The Good Book instructs us that “to obey is better than sacrifice.” The lesson not only speaks to God’s expectations in our relationship with Him, but is also instructive of the expectations we have -- or should have -- of government. I would much rather a government that is deliberate in its duty to secure our natural rights than one that seeks to raise its empathy quotient among the masses. All the government compassion in the form of programs and dollars won’t amount to a hill of beans if government doesn’t first protect the lives and property of its citizens.
My demand for obedience is, alas, not one shared by more than a few black folk, who instead seek government sacrifice. During a telethon to raise funds to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the rapper Kanye West declared, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Several weeks later, Princeton University professor Cornel West wrote that Kanye was right and the racist effects of Bush administration policies prove it. He then went on to accuse Bush of having no compassion.
Excuse me a moment while I attempt to conjure the image of black folks of my parents’ and grandparents’ generation complaining that the government “does not care about us.” Sorry, can’t do it. They didn’t have time. If government does not now have compassion for black people in 2005, it certainly cared for us a great deal less in the 1940s and ‘50s. In the face of far more pernicious racism than we face today, black people somehow found a way to expand the middle class, make inroads into professional and high-level occupations and cut the poverty rate by two-thirds. The movement for civil rights begun in 1955 was not a crusade to gain government sacrifice, but a demand for government obedience!
It may be better for intellectuals and entertainers to ask this: Do black people care about black people – or, more specifically, do black men care about black people? Do black men care enough about black women to marry the mothers of their children? Do black men care enough about other black men not to shoot them in the streets or push narcotics in their communities? Do black men care enough about black boys to provide role models of hard work and virtue?
The difference between these demands and those of misters West is that one places the responsibility and the power to change our communities in the hands of black people -- black men -- and does not rely on the benevolence of government. One is the petulant complaint of a child to a parent, the other the booming song of a mature and equal people. One seeks deliverance in the lords of the administrative state; the other seeks freedom in the transformative power that lives inside each individual.
Still, there are those that will insist on government sacrifice. To them, I offer the words of Frederick Douglas: "What shall we do with the Negro? I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”
I happen to believe “the Negro” can stand on his own legs. It is a shame more folks are not as certain as I am.
