While making my client rounds this morning, I happened to tune into Jonathan Weir’s talk radio program on Kansas City’s KMBZ-FM. Like everyone else on talk radio, Mr. Weir was discussing the Ferguson grand jury decision and the fallout.

I hadn’t heard any of the previous calls, but when Weir accepted a call from an African-American man who identified himself as “Cochise,” I was astounded at what I heard. “Cochise” called into the program with the premise that blacks have not made any progress in the United States for the past 50 years.

Weir was flabbergasted as well. He started by informing Cochise that black home ownership is now at 50%.

Doesn’t matter, replied Cochise. Home ownership wasn’t important to him personally, therefore that didn’t count as proof.

Oh, okay.

Weir continued with the statement that blacks now make 59% as much as whites, and while this is certainly not parity, it’s an enormous improvement over rates of the mid-20th century, he said.

Cochise countered that the rates should be equivalent.

Weir then asked Cochise about the election of the first black President, the first black Attorney General, the fact that the mayor and police chief of Kansas City are both black — whereupon Cochise asked why blacks hadn’t achieved high office immediately after gaining their freedom. In his view, because blacks are not at the status where he thinks they should be, they have made no progress. 

Is it just me, or do any of you think that such beliefs are an insult to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, or to  modern-day achievers such as Dr. Ben Carson?

Yes, bigotry towards our fellow black citizens continues to exist, and yes, from civil authorities. Erick Erickson at Red State wrote a poignant blog post on the aftermath of the Ferguson riots, noting that police abuse does occur:

“Too many law and order conservatives want to ignore the police abuse as libertarian or left-wing whining about law and order. But there are too many numerous incidents to think there is not a problem. I know of more than one black minister pulled over randomly by police. I have had more than one friend pulled over randomly and the only common denominator is that they are not white. None were charged with crimes, but all were treated as if they were guilty of something.”

I also know that this does exist. My son-in-law was pulled over in Texas for driving while Latino.

The event happened several years ago. Nick is a Naval officer, born in the US to naturalized citizens from Nicaragua and Colombia. He and our daughter were moving cross-country from San Diego to their new station in South Carolina. Apparently his driving close to the Texas-Mexico border in a loaded-down Mini-Cooper with out-of-state plates, a dog, and an Anglo wife appeared suspicious to a Texas state trooper. He was pulled over and asked for identification. After that he decided to don the ball cap from his last ship to ward off future suspicion.

So, no, police aren’t saints. No doubt they need to improve in their judgments, and the bad apples in various cities need to be removed. Bigotry will always exist because people are imperfect sinners, but I submit to you that Americans are a people who are typically open and amenable.

In the mid-19th century, when anti-Irish sentiment was at its peak, who would’ve thought that John F. Kennedy, with his Catholicism and Irish roots, would become President? In the mid-20th century, who would’ve thought that Barack Obama — even though he is not our favorite President here at Victory Girls; indeed, far from it — would become the first black President?

African-Americans have a long way to go, and in my opinion an important first step would be to stop adhering to the words of race-baiters like Al Sharpton. But to say they have made no progress in the past 50 years is, well, pure crap.