Quote Of The Day...

I spotted this quote on Bossip not too long ago, and it really made me think. There are many Black intellectuals that were not shocked at all by Obama's election and victory, and they claim that Black America uses race as a crutch and focus way too much on race as a barrier in America. I personally believe it's defeatist to just give up on trying because you think you are "doomed" because of your race. Sure, racism exists in America, but so do successful Black people. And no, they are not all Uncle Tom's, and no, they are not all trust-fund babies. Some people just rose to the occassion, fought the good fight and made things happen. Scholar John McWhorter had the following to say on the subject:

Obama has come in for some criticism for not putting forth a “black” agenda—i.e., one designed to combat “racism” in various ways. It’s because he knows that paradigm has no useful application to our times.
The harsher penalization of crack than powdered cocaine that has put so many black people in jail needs revision, but it was not created by racists: The Congressional Black Caucus helped pass it. Newark’s schools are not failing because of racism, when New Jersey funds them as liberally as schools in the suburbs and most of the teachers and staff are black. America has problems and our new president knows it. However, is America’s main problem still “the color line” as W.E.B. DuBois put it 105 years ago? The very fact that the president is now black is a clear sign that it is no longer our main problem, and that we can, even as morally informed and socially concerned citizens, admit it.
There is nothing at all “unreal” about this. It is, after all, what we were supposed to be working toward. We must embrace it.

Things that make you go: "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm".