Choosing sides

Black Enterprise, Nov, 1995 by Willie Brown, Ward Connerly

Blacks, on the other hand, perpetuate the self-defeating and corrosive myth that we cannot do it without help from someone else--and we all too often don't even try. Instead of developing a successful attitude, telling our kids that they can do anything they set our to accomplish, we plant and fertilize seeds of failure, which take form in policies and practices such as affirmative action. Instead of operating those doughnut shops ourselves, we simply stop and buy a dozen doughnuts on our way to our government jobs.

In my opinion, it is this "I can't do it" attitude that largely accounts for the facts that Asians are receiving significantly higher grade point averages than blacks and are scoring admissions tests. When will we stop looking for excuses for this poor performance? Lack of role models. Inferior school. Poor counselors. Single-parent households. I hear those explanations all the time.

But Vietnamese kids lack role models, they go to the same schools and are advised by the same counselors. White more often than not they have more supportive families, they suffer from language and cultural barriers that are staggering.

Let's finally put an end to slavery and free black people from the psychologically crippling effects of affirmative action