Black Success Matters

Deroy Murdock / May 07, 2021

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the entire left seem monomaniacal about systemic racism. In their minds, 1958 never ended, and Bull Connor’s Birmingham, Alabama, stretches from coast to coast.

Addressing a joint session of Congress on April 28, Biden said that “with the plans outlined tonight, we have a real chance to root out systemic racism that plagues America and American lives.” On Feb. 17, Biden told a CNN town hall: “I think we have to deal with systemic racism that exists throughout society.”

For her part, Harris said last month, “America has a long history of systemic racism.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., suggests “tackling systemic racism by reducing pollution.”

Hmmmmm.

Are there racists in America?

Yes.

So long as any hue distinguishes one American from another, some lighter people (and some darker folks, too) will consider themselves superior.

But it’s past time for the Democrat left to concede that, amid ample historical pain, Americans have labored mightily to dismantle slavery, segregation, and truly systemic racism.

Meanwhile, myriad blacks have let none of this derail their dreams.

This entire, rancorous debate should refocus on three words:

Black Success Matters.

Blacks have thrived in America for centuries. This fact confirms black power, perseverance, and promise. These truths stand 180 degrees opposite Black Lives Matter and critical race theory. These secular religions preach black helplessness and permanent victim status due to ubiquitous white privilege and omnipotent white supremacy.

What a volcano of rubbish.

As I recently detailed, reputedly insurmountable racism holistically failed to stop blacks today from controlling 54 seats in Congress, six House committee chairmanships, 140 federal judgeships, a Supreme Court seat, the Pentagon, the vice presidency, and—between 2000 and 2016—eight years each of bipartisan black leadership atop the Justice Department, State Department, and White House.

Blacks also have succeeded in the private sector, since Republican Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, crushed the Democrat-run Confederacy, and terminated slavery.

• Booker T. Washington penned “Up from Slavery,” founded the Tuskegee Institute, lectured widely, and in 1901, became the White House’s first black dinner guest—courtesy of Republican President Theodore Roosevelt.
• Madam C.J. Walker became a self-made millionaire via black haircare products, circa 1910.
• Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington pioneered jazz in the 1920s. Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and other legends followed.
• Detroit auto worker Berry Gordy borrowed $800 ($7,300 today) from his family in 1959 and nurtured it into Motown Records.
• More recently, black CEOs have included Kenneth Chenault of American Express, Kenneth Frazier of Merck, and Richard Parsons of Citigroup and Time Warner.
• E. Stanley O’Neal’s grandfather was born into slavery. Just two generations later, O’Neal became CEO of Merrill Lynch in 2002.
• “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt, Black Entertainment Television CEO Robert Johnson, and Oprah are sterling broadcasters.
• Kay C. James is president of Washington, D.C.’s conservative Heritage Foundation (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation) and Condoleezza Rice is president of Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution.
• Neil deGrasse Tyson is America’s highest-profile astrophysicist.
• Hundreds of blacks soar like rockets as actors, athletes, and authors.
• Blacks manage charities, hospitals, schools, and millions of private enterprises across America.
• Meanwhile, tens of millions of other black people may not run anything, but they work hard, get ahead, and support themselves, their families, friends, and loved ones. They obey the law and are some of this country’s finest citizens.

How do these black Americans and so many more flourish in a “systemically racist” nation? Wouldn’t such a racist system reserve such riches for whites, deny them to blacks, and stomp on uppity blacks who forget their place?

That system was buried in 1964—57 years ago. And the Democrat left must stop unearthing Jim Crow’s ghost to tell blacks: “No, you can’t.”

The left foments racial strife, to rip this republic to pieces. This is the only thing the Democrat Party still does well.

Instead, Americans should celebrate and cultivate black success, because Black Success Matters.

Bucknell University’s Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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