Koran Arrives. Months ago I contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to request a free Koran. I had heard some news report that CAIR was offering free Korans to Americans, and thought that a great idea. So I put in my request and got a notice that they had run out and it would be awhile before they got in a new supply. Good sign — lots of people want to see for themselves what the Koran does and does not say.
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After several months, my Koran finally arrived at the beginning of this week. It's a big book (11.5" x 8.5" x 2.25"), made in Britain in quite a beautiful edition that contains some Arabic text on most pages, in both Arabic script and romanic transliteration. In looking to see if it uses British spellings (which offend me), I chanced to open to a reference to Christians, in Surah 5, that seems at first reading, out of context, to deny the godhood of Jesus. I believe Jesus is regarded as a prophet, or Apostle, by Islam, but I'll have to read the entire Surah to get a clearer idea. Since there are different areas of the Koran that refer to Jesus, all of them have to be considered before one can make a final conclusion. There are 1,040 pages in this edition, so it will take a long time to get thru it.
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Actually, this book is called The Message of the Quran rather than simply The Quran (I'm not sure how that should be pronounced, so will continue to use the English, "Koran"). I assume that is because Islam says that only the Arabic version is authentic; translation risks error, so this is only a best guess at what the Arabic means. I don't read Arabic, so must rely on the carefulness of translators. What I will not rely upon, however, is the interpretations put into the many footnotes. I can read English. If the actual words don't say what the notes say they say, I will judge for myself which is valid.
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Projecting Racism Onto Others. As I am writing this, I have Oprah on in the background, and today's show deals with two middle-class families, one white, one black, posing as the "opposite race" thru prosthetics and makeup. The black family retains its hideous chip on the shoulder wherever they go, and dare to say that the white family, which does not experience racist discrimination when in black mode, is just not seeing the truth. No. The black people are distorting everything, even in whiteface. Nothing white people can do will change the preconception of those particular black people that white society is antiblack. Even when the white guy made up as black gets excellent service and no attitude, and reports that, the black father effectively calls him a dumbass or liar for not seeing the racism. What a load of crap.
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I suspect the truth is that those blacks are projecting onto white people the contempt they feel for their own race. The fault is not in whites but in the people who see racism everywhere. To them, racism is everywhere — because they carry it around inside them.
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What people in service occupations detect, and which may affect service, is a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, and the black family on Oprah today has one the size of the Titanic.
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They became indignant about a conversation in which the white guy made up to be black uses the word "nigga" as (other) blacks use it, in an all-black context. The actual-black father insists that the white father not do that again, even tho the word "nigga" is uttered endlessly among blacks. I live in a predominantly black neighborhood. I see black TV. I've ridden the bus on innumerable occasions surrounded by blacks talking among themselves. Cut the crap! "Nigga" is one of the most commonly uttered words in black conversation among people not "boozhy" (bourgeois), and everybody knows it. So well understood is this that the entry for "nigga" at The Urban Dictionary says:

Nigga is a word which evolved from the derogative term "nigger". Tupac best defined the distinction between the two.

NIGGER- a black man with a slavery chain around his neck.

NIGGA- a black man with a gold chain on his neck.

Whom do the blacks on Oprah think they're fooling?
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Another filmed conversation, with a white woman who says that blacks take pride in being dumb, also elicits indignation. Oh? Why is it that smart black kids who pay attention in school are attacked by blacks as 'trying to be white'? Why does black music insist on bad grammar in preference to good, even tho the writers know full well how to write perfect English? Why does the black subculture insist on affecting an accent, so their race can be discerned even over the telephone? Why is the white high school dropout rate 7% but the black rate 12%? In some urban districts, dropout rates among black males are over 50%!

An analysis of graduation data by Johns Hopkins researcher Robert Balfanz for The Star Editorial Board reveals that high schools in four Marion County township districts are as much dropout factories -- graduating less than 50 percent of black males -- as those in [Indianapolis public schools].

Surely that demonstrates an absolute lack of respect for education and intelligence. Doesn't that equate with taking pride in being dumb?
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Did white people force black males to drop out of school? No, they most assuredly did not. White culture doesn't make fun of intelligence and effectively say that real blacks do badly in school, that school is uncool and the street is the place to be.
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White people are getting very tired of being told that blacks are blameless victims of white monstrousness. We can build schools, but we can't keep blacks going to them. Compulsory education lasts only to age 16. Could we enforce compulsory education thru to graduation? I doubt it.
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So stop blaming whitey. We have between little and nothing to do with black failure, and we're not accepting excuses anymore. Keep the blame where it belongs: with a subculture that praises ignorance, stupidity, and criminality. That's not the majority culture. That's not the culture of the black middle class, which is doing fine in this society despite "racism". That's the culture of poverty. Anyone who clings to that culture deserves failure, and is practically guaranteed to achieve it.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,274.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:13 PM