The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, Keith Olbermann and others would have us believe that Black men in America have an exclusive claim on suffering, one that seems to be based primarily on being snubbed by taxi drivers.
Here’s a statistic or two for consideration:
Based on the numbers in 2000, approximately 1/3 of the male prison population was Black, or 791,600 out of 2.1 million.
Assuming that Black Americans are 12% of the population, the number of Black male prisoners was/is roughly 3 times the norm.
Obviously, that’s a lousy statistic, but there are other demographic groups who are over-represented in prison – and by far greater ratios than this. And some of these demographic groups don’t have anyone, let alone hoardes of high-visibility spokespersons and politicians, to make the public even dimly aware of their plight.
There are no statistics on adult prisoners who are adoptees, but consider the following:
According to the book Chosen Children by Lori Carangelo, twenty-five to 35% of the youth in residential treatment centers are adopted. Based on the percentage of adoptees in the general population (2-3%), that’s 12 to 17 times the norm.
Let’s recap that: not 3 times, like the Black male prison population, or even 5 times or 10 times. Twelve to 17 times the norm.
At California-based psychiatric treatment facility Coldwater Canyon Center, 60-85% are adopted – 30 to 40 times the norm.
Besides the obvious trauma suffered by adoptees, including physical and sexual abuse, there is evidence to suggest that a baby’s body produces abnormally high levels of the stress hormone cortisole if the child is separated from its mother. This can cause the type of brain damage that has serious long-term consequences.
I think that trumps not being able to hail a cab.
My point is not to play one-upsmanship games with anyone, but to point out the absurdity of this mess created by a manipulative, nasty old demagogue and his Far Left apologists.
Billions of dollars and probably billions of hours have been invested in trying to correct the obvious wrongs done to Black Americans. Maybe some of that investment has been misguided or inefficient, but the fact that the Obama family lives in a million dollar home and has a combined income in the comfortable 6 figures is proof that at least some African Americans have been able to succeed in the 21st century.
That kind of measurable, demonstrable success is, I submit, the product of hard work, not bitter rhetoric.
It took hard work for Obama to be elected the president of the Harvard Law Review, but a host of other people worked equally hard to raise funds for the scholarship programs that paid for his education at the exclusive Punahou School in Hawaii and the two Ivys, Columbia and Harvard.
And it wouldn’t kill either Wright or Obama to acknowledge that obvious fact and to show a modium of humility and gratitude in the process.