Discovery Institute - Article Database - A Danger of Being Obamatized

Link to Original Article

Election '08: How disappointing to see trailblazing intellectuals who should know better beguiled by the oratory of a candidate who'd lead this nation to disaster. An exciting politician is no excuse to switch from right to wrong.

John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute senior fellow and UC Berkeley linguistics professor, is one of the nation's most insightful analysts of race and culture.

In his masterly 2000 book, "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America," he compellingly argued that the black community was self-destructively embracing victimhood as an inescapable component of its ethnic identity.

McWhorter's new book, "All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can't Save Black America," takes on rap music тА” of which he is actually an ardent fan тА” and concludes, as he told a New York City audience on Tuesday, that it is "marvelous, glorious, seductive noise," but "that's all there is."

Its potential value in facilitating some kind of social revolution that could lift up the black underclass is, according to McWhorter, nil.

During the question-and-answer period, however, McWhorter was asked by former Jersey City, N.J., mayor and Kings College, New York professor Bret Schundler тА” a white Republican who repeatedly received massive minority electoral support тА” if there was a way to make hard work and commitment be viewed as "cool" by the kind of troubled youths attracted to hip-hop music.

McWhorter said it would take a unique leadership figure тА” Sen. Barack Obama (whom McWhorter is supporting), or someone like him, such as Newark, New Jersey's black Democratic Mayor Cory Booker, an advocate for innovative reforms (such as school vouchers) going against his party's orthodoxy, but also a big tax-and-spender.

McWhorter described Sen. Obama as "uniquely poised" to inspire nonwhite youths toward achievement and responsibility. And he took special note of a Father's Day speech at Chicago's Apostolic Church of God that wowed the establishment media.

In it, the senator accused some black males of "acting like boys instead of men" and said "we need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception." He chided parents: "Don't just sit in the house and watch SportsCenter all weekend long." Instead, make kids "replace the video game or the remote control with a book once in a while."

Obama even seemed to scold the public school educrats who now dominate among party delegates:

"Sometimes I'll go to an eighth-grade graduation, and there's all that pomp and circumstance and gowns and flowers. And I think to myself, it's just eighth grade. . . . Let's give them a handshake and tell them to get their butts back in the library!"

But when it came time to talk policy remedies, out came the well-worn liberal laundry list:

"We need more money for our schools . . . more after-school programs for our children . . . we should reward fathers who pay that child support with job training and job opportunities and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit that can help them pay the bills. We should expand programs where registered nurses visit expectant and new mothers" and expand "maternity and paternity leave, and we should guarantee every worker more paid sick leave . . . ."

More than a quarter-century ago, Discovery Institute fellow George Gilder knew that government benefits, in all their various forms, would fail to solve тА” and actually exacerbate тА” a deeper problem.

In his landmark work, "Wealth and Poverty," Gilder reflected on how government can "destroy the father's key role and authority. He can no longer feel manly in his own home" and so "he turns to the street for his male affirmations."

Sociologists, Gilder found, "fail to comprehend that to a great extent poverty and unemployment, and even the largely psychological conditions of 'unemployability,' are chiefly reflections of family deterioration."

Having an eloquent president of color use the bully pulpit to tell fathers to be fathers, and students to work hard, would undoubtedly inspire many among society's have-nots. But as John McWhorter so correctly pointed out this week, the tough love of the 1996 welfare reform helped many blacks keep out of poverty тА” and it didn't have a beat.

Obama may speak in the language and rhythms of the streets, but his big-government policies will only worsen the problems of the streets.