have produced substantial benefits for the whole nation.” (P. 141.) (Since the country is more divided now than at any time since 1860, what substantial benefits has King’s civil rights movement brought? Whatever they are, King-idolizing conservatives need to support them.)
Concluding, King states that “there is a need for a radical restructuring of the architecture of American society.” (P. 141.) (This goal, the Negro has achieved. So, why are they still complaining?)
King ends his essay by showing his socialist tendencies: “Our economy must become more person-centered than property- and profit-centered.” (P. 142.) (Therefore, King-idolizing conservatives need to stop promoting capitalism and start promoting socialism.)
Because of slavery and segregation, Whites have caused all the Negro’s problems; therefore, Whites should solve them — King contends. Further, Negro’s are incapable of solving their problems and governing themselves — King implies. Moreover, integration solves all problems, heals all wounds, and leads to universal love — King maintains. How integration undoes all the damage segregation supposedly caused, King does not explain.
One thing about which King is emphatic is that regarding Negro demands, Whites should never be niggardly. Whites have followed King’s demand and have sacrificed their liberty, their property, and everything else that they have, even to genociding themselves, for the Negro.
With sacrificial and even suicidal succor from Whites, Negroes have overcome most of the handicaps that King describes. As a result, they have thoroughly defeated the Whites and are now the superior race. They have enslaved the White race to provide them with all sorts of privileges and benefits.
Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Coley Allen.
Part 1.
More social issues articles.
