The soft bigotry of low expectations

While Jesse Jackson tosses around the forbidden word and threatens Obama’s gentalia, there many more important leaders in the Black community who are saying much more important things – things like educating Black youths. At the NAACP convention yesterday, John McCain chose to speak to the membership about just that (Washington Times editorial);

Sen. John McCain, who spoke Wednesday, chose a mostly educational theme. This was an issue at the time of the civil-rights movement that demanded educational opportunity and access for all. Today, students have achieved equal access to be replaced with an inexcusable achievement gap afflicting mostly poor black children. As Mr. McCain pointed out: “What is the value of access to a failing school?”

Many conservatives, from President Bush to Condoleezza Rice, Rod Paige and Colin Powell, have argued that the glaring disparity in black and white educational achievement is this nation’s present-day “civil rights” issue and that our challenge is to overcome “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

But the NAACP and Barack Obama have a vested interest in keeping Black children uneducated. As long as the children remain low performers, Obama and the NAACP can point to bigotry, they can blame there’s not enough money being spent by the government on Black children. The last time I checked, the District of Columbia spent $12,000/year educating a child and they’re churning out illiterate kids – so money really can’t be the problem.

Both the NAACP and Barack Obama oppose vouchers, but according to the Washington Times 7,000 families in the District of Columbia have applied for DC Opportunity Scholarships (the equivalent of vouchers) this year.

Because Obama and the NAACP have bound themselves up with the teachers’ unions, they refuse to see what DC parents see – the politics of education are destroying the future of our children. The disparity in education leads to an economic disparity, but Obama and the others on the Left are perfectly comfortable allowing that disparity to deepen for short term political gain.

As always, the answer from the Left will be to throw more money at the problem. That’s not the new politics we hear about from Barack Obama. That’s not hope, it’s not change…it’s the failed politics of the past.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, John McCain/Sarah Palin, Politics