I think the time is right for conservatives to reach out to the Black community.

Why? Just because they are Black?

That’s the Dem game plan, not ours.

It is the judical system that is the reason that young, black men use drugs and commit crime. Heaven forbid that they would personally be responsible for their actions.

Whites use powder cocaine and blacks use crack?

The rich (anyone not living in the inner city) are a problem for the federal government and must be dealt with.

The health care industry (destroyed by Edwards and his type) are responsible for every evil that is not covered by whites or people trying to improve themselves.

The federal government can cure every problem. Except Katrina, terrorism, etc.

No mention of this anywhere on C.N.N.’s Front page, or even their Politics main page.

Scandals only happen when it’s a Republican involved.

If Fred Thompson had said the very same thing, they’d be attacking him in all phases of the press. Top of the hour newscasts, professional “activists” and “advocates” on every show denouncing the comments as rascist. Sunday shows would be devoting panel discussions to Republican rascism and the plight of poor,”unfortunate”, black youths that are rounded up in the streets for no reason and hearded into prison.

By Monday there would be marches, rallies and calls for Fred’s dropping out of the race for President.

Edwards? He was probably misquoted.

A bit of history is needed here.

Civil War era black activist Fredrick Douglass was a Republican.

Republicans were the party that really made slavery illegal. Not the Democrats, the southern Democrats were in rebellion.

When Lincoln was elected, the south was overwhelmingly Democratic and he didn’t get a single electorial college vote from what became the Confederacy.

The Confederacy was born from the southern Democrats via succession. These Democrats became the political leaders of the Confederacy.

And through the 1960′s and early 70′s, it was the Republicans that championed civil rights for blacks, while the Democrats did everything they could to oppose civil rights.

It was Republicans, who in the early 20th Century pushed for Civil Rights for blacks by submitting legislation. The Republicans submitted over 30 civil rights bills in the decades before the 1960s. It was the Democrats that always killed them.

When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was being considered in Congress, the vast majority of Republicans supported it, while Democrats, again, did everything in their power to kill it.

It took a CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN Senator, Evertt Dirksen of Illinois, who was Senate Minority Leader, to orchestrate the strategy to DEFEAT the Democrat’s filibuster, preventing it having a vote. When it was voted, it was overwhelming passed in the House, but in the Senate, only one Republican voted against it, and so did all Sourthern Democrats.

Why blacks vote for the party that wanted to keep them enslaved, that worked unceasingly to oppose civil rights, and who invented “Jim Crow” and the KKK, I’ll never know. Are they so ignorant of history, that they accept these patronizing, insulting, remarks by Edwards without backlash?

Why aren’t they boiling mad?

On September 28th, 2007 at 6:42 pm, josetheguerilla said:
The idea that we’re going to keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating – pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African American male population in America – they’re all gonna be in prison or dead.

That’s an ignorant rant. More African Americans are in college than in prison. “We can not build enough prisons to solve this problem” part is outright racist!!!!!!!!!!!!

On September 28th, 2007 at 8:08 pm, SteveG said:
If we continue the present course ALL black males will be dead or incarcerated?
What about all the vast majority of black males who are living honest, decent, productive lives?

In response, I believe he’s talking about the African American MALE population.

The data seems to be conflicting:

According to government figures, more than twice as many young black men are now attending college than are imprisoned.

A number of studies, including one by the Justice Policy Institute, which advocates alternatives to incarceration, have pointed out that over all, more black men are in prison than are enrolled in colleges and universities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27census.html?ref=us

Either way, I think we all should agree more of an effort must be made for African American men to be prepared and have the opportunity to succeed in college, should they wish to do so. If we do not, there becomes a greater opportunity that they might become caught up in other activites that could lead to trouble.

Sen. Edwards was overdramatic in his statement and did exagerate his claim. If it came across the wrong way, he should apologize and clarify what he meant. But for the most part, I felt he was simply saying that the path of all-too-many African American males in this country must be address in order to benefit society at large.

So here’s what I gathered his position to be:

1) Stop building prisons–okay we’ll do that, then you can complain about prison overcrowding.

2)Improve the educational system–teacher incentives, eh? that’s fine, but how do you judge success? It can’t be through standardized testing, since you’ve rejected No Child Left Behind and said it teaches to the test. So what’s your measure? Some how I get the feeling that it’ll have to do with experience?

3) Universal health care–how will this help?

4) Universal early education–that’s right, indoctrinate them from as early as possible. I don’t have a problem with Head Start per say, but the evaluations on the effectiveness of the program suffer from serious selection bias problems.

5) Change the drug code–so if you sell crack to children it’s less of an offense?

6) make an education system that’s fair for the inner cities –Guess what? Half the problem is bad parenting from people who don’t know how to raise children. And who’s going to fix the problem? The teachers union? HAH! Vouchers may not be the sole answer, but at least it’s a start. But wait, you’re against those.

7)More probation officers-Fine, more people in government, just what we need. How about contracting it out and creating incentives for probation officers who prevent recidivism?

8)Help ex-offenders get jobs—Fine, but if a business is getting taxed out the wazoo, they”re not likely to take on a risky employee, even if they do get a tax credit.

9) Educate ex-offenders–explain to me why we shouldn’t do that while they’re in prison and are a captive audience?

No mention of reforming HUD or the Public Housing Administration (FYI it’s taken my company 5 years to acquire vacant, boarded up PHA property), no mention of increased police presence in high crime areas, no mention of vouchers, no mention of faith based after school programs (the only one’s that are in these areas), and no mention of incentivising CDBG or HOME funds to make sure that they’re used properly.

Kudos Mr Pony, you’ve solved nothing and made me spend a lot more to do it.

Maybe this guy’s a visionary after all.

1) Black kids are incapable of NOT being criminals unless they are educated out of it by a White Man (oh, what a Burden).

2) All “inner city kids” (which is who the girl is asking about) are black (which is who he winds up talking about).

3) The entirety of the “young African American population of America” lives in the “inner city” or “poor rural areas.” Why else would he say that we were’t going to have a yAAp in America and then only concentrate his remarks on the inner city? I realize that her question was about inner city kids, but he broadened the answer to cover the entire yAAp in America and then just talked about the inner city.

Correct me if I’m wrong but Edwards seems to belive that all blacks in America live in the inner city and are criminal by nature.

If we continue the present course ALL black males will be dead or incarcerated?
What about all the vast majority of black males who are living honest, decent, productive lives?

Edwards assumes that the “MAN” bogeyman will grab the educated, the decent, the hard working, the church going or all of the above blacks and throw them in jail or kill them… or he alternatively (or concurrently) assumes that all black males have this propensity for violence and a culture of death and imprisonment that is inevitable.

I think Edwards tried to play “the MAN is gonna beat you down” card and muffed it up in a fit of hyperbole.
That is what he gets for being a intellectually dishonest, race card playing fluff piece.

Edwards did better than Obama would of, because Obama isn’t black in the classic American description of the word. He counts as black in any diversity calc, but he has to ask his wife what it all means…

By the way, Bill Cosby has been hammered for way less than that