Robert Woodson and The Woodson Center
I saw Robert Woodson briefly on Mark Levin’s show, and the work he’s doing at the Woodson Center seemed impressive. So I’m calling your attention to the Center’s website. From the “about us” description:
Low-income individuals and neighborhood-based organizations should play a central role in the design and implementation of programs to address the problems of their communities.
An effective approach to societal problems must be driven by the same principles that function in the market economy, recognizing the importance of competition, entrepreneurship, cost efficiency, and an expectation of return on investment.
Value-generating and faith-based initiatives are uniquely qualified to address problems of poverty that are related to behavior and life choices.
The main focus of the center is youth violence intervention and prevention in inner cities. I don’t know much more about the Center except for what Woodson said, and what I’ve read on the website. But it seems like they’re doing worthwhile work, and there’s no question that it’s needed work.
Here’s Woodson’s Wiki page, and this is what he has to say about the genesis of something he calls the 1776 Unites campaign:
In February 2020, The Woodson Center launched the 1776 Unites campaign, with the support of scholars, journalists, and entrepreneurs like Carol Swain, Glenn Loury, John Sibley Butler, Clarence Page, Wilfred Reilly, Robert Cherry, and Coleman Hughes, among others. Woodson has stated that his central motivation in founding 1776 Unites was to counter the “lethal” narratives embedded in The 1619 Project. “This garbage that is coming down from the scholars and writers from 1619 is most hypocritical because they don’t live in communities [that are] suffering,” he said. In an interview with Fox News host Mark Levin, Woodson called The 1619 Project’s thesis “one of the most diabolical, self-destructive ideas that I’ve ever heard”. He argued that the assumptions behind The 1619 Project are actually a form of “white supremacy” as they are predicated on black Americans having no agency and being incapable of overcoming adverse circumstances.
Woodson is exactly the sort of black leader who should be celebrated for his good sense and his efforts, over many decades, to encourage just what is needed in poor black neighborhoods (faith, intact families, a culture of valuing education, honest labor, and personal responsibility), but he is (quelle surprise!) far less influential than the ghastly rogues’ gallery of race-baiting charlatans and race-hustling grifters (Kendi, Sharpton, Coates, etc) who dominate the discussion of racial issues in the MSM, much to their own grotesque enrichment and to the detriment of poor blacks. Levin’s new book (American Marxism, available today) looks to be very good indeed, and it seems to be covering all the most important elements in the Gramscian “Long March”, from the Frankfurt School, to the SDS and the New Left, to the academic/legal corruption spawned by Bell and Crenshaw, to Cloward-Piven, as well as today’s BLM and “woke” activism.
I still am puzzled why the author of the 1619 Project, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other leftist black “leaders” have not been given Honorary Grand Klaxon awards from the KKK.
These “leaders” have done far more to destroy black families and encourage mayhem and violence and murders within black communities – thru the policies they promote – than the KKK was ever able to accomplish.
It’s no surprise of course, that these black “leaders” live nowhere near their “bros and sistas” they proclaim to be helping.
As long as the majority of blacks keep voting in those – white or black – who promote policies that harm black families and oppose school choice, the situation will never improve.
“ As long as the majority of blacks keep voting in those – white or black – who promote policies that harm black families and oppose school choice, the situation will never improve.”
What makes you think that they actually vote? I’d bet that their “ votes” are fraudulently provided by the local political machine to keep itself in power and money. How do you think Biden got so many votes in the slums run by the Democrats, the votes in Atlanta, Philly, Detroit, and Minneapolis that tilted the swing states?
The main focus of the center is youth violence intervention and prevention in inner cities.
which would be nice to act upon, but they broke up black families way before the feminist movement broke up others, and progressive slammed a wedge between it… how you going to fix the problem when the number one cause of the condition of the problem is off limits?
In 2019 only 30% of African Americans were married compared to 48% of all Americans. Half or 50% of African Americans have never been married compared to 34% of all Americans.
in 2019 just under half or 48% of black women had never been married which is up from 44% in 2008 and 42.7% in 2005
in 2017 only 15% percent of Black men were married to non-Black women which is up from 11% in 2010. About three-fifths of those non-Black women were White. So there is evidence of an increase of Black men “marrying out” of their racial demographic. As a matter of fact the Pew Research Center released a report finding that 25% of Black male newlyweds in 2013 married non-Black women compared to 12% of Black women who “married out”. However Asian women and Native Americans still have higher rates of interracial marriage. Black women were the least likely to marry non-Black men at only 7% in 2017, and only 4/% were married to White men.
They found that African Americans age 35 and older were more likely to be married than White Americans from 1890 until sometime around the 1960s. Not only did they swap places during the 60s but in 1980 the number of NEVER married African Americans began a staggering climb from about 10% to more than 25% by 2010
[snip]
The third chart illustrates how closely the marriage graph for Black men aligns with the incarceration numbers which also experienced an abnormal climb beginning in 1980. This does not prove causation however it shows that they are related due to the assumption that men in prison are less likely to marry.
Percentage of households led by a single mother with children under age 18 living in the household in the U.S. in 2018, by state*
https://www.statista.com/statistics/242302/percentage-of-single-mother-households-in-the-us-by-state/
Number of Black families with a single mother in the United States from 1990 to 2019 (in 1,000s)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/205106/number-of-black-families-with-a-female-householder-in-the-us/
and for fun [there are a lot of DINKs out there]
Number of families in the United States by number of children under 18 living in the household from 2000 to 2020
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183790/number-of-families-in-the-us-by-number-of-children/
Artfldgr has the right of it.
They have the cart before the horse.
Apprehend the criminals. Quick decisive trials.
Reinstate the death penalty. That removes reoffending by the worst.
First you stop the bleeding. A big part of the bleeding is the machinations of the left and bleeding heart, virtue signaling liberals. Its a cancer and there’s no alternative to cutting that cancer out of the body. That cancer is killing the body politic.
“But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.” ? Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Then we can work on the underlying issues; fatherlessness, rejection of personal responsibility, etc.
Equality of opportunity for those willing to work for it not equality of results, which is an impossibility.
}}} Low-income individuals and neighborhood-based organizations should play a central role in the design and implementation of programs to address the problems of their communities.
So, what’s happening is, someone is re-inventing the Mutual Aid Society:
From Mutual Aid to Welfare State: How Fraternal Societies Fought Poverty and Taught Character
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/mutual-aid-welfare-state-how-fraternal-societies-fought-poverty-and-taught
Mutual aid was one of the cornerstones of social welfare in the United States until the early 20th century. The fraternal society was a leading example. The statistical record of fraternalism was impressive. A conservative estimate is that one-third of adult American males belonged to lodges in 1910. A fraternal analogue existed for virtually every major service of the modern welfare state including orphanages, hospitals, job exchanges, homes for the elderly, and scholarship programs.
But societies also gave benefits that were much less quantifiable. By joining a lodge, an initiate adopted, at least implicitly, a set of survival values.
…(snip)…
“with the support of scholars, journalists, and entrepreneurs like Carol Swain, Glenn Loury, John Sibley Butler, Clarence Page, Wilfred Reilly, Robert Cherry, and Coleman Hughes, among others”
I’m not well informed about Black leadership but Page and Loury at the least would be on my “traditional liberal Dem” list. Not so awful as Crump or Sharpton but surprising to see here.
@ Jim – They have to start at the right-most edge of the far-Left Overton window to get it moved back toward the center.