Kenny Burns doesn’t care about Black people…
It has come to my attention by a couple of people that I am hard on my fellow Black people. One person last year, BMORENEWS.com publisher Doni Glover, said:
Mr. Burns, it is clear to think, has very little sensitivity regarding the entire situation and remains on the periphery of the plight of black people.
Another person told me that my belief that people should follow Christian principles more is unrealistic. The only problem is that for someone that has been following Christian principles more in my current adult life when compared to the earlier part of this decade, you cannot convince me that it isn’t realistic. When I have been following Christian principles, they have worked successfully. When I have not been following Christian principles, I have not been as successful. The choice to follow God is still up to the individual, but I am still going to advocate for people to follow God and declare Christ as their savior.
But that pales in comparison for the real reason why Glover and another person believes that I am insensitive to Black people or hard on Black leaders…it is because I am an openly Black conservative Republican. That is the real reason, but they will not come out and say it publicly. The way most people will tell me is that it is the way that I say stuff. It’s almost a euphemism for “why are you speaking so loudly in disagreement?”
Specifically, I refuse to blindly follow the Democratic party. How can I? They have proven that they do not have the best interest of Americans, let alone Black people. They have practically ignored Black voters, except for election time. In 2006, the two front runners for the U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Maryland were Congressman Ben Cardin and former Congressman and former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume. Mfume lost because the party put its weight behind Cardin.
You would think that it would have been a more fair fight, especially since Mfume was campaigning for the job longer than Cardin. Personally, I think it was because the party was largely afraid of the slams Mfume would face in regards to his personal life from days gone by. A personal life in which he has owned up to and is known about widely throughout the state. For the record, I will use Maryland a lot as examples because I live here and that’s where I do my commentating and analyzing.
The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have used the people they claim to speak for to boost their personal profile and bank accounts, earning the deserved title of “poverty pimps” from former congressman J.C. Watts, a Black Republican from Oklahoma. Let’s be honest, what have Black people gained as a result of Imus getting canceled from MSNBC and fired from CBS Radio in 2007? More importantly, where were these two gentleman in 1997 when Imus admitted that he hired his producer, Bernard McGirk , because he told great “nigger jokes” on 60 Minutes?
So I took some time to compile some possible reasons why some people believe that I am allegedly hard on Black people and Black “leaders”…
1. I believe that the Black leaders who have been elected to the legislature, particularly from predominately Black districts or the inner city, have not done anything to improve schools in their area nor do they want to see students succeed.
Example: Why no one in Baltimore City has called out the legislative leadership in is beyond me. Yes there has been small improvement in city schools, but it should have happened years sooner. Right now, it is as if elected officials are getting a pass on something where they should have been held accountable. This especially after delaying the state from taking over some of the city’s worse schools for a year, long enough for things to be swept under the rug following a gubernatorial election in which the mayor of Baltimore at that time became Governor.
Then in DC, President Barack Obama (D) took school choice away from parents by shutting down the school voucher program. If parents understood vouchers and how they could benefit their child, you would see a loud outcry equal to the recent dismissal of DC Public School teachers for budget purposes (don’t get me wrong, DCPS dropped the ball in firing school teachers one month into the new school year.)
2. I believe that the Black leaders who have been elected to the legislature, particularly from predominately Black districts or the inner city, have not done anything to improve their neighborhoods in general.
At some point in time, one has to realize that everything is not whitey’s fault. The overall disregard of personal responsibility is shameful. According to the current climate of said leaders, crime, broken homes, single mom homes and bad schools are the fault of Republicans who want to take money away from those communities that are poor and keep it in the rich communities. For one that is hogwash and if I can borrow a quote from Angela McGlowan’s book “Bamboozled…,” Uncle Sam is not your baby’s daddy. In addition, last time I checked, Democrats represented more affluent areas than Republicans.
Instead of encouraging kids to go to school and work hard, they are encouraged to go to the government for help and not try to work for anything. Instead of encouraging a mom and dad to get married after conceiving a baby out of wedlock, the mom is encouraged to take the dad to court (or Maury) and embarrass him.
Overall, the promise of Uncle Sam handing you the American dream on a silver platter without working for it is a lie. These self-appointed Black leaders these days are not teaching Black people how to fish. They are teaching them to beg and they are not prospering any more than before.
Regardless what skin tone or race you are, handouts only last for so long. Fishing for yourself guarantees that the wealth and prosperity will continue.
3. I do not believe everything is a racial incident.
One person literally told me that she felt sorry for me because I could not see the Dr. Henry Gates incident in Boston as a racial incident. Keep in mind, I have heard all sorts bad things about New Englanders and race relations, but for some reason, I could not see this as a racial incident. The following video shows why I never rush to drop the R-word at anytime.
If you remember the 911 audio, race did not come into question until the operator asked about it well into the phone call.
Jena 6 was another black eye. You didn’t hear about the fact that none of the Black residents in Jena, La. didn’t show up for jury duty, or that the black U.S. Attorney in Louisiana concluded that the six Black students beating the crap out of the White kid were not related to the nooses being hung from the “Whites-only” tree. If you read a column by Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star, you would have known such facts.
I think we have gotten to a point where calling someone racist no longer means anything. With the term racism being tossed around as if it was cotton candy, real incidents involving actual racism is being bastardized (I’m using this word properly, look it up in a dictionary.)
The insulting part is that the party that is now claiming the civil rights legacy with zippy credentials is the very party that instituted those racist institutions and policies. Another insulting part (intellectually speaking) is that the very people who loudly claim not to be racist, are the very ones who are racist and/or will throw that race card out there. All the while, they are being hypocritical .
Yes racism still exists in America and there are racist Republicans AND DEMOCRATS. However, we as Black people need to say that ALL RACISM IS WRONG. It should not be a, “I don’t agree with them, so I’m not going to speak out for them” thing. Anyone who is willing to be a hypocrite when it comes to racism is a racist themselves.
4. I ALLEGEDLY question Black leaders harder than White leaders.
First of all, this is far from the truth. It is utter bullcrap. If anyone truly knows me, they will know that I am an equal opportunity offender. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I will ask questions based on what is being said by the person who is speaking. Its the appearance that I question Black leaders harder than White ones because Black leaders who run for office specifically makes promises to improve the Black community. I don’t know about you, but I am getting pretty sick and tired of these guys promising stuff and not delivering. This probably explains why I don’t put a lot of stock in politicians because they are human and they can only do so much.
In the large scheme of things, the bigger the promise, the bigger the questions I am going to ask. You can see why I am so skeptical of Mr. Obama, especially since more than one person believe that he will wave a magic wand and everything will be paid for. I have to admit, I love the most common defense of him, “give him time.” The reality is that he does not have that much time, he has four years, plus the way he is going about his task, the national deficit is now his own. Not that I was a fan of President Bush spending us into a deficit, but it was nowhere nearly as much as Mr. Obama.
That last paragraph mostly leads to…
5. I do not vote for Black people solely for being Black.
Let’s get this out of the way, I did not vote for President Obama, I openly said that I would not vote for President Obama and I am openly critical of President Obama. Since when has it been required of me and my Blackness to vote Democrat all of the time and vote for the Black candidates all of the time. If that is law, when did The Secret Order of the Society of Black People sneak that one through congress? If that was the case, Michael Steele should have won in Baltimore City and Prince George’s County, Maryland. Not everything that is Black is good for Black people. We should have learned that when the BET Awards did what they called a show dedicated to Michael Jackson.
Going back to my first two points, if these Black politicians that are getting re-elected over and over again were doing a stellar job in the community, why are the schools crappy and crime out of control? Prince George’s County is the wealthiest Black county in the country, why do the schools suck? It cannot be a money issue, because they have plenty of that going around as we learned last year when there was an attempt to add a telephone tax.
We as Black people need to start questioning these leaders and start holding them accountable. We need to stop giving them a pass because they are Black.
In conclusion…
If wanting to hold everyone accountable on the same level, not rushing to brand someone a racist, wanting to work for prosperity, wanting no pity from the government, believing in God and wanting criminals punished puts me as not caring about Black people. Then your right, I don’t care about Black people. As Eminem says, I am whatever you say I am.
In Wall Street Journal feature story style, I would like to go back to the aforementioned Doni Glover, who ended his non-nonsensical diatribe by saying:
Get to the library brother. You are long overdue for a visit.
Well, I did Doni. Based on what I read so far, not only am I not going to play the exploitation race baiting game that you do every week on WOLB, but I believe that you care more about green than Black.
…and pop goes the Kenny.
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