Reading my previous post, you would think I would almost be in favor of day care, when you realize the home life that some children have, some that I have witnessed firsthand. Some of the care they receive, or lack of, borders on abuse by neglect. This is not true for all cases, but there is a lot of it. The point that needs to be made is this–even in the face of ongoing family dysfunction in the homes of some children, they INNATELY know that they are not getting something that they somehow feel that they should be getting. In other words, they instinctively cling to the disinterested parent, and want to be with them, even in the presence of severe neglect. It is the way children are wired. They just know. Even when the child eventually turns his emotions inside and begins to show the same lack of attachment to the parent, he is still smoldering inside, despite his cool facade. The anger outbursts begin, and he can’t even put into words why he is angry, but he is. He is just another problem to be handled.

 

Eventually he is put on medication, and relegated to special education classes. The parent/parents wonder why he turned out to be such a “bad” kid. They don’t know “what to do.” Of course they don’t–they were never taught themselves. Some “adults” allow their children to make up their own morality as they go along through life, with no concrete foundation, no adherence to what really is true and good. Hey, it’s 2012, for crying out loud. Who believes that old-fashioned stuff? (Translation: I can’t be bothered.)

 

Young people, married or otherwise, are going to have children. No amount of sex education will alter that. It seems to me that we should be doing a more thorough job of educating and preparing our young adults, like we used to, for home and family life. Institutions spend so much time training young women, and men, for various careers out in the business world, and maye that’s a good thing for some. However, we fail to prepare them for what used to be the very backbone of our nation–the home and family.

 

I had to take a course in “Child Development” in high school, and also a mixture of “Home Economics/Interior Decoration” and “Family Education.” I loved every minute. These subjects were starting to be phased out at the end of the sixties and early seventies, but they were still given as much importance as math, english, or history, at least at the time of my experience.

 

I am certainly not bashing mothers who truly need care for their children. Sometimes it just has to be. I was there once, myself. I just wish women had more of a choice, and could truly put the raising of their children first, when, in fact, that is just what they want to do and would do, if they had the capability. In my lifetime, I am now old enough to see how much things have changed and can compare decades. Mothers used to be revered and respected, and there was no higher calling than that of raising children. There was not this constant debate over where her loyalties should be–career? home? Responsibility was recognized where it was given. It is breathtaking to see how much has changed, seemingly in the blink of an eye.

 

I guess therein lies the whole argument again, surrounding the feminist movement.

 

 

                                    

                                           — Comments —

Melissa writes: 

When I see black women pushing scrollers filled with little white children on the Upper West Side, I often wonder where the black women’s children are. I wonder if the rich women who hire them also think about this. Perhaps their children are in good hands, but considering the conditions I’ve seen in Harlem and The Bronx, the odds are low. Why would they want such women raising their children? Perhaps they were also raised by such women and are also callous mothers themselves. I’ve seen these nannies act very cruelly towards their charges. Sightings of such behavior are enough to fill a blog.

I think what makes them bad parents is their gilded sense of entitlement. It’s not just in their culture. Anders Breivek’s mother is a perfect example of the child-damaging practice of dating while you already have children with another man. Bringing these men into their home causes great harm to these children. Unrelated men in the home are much more likely to abuse children. Rod Dreher had a great post about it, but it’s 404’d now. Some of it is preserved here: “Specifically, the British study found that the incidence of abuse was an astounding 33 times higher in homes where the mother was cohabiting with an unrelated boyfriend than in stable nuclear families.”

Certainly not all nannies are like that, but the fact that they are almost always women of child-bearing age means they are usually leaving their own children behind. Perhaps their children are better off in day care, but are the rich children on the UWS better off than if they were raised by their own mothers? I don’t think so. Even taking aside cultural values, when I taught preschool in a rich neighborhood I was astounded at the number of children with language deficiencies who had nannies who barely spoke coherent English.

Thank you for your blog!

Sarah writes:

Girls learn how to be mothers from their own mothers or caregivers. When my daughter was around 12 months old, she all of a sudden became infatuated with her dolls and stuffed animals. Somehow she innately felt this urging to hold her dolls, rock them, dance with them, try to nurse them, wrap them up, and put them to sleep in her little wooden doll crib. I’m not really sure where this love of babies came from because my son never experienced it. He cuddled with his stuffed animals a lot, but never acted as obsessively maternal toward them. My daughter seems to derive a deep and satisfying feeling from caring for her dolls.

My heart breaks when I think of these unloved children described here. How will they heal this parent inflicted wound of abuse and neglect? How will they nurture their own babies in the future? I doubt they will even have the slightest clue. I do not think this problem is only about race. I have seen low class people of many different races who don’t care about their babies…Though admittedly I have never seen anything as remotely horrific as what Kendra described above. I always considered myself to be staunchly pro-life. However, now I realize that these low class women do need to stop reproducing! It would be better for these children to be adopted or to not be born at all than to be raised in the hell that Kendra described.

Laura writes:

I do not agree that they need to stop reproducing or that the lives of any of these children are hopeless.

With traditional sexual morality, the restoration of male authority and the denial of government aid, blacks would take more responsibility for their own.

Kendra writes:

Kate wrote: “However, we fail to prepare them for what used to be the very backbone of our nation–the home and family.”

Preparing one’s children for citizenship is the role of the parents and the religious community, not the federal government. Not the schools. Not hired female government workers. No offense to Kate, but the quoted comment sounds very naive and could be dangerous for our society.

When you say “we fail,” do you mean that whites have failed to instill a value system in blacks, or other immigrants, for that matter? [Laura writes: Just for clarification, Kate’s comments above did not specifically address race. She was speaking of lower-functioning families and did not specify race.] I will not accept this charge. Because the white parents I know are doing just this and are extremely successful. Are whites required to teach blacks how to mother or parent their children? Are we to feed them, monitor them, clothe them, teach teen mother’s “parenting skills”, discipline them, medicate them, restrain them, and ultimately raise them? I instantly think of WIC, NCLB, Head Start, and Hillary’s “Village” and the many other tax-payer funded government programs which are in place to save black children from the neglect they experience while in their mother’s care. Most white children and families are doing just fine, thank you very much. We don’t mention race, but most social programs are geared toward blacks and their dysfunction. How long until we admit that we cannot save the majority of these unwanted children? How many white mothers have neglected their own children in the process of implementing these social programs for black children?

As a white woman, I was raised with the home and family values you mention. I work endlessly to instill these values in my children. Most whites are to some degree. The majority of whites still enjoy a decent family structure in America. These values, however, do not transfer to the black community. There is no black family, if there ever was one. Whites have a tendency to transfer a white value system onto all racial groups, and then are perplexed when things don’t work out as predicted. If you don’t live near low-income blacks, you have not seen the truth for yourself. I will not suggest that you immerse yourself in their culture, but you should carefully listen to my words of caution.

I know a few white social workers who are honest with themselves about racial differences in child-rearing (and outcome), but continue to trudge forward in their jobs silently with the hope that they will make some difference in a child’s life. This is also true for the white female educators in my family. My aunt, who has been an elementary teacher in the inner-city for 40 years, told me that many black mothers demand that their child be put on behavior medication so that they can collect more financial benefits for having the child. Once the child is “diagnosed” with some disorder, they can collect a new welfare benefit from the state. Teachers like my aunt know the harsh truth about the differences in mothering between blacks and whites, but they will never say it out loud. They are stifled.

Kate may not identify as a liberal, and I think she is on the right track by reading from this site, but this type of thinking lead to the various liberal “programs” which were created to uplift blacks and make excuses for their shortcomings. I have seen many white social workers picking up the slack for blacks and their poor parenting style. Our city even has a summer feeding program for black children, where they can get up to three free meals per day, no questions asked, at over 25 locations while school is not in session. Most of these children are already on EBT or Snap benefits. Why can their mothers not find the resources to feed their own children? I think this kind of neglect is a crime and should be treated as such.

We are not all equal, and no level of social engineering by whites will create equality. We can only delude ourselves temporarily.

Kendra adds:

Kate writes:

I was there once, myself. I just wish women had more of a choice, and could truly put the raising of their children first, when, in fact, that is just what they want to do and would do, if they had the capability.

Women do have a choice. We can set things up right correctly, or we can make excuses for our bad choices. It is a choice to sacrifice and do the right thing. It is never the easy way. There were times when I had to stretch a whole chicken to cover 15 meals, but it can be done. I have lived in unsavory neighborhoods with low rent, have worn third-hand clothes, have existed without reliable transportation, have washed cloth diapers for what seemed like an eternity, have lived without the simple luxuries that most women take for granted, but I did it so that I could care for my children full-time. I have not given myself a set of options. I am a hero to my children, and it has paid off. I receive compliments about all of my children quite often and it is directly related to my direct care for them. They are different from most children, most people say they are exceptional, but I say they are perfectly normal. Full-time mothering is the norm. I think that proper language plays a big role in this. When I was breastfeeding my youngest, I learned about the power of language. One could say, “breastfeeding is best, but….”, but this statement leaves a lot of wiggle room so that mother’s can easily escape their duty to breastfeed. If we say instead that “formula feeding is dangerous to babies and mothers…”, then we send the proper message. Yes, it is restrictive, and causes some shame if rejected, but most true values are restrictive. It makes a clear values statement, and causes shame and stigma for those women who do not comply. Most objections and obstacles to breastfeeding are only personal drama and should not be considered legitimate. Same is true for full-time mothering.

When we wish that women had more choices, we are giving them license to make a series of poor decisions and to take the easy way out. There is a truth in everything. There really is one good choice in most things, and to deviate from this choice should cause a woman to feel great shame and know that she has brought dishonor to her family and there will be no reward in the end.

Kate writes:

[NOTE: Kate’s comments below were written in response to Kendra’s initial points at the beginning of the entry and were sent in before Kate read Kendra’s remarks immediately above.]

I have to agree with Kendra in her comment about some Head Start parents and their parenting styles, or lack of. I have been in these homes myself. But I would be remiss if I did not point out that not ALL “Head Start” children are from this background. Many are, make no mistake. However, I have been in the homes of elderly grandparents who have taken on the task of raising grandchildren, who would otherwise just been on the street, I guess. The poverty in their little homes hit you like a ton of bricks, but then you notice that it is spotless, good things are cooking on the stove, and the children clean and well-behaved. Grandmother shows up at school many times during the month, dressed in her Sunday best, supported by her cane, just to see if little Johnny is “doing right.” She doesn’t leave it to chance. I have seen success stories of young, single women who use this subsidized day care truly for what it was intended. One young mother graduated from our local college this year, and will go on into the medical field. She is getting her son “out of the system” as soon as she can. Some are trying to educate themselves so that they can make a decent wage, thereby enabling them to be at home more with their children. 

The women in Kendra’s description were only doing as they were taught to do. They are almost certainly products of the same environment and upbringing that they are doling out to their own children. It is not only the black culture that suffers with a lack of parenting skills. I have seen it in all races. So it would not be fair to make sweeping judgements on any one race. The whole government subsidized daycare system is certainly a crutch for many and is abused, like many well-intentioned government programs. 

This speaks to my initial comment on the whole “daycare vs. maternal care vs. working mom vs. stay at home mom” dilemma. It is ALL just a very seroius underlying symptom of a monumental problem. It is the whole calloused attitude that we now have towards the care of our youngest and most precious citizens. It is in the calloused and cold attitude that we now have towards the home and family, the sacredness of marriage, the reverence of tradition and beliefs, the importance of both father and mother in the home, to make a whole, strong, unified haven for their children. It is in the flippant disdain for those who are at least trying to get back to this long forgotten way of life. 

Misery loves company, after all, and when others try to rise above and do better, it puts others at risk of having to come out of their own comfort zones. So better to shoot these people down when we can, however we can. We keep trying the re-invent the wheel, so to speak, and will not gaze upon the truth, even when it is staring us right in the face.

Robin writes:

I wholeheartedly agree with Kendra as she writes: 

Women do have a choice. We can set things up right correctly, or we can make excuses for our bad choices. It is a choice to sacrifice and do the right thing. It is never the easy way. 

We can either set things up correctly before we have children (by abstinence until marriage), which gives us a much higher chance of being home full-time with our children, or we can make tough choices afterwards. We can choose a husband who shares the same values as we do about being a wife and raising children at home. Sometimes, even in choosing a husband wisely, there are financial obstacles that are unforseen. These can be overcome as Kendra writes, when she speaks of the art of frugality, and even extreme sacrifice. 

When I was first home with my infant daughter, we lived in a small rental home in the oldest part of our city. Women I knew had the nerve to say, “Well, I’m glad your husband is happy living in the ‘slums!'” We did not live in the ‘slums’ at all, we just chose modest housing, because otherwise I would not be able to be home with our child. We ate modest meals. Once, we went to dinner at a restaurant on Mother’s Day. Another time, for my birthday. My husband never insisted on restaurant meals for himself! I bought my clothes at thrift stores or on Ebay (still do) and did the same for our child. We drove one vehicle; if my husband had the car for the day working, I walked with our daughter in the stroller for recreation, exercise and to get small errands completed. You would not believe the commentary I received from women at church: “Well, how are you supposed to function in that tiny house! Doesn’t your husband know you are like a prisoner in that tiny house while he is freely working all day with the car? Why doesn’t he let you out? Where is your ‘me’ time?” It was unbelievable. They never connected the dots; they never saw this is what I desired! I enjoyed it! I never felt like a prisoner; I felt like a woman doing the right thing for the sake of a tiny human being. There were other sacrifices as well, and there still are. 

Even in the case of single mothers, there are choices. If there are relatives nearby that can assist, this is better than daycare and Head Start. When I was a “working woman,” I worked at a nursing home as a certified nursing assistant. I would say that over 80 percent of the women working there were young, white, single mothers. They were on welfare; they all received daycare assistance from the County offices so that they could put their children in daycare and then HeadStart when they were old enough, so that they could work about 30 hours per week at less than $10 per hour. Most of them loved their children, they were just “stuck” in their perception of what their options were. There are many Christian sites on the internet which minister to single mothers – but they minister to CHASTE and moral single mothers who have repented of the sinful behaviors which often put them where they are. These ministries will often take donations and pay the living expenses of these women while training them on how to have a sustainable home business, as well as homeschool their children. Douglas W. Phillips with Family Renewal Audio Library has excellent teaching (Protestant) on how the Body of Christ can help single mothers. These women have to be willing to sacrifice their continuing immoral lifestyles in order to be helped by the Church, though, and this is quite the obstacle sometimes. Additionally, they must be willing to let go of government benefits and trust God. Gleaning the Harvest is another good resource; again, the women may be widowed or divorced or may have always been single mothers. They must have a letter of recommendation from their pastor, but if accepted, their needs are seen by millions of internet users who may donate accordingly toward their support, so they are not supported by the government, but by God’s people, until they are self-sufficiently at home with their children. As Kendra states, there are choices. Even for single mothers. Regardless of race. 

The women that I see where I reside who are single mothers are predominantly white, however. While I agree that the black community has its own set of serious issues with the family unit, the white women where I live are not much better, if at all. Almost all of my neighbors with children are single, white women. You can tell the difference between their children and the children of the full-time mothers. The men they invite into their homes seem to have little interest in commitment and marriage. One young woman was so desperate: she took a boyfriend into her home with her four year old daughter. He brought along his two children; he had custody because their mother was in prison for dealing drugs. While this young mother worked her body into exhaustion as a truck-driver, her new live-in verbally abused all of the children all day. He never worked for a dime. He sat in her home and dealt drugs. I became so sickened by it that I called the police hotline; he was arrested on a parole violation and removed from the home immediately. The mother was oblivious (so she said) to the drug use and drug sales, but soon after these events, she lost her job due to injury and was evicted and homeless with her four year old daughter. Her daughter attended HeadStart. She could not properly speak and was clearly behind in learning simple things that a child her age should have mastered. After spending months “couch-surfing”, the mother and her daughter have received assisted housing and the rent is being paid by her mother while she stays at home with her little girl, which is at least an improvement. All of this to say: yes, there is a racial dimension, but I think the immorality dimension (birth control pills, the sexual revolution, matriarchal social services) has more to do with it than race, at least in my neck of the woods.

Laura writes:

I would like to point out the enormous irony of what feminism has created. While offering a very small group of women the promise of everything, they have created large numbers of unmarried mothers with little hope of ever marrying a decent man working in nursing homes and Wal-Marts, with their children in institutions during their shifts. That’s woman power. Think of what Betty Friedan complained of – driving her children to scout meetings – compared to the everyday chaos of women’s lives under feminist-approved sexual freedom.

As for the race issue, lower-functioning whites have moved closer to conditions in black neighborhoods. However, there is still a dramatic difference in levels of family formation and illegitimacy.  

Jill Farris writes:

So many wise things have been shared on this topic here I have little to add…we need to keep in mind that the law that created foster care and created Child Protective Services put a price on the head of children. Therefore, the more children brought into protective custody and put into foster care, the more money for the state. A child who is part of a sibling group, a minority and who has been labeled as “traumatized” or “abused” is a child who can bring in upwards of $10,000.00 a month in our state. So, the state loses money by returning children to functioning families. I share this because we need to remember that the state is not going to solve the problem of really messed-up mothers who rely on social services. I believe our social service system is intinsically evil and anyone who knows anything about our family court system will agree. Heaven help the family who truly cares about their children who gets targeted by this system which overrides civil rights and allows unscrupulous social workers and psychiatrists to break the law (and there are many of those who do that).

Is really rotten parenting a function of poor black people primarily? No, it’s rampant across the board but rich white people cover up the abdication of parent hood with material things and our culture applauds them for it. This is why the media acted shocked that the Columbine killers came from such “good, stable homes.” Stable? Because they were “upper middle class”? Because their parents were well educated? When you read about those boys they were as rejected and neglected as a crack baby left on the sidewalk. They were left alone for hours to play violent games and plan violence and their parents didn’t pay attention.

Our eldest son Phillip is 23 and has worked for one of those very expensive outdoor programs that parents send their teens to as the last stop before prison. His particular program is much tougher than Outward Bound. Phillip said, “Just picture the movie Holes“!

Phillip lived through our really poor years as a family, years like other moms have shared where we didn’t even own a car but had to walk everywhere. We were poor, we had a large family and I was committed to staying home no matter what. We were poor for a long time. Phillip remembers.

Phillip found himself out in the middle of 360,000 acres of Southern Idaho sagebrush with a bunch of really angry, insolent teen boys. These boys are taught how to light a fire with sticks (a fire drill), carve their own fork and are given a bag of dry lentils. When they get the fire going and cook their own lentils they can finally eat. It is a tough program.

Phillip told me later, “Mom I was sitting in the dirt with the boys and two of them have dads who are millionaires. The boys were arguing over whose dad owns the most properties. They were both raised by housekeepers but no one had ever taught them to wipe their mouths after they ate. No one had taught them manners. They’d been given everything materially but no one had ever cared about them. They’re the richest kids I’d ever met and they were bragging about their trust funds… but I had to tell them to wipe their mouths and chew with their mouths closed. And I started thinking about my childhood and how you were always there. I looked over at my beater of a car and thought about everything you had taught me and I had an epiphany.,I never knew how rich I really was.”

As you can imagine, his words made my day. He made the sacrifices so worthwhile. I am so proud that my son is a leader and making a difference in the lives of children who are material orphans.

This is why I believe that poor mothering is rampant on all levels of society.

I experienced it in the 1970’s as my Ivy League-educated parents joined the ranks of alcoholics. They, along with their friends, abandoned their children. It just didn’t look like abandonment because they provided material things for us.

Changing the tide of rotten parenting will be a grassroots effort. I believe Christians should lead the charge (as outlined in Titus 2) by mentoring other women one by one. It means praying for those who are receptive to learning. It means being an example of good mothering when we are out in public( realizing that all eyes are on mothers these days and we can set a new standard). It means teaching our children that the next generation of well-raised children will come from them. Let’s do a good job of passing the baton.

Laura writes:

Jill’s point about the evil of our social service system is very important.

As for racial differences in parenting, the bottom line here is not that whites are perfect parents by comparison, clearly they are not, but that whites have dangerous and costly illusions about their responsibility for black disorder and about their ability to create stability among blacks with social welfare programs and even charity. While a significant number of whites are negligent parents, blacks are not blamed for the failures of whites. There’s the big difference. Whites are blamed for the failures of black families. And family life is proportionately much more chaotic among blacks. That is unquestionably true. Even though divorce and illegitimacy are now epidemic among lower-functioning whites, they have not fallen, and they will not fall, to the depths of breakdown in black neighborhoods. Despite Kendra’s grim observations, blacks were once existing at a much higher level of stability, but they have historically less stable, two-parent families than whites and, whatever may come, that is likely to remain the pattern.

Yes, there is poor mothering at all levels of society, but the idea that white women can simply teach black women how to parent is an idealistic variation on saving blacks through social welfare programs. No amount of role modeling will significantly change the black mother when she is sexually free and economically independent of men. Only when the black man takes ownership of his woman and his children can there be less chaos for black children. In the meantime, whites should not be blamed or held responsible for the failures of black families except to the degree that they (whites) promote sexual freedom and matriarchy as positive goods, subsidize black misbehavior through social welfare programs and absolve blacks of moral and material responsibility for their own children.

Sarah writes:

I too do not believe that low-functioning people are generated from the singular fact of skin color. I believe it comes from the culture (beliefs, experiences) that is passed down through generational lines. People are born and they inherit a way of seeing themselves within the broader context of the outside world from their families and social tribes. I’ve known dark skinned families that were marvelous, extremely intelligent people. I have also known white mothers with whom I would NEVER leave my child alone..not even for a moment. Race does matter because we have eyes and we see color. Human beings grow tribes of people who are similar to themselves.

The low functioning black mothers that Kendra spoke about attracted like minded people to their hell hole of a home. I can’t just write off an entire race of people and label them as low functioning, different (in a negative way), or not as good. That label doesn’t make sense when you try to apply it to all of the brilliant, highly motivated dark skinned people who do actually exist here on planet earth. I am not saying we need to feel sorry for black people…or bend over backwards to help them…..I’m just saying….here is a group of people in America who obviously need to be empowered from within. I don’t know how to do that or assist with it, but I know that these people have quality hidden within them. Just as we all have quality hidden within us.

If we emit negativity or snobbery towards these people we only diminish their chances of awakening. There is a real problem in these low functioning social groups. Reading Kendra’s story horrified me. However, I do not believe that black people are any less competent that white people are. So many factors influence who you grow up to become and how you see yourself in this world. We have to stop tell these low functioning people, “You are slower than we are. Your DNA does not give you the ability to appreciate fine art. You are only suited to manual labor. There may be a few intelligent black people, but most of them have a low IQ.” If you tell someone how stupid they are over and over again they either give in and accept it….or they get angry and resent you for it. I am not saying that race doesn’t matter. People seem to be attracted to other people who are similar to themselves.

Laura writes:

I too do not believe that low functioning people are generated from the singular fact of skin color. I believe it comes from the culture (beliefs, experiences) that is passed down through generational lines.

Yes, but then why is a culture, with its own traditions, habits and attitudes, passed on within a racial group? Obviously, people are drawn to form families and social ties with those of like race. So it isn’t just a fact of the color of one’s skin. Race is one important aspect of social existence.

I can’t just write off an entire race of people and label them as low functioning, different (in a negative way), or not as good.

All blacks are not as low-functioning as Kendra’s neighbors. Most are not drug addicts or criminals. But a significant minority of them are, and the vast majority of blacks today do not grow up in what you would consider a normal family environment. If you do not believe that the undeniable chaos, violence and criminality of black neighborhoods is due to some innate or acquired failings of blacks themselves, then why do you think these problems exist? Do you think whites have contrived a system to undermine blacks? If you do, isn’t that “writing off” an entire race because certainly whites would have to be very evil to have so arranged things for blacks and limited their achievements? 

I think Kendra’s point was not that blacks should be despised or “written off” as hopeless, but that blacks themselves are responsible for their own success in life.

If we emit negativity or snobbery towards these people we only diminish their chances of awakening.

But we have repeatedly told blacks that their failures are due to poverty or racism, and this lie has diminished their chances of “awakening” and has made their lives worse.

There is a real problem in these low functioning social groups. Reading Kendra’s story horrified me. However, I do not believe that black people are any less competent that white people are. So many factors influence who you grow up to become and how you see yourself in this world. We have to stop tell these low functioning people, “You are slower than we are. Your DNA does not give you the ability to appreciate fine art. You are only suited to manual labor. There may be a few intelligent black people, but most of them have a low IQ.”

You may not believe that blacks are less accomplished in certain areas, including family life, but the evidence that this is true is overwhelming.

Who are you to say that blacks are not in many ways content with who they are no matter what whites say about them? Only a black man can be a black man. To say that a black man is inferior to a white because he is black or because he is less intelligent is like saying that a child is inferior to an adult because he is a child. It’s like saying a singer is inferior to a military analyst or an elementary school teacher is inferior to a physicist. They are different. Each has his own mode of  being. It is simplistic to focus on intelligence, though sometimes it absolutely must be taken into account. The black man is a whole. He has the chance, like all human beings, to express some aspect of God’s eternal, unfolding goodness. It is you, not I, who say that the black man must be more intelligent or he is worthless.

Only a black man can strive for perfection as a black man. In that sense, he has something no white person has.

Your statements betray some deep snobbery of your own. Blacks overwhelmingly don’t want to go to fine art museums. They are happy with their own pleasures. Has it ever occurred to you that they may find aspects of the white person’s life unappealing, cold and inferior? Are you aware that on psychology tests, blacks from a very early age show a higher sense of self-esteem than whites, that they are apt to be untroubled by intellectual limitations and that blacks overall have a significantly lower suicide rate? This high self-esteem survives even though many blacks are quite aware that they do not have the same cognitive skills as whites. How can they not be aware of it? The proof is everywhere. They are not likely to evade the obvious in the way whites, for all their supposed intelligence, do.

It is not necessary for whites in everyday life to go around telling blacks they are less intelligent, anymore than it is necessary for more intelligent whites to go around telling less intelligent whites that they will never go to Harvard. Whatever the intelligence of blacks on average, many exceed this level. Individual blacks should have the opportunity to succeed to the best of their aptitudes. Let them achieve what they can, without a vast, evil infrastructure of racial preferences to prop them up.

What is important is not for whites to go around telling blacks they are less intelligent, but for whites to lose the sort of snobbery you express. Let the black man be a black man. Let him find his essence. He can only do this if  he is accountable for his actions, if his failings are not blamed on whites, if he is not the beneficiary of unfair anti-white discrimination, if he is not callously pushed to achieve more than he is capable of achieving, if he is not encouraged in hatred and grievance, and if whites don’t treat him like a spoiled child who is excused for his misbehavior.  To treat him this way is to deprive him of the respect due any minimally intelligent person.