I have never been a fan of Buchanan but feel he's correct that part of the conversation has been missing.
Subject: A message for Obama from Pat Buchanan
A Brief for Whitey
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted 03/21/2008 ET
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America. Fair
enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White
America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the
Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands
heard. And among them are these: First, America has been the best
country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black
people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of
40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the
greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white
Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare,
food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student
loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty
programs designed to bring the African-American community into the
mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in
discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action,
contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over
white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and
individuals all over America have donated time and money to support
soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes
for blacks. We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude? Barack
talks about new "ladders of opportunity" for blac ks. Let him go to
Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how
many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out
scholarships for "deserving" white kids.
Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those
of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent? Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself? As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama
aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the
time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time? Is
Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than
the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in
the first three years of this decade as the reverse? We have all heard
ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case
and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of
black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing. Sorry,
Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40
trillion tax dollars ago.