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Carol Swain, civil rights movement, Founding Fathers, George Washington, racism, reparations, systemic racism, Thomas Jefferson, white privilege
The article that follows was sent by a friend and fellow author. It’s by Carol Swain. Who is Carol Swain? Well, she’s my age, born the same month. The header image is from her Facebook page. You can Duck Duck Go her–I don’t do Google–for additional information. We’ll let her tell her story.
WHAT I CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT RACISM
By Carol Swain
Let me tell you how my story ends: I become a tenured, award-winning professor of political science at an Ivy League university, and then at one of the leading universities in the South [she’s now retired].
Now let me tell you how my story begins: I grow up in rural Virginia, literally dirt poor. I drop out of school in the eighth grade and have three children by the time I’m 20.I consider myself to be a reasonably modest person, but even I have to admit that’s quite a journey.
How did I do it?I worked hard. Not crazy, 24/7 hard—just hard. I made good decisions. Not brilliant, three-dimensional-chess decisions—just good ones. I met people along the way who helped me and sincerely wanted to see me succeed—not because they had something to gain, but because they were decent people. Almost all of these individuals, by the way, were white.
Oh man, if she were still a professor, the woke and anti-racist would be trying to lynch her. You’ve noticed Dr. Swain is Black?
But mostly, I think I was blessed in one crucial way: I was born in America, a true land of opportunity for anyone of any color or background. In this country, where you start your life does not determine where you end up.
That works in both directions, by the way. You can start out with every advantage and waste them all. Or you can start out with nothing and become a success. It all depends on you. Your attitude is far more important than your race, gender, or social class in determining what you will accomplish in life.
Swain is right, but she’s only saying what all thoughtful Americans know. I always taught my students they won the lottery by being born American, and those who came to America and became Americans did too. If I had a dollar for everyone I saw who had every advantage—or at the very least nothing keeping them from succeeding, and threw it all away… If you believe you can’t, if you believe unidentifiable “others” are keeping you from success, you’re right.
How not to do it
When I hear young blacks—or anyone, for that matter—talk about systemic racism, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I want to laugh because it’s such nonsense. I want to cry because I know it’s pushing untold numbers of young blacks into a dead end of self-pity and despair. Instead of seizing the amazing opportunities America offers them, they seize an excuse to explain why they’re not succeeding.
I was born into a world where systemic racism was real—no-fooling, outright-bigotry, back-of-the-bus real. But here’s what you need to know: Yes, that racism shaped the black experience—but even then, it did not define it. Change was in the air. Call it systemic reform.
The modern Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy, and the leaders who fought for equal rights for blacks were men and women of all races. They believed in America and were determined to see it live up to its highest ideals—ideals manifest in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
Did I know, growing up, that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves? I don’t think I ever thought about it. If I did, I’d like to think that I would have had enough common sense to know that we can’t judge men who lived 250 years ago by the moral standards of our own day.
How many times I told my students we can’t judge the past by the ever-changing conceits of the present, unless we want to eternally fail to learn from the past.
But I know that Jefferson wrote the words in the Declaration of Independence that made slavery ultimately impossible: that all men are created equal. And I know that Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Adams and the rest of the Founders risked everything to make my world, my America, possible. How could I not be grateful for that and for the sacrifices so many others have made to preserve it?
If we actually study history, we understand men like Washington and Jefferson would have done away with slavery if they could, but they were truly wise men, people who understood human nature. If they insisted on abolishing slavery, the United States would never have been born. But they did sew the seeds of abolition. For this, ankle biting idiots tear down their statutes and want to erase them from history, and where they can’t be erased, slander them.
The truth is I cannot remember a time when I did not love America and feel pride in the belief that I live in the greatest country in the world. I knew if I diligently pursued my ambitions, I could leave the poverty of my early years, with all its abuse and depression, behind me.
Good advice for anyone, any time.
I was fortunate in another way. I was spared the life-sapping, negative messages about America that are crippling a generation of young people. These ideas are poison:
*White privilege.
*Whiteness as a form of property.*Unconscious racism.
*Reparations.
*Microaggressions.*Police have it out for blacks.
*That the United States was created to protect and promote slavery.
These are the ideas young people are told they must accept. And then they’re told to reject the ideas that can save them—the antidote: the success principles that enabled me and millions of other Americans to escape lives of poverty.
These principles aren’t complicated: work hard, learn from your mistakes, take personal responsibility for your actions. When I made the decisions to get my high school equivalency, attend a community college, and then earn four additional college and university degrees, I believed that my education would open doors. And it did.
It was only when exposed to academic theories of oppression in graduate school that I was informed that because I was black, poor, and female, I could never do what I had already accomplished.
Thank God, it was too late for these toxic messages to stop me. Don’t let them stop you.
One additional important lesson to which Swain alludes: good teachers, at all levels, will do all they can to help and encourage students who obviously want to learn, to better themselves; race doesn’t matter to them. They know no society that punishes merit can survive, and they want their students to do more than merely survive.
This is a woman I’d be proud to know. This is a woman who earned a doctorate when that meant something. Would that every American could read this essay. Would you, gentle readers, pass around this link? Let’s help Dr. Swain provide an antidote to the racist, anti-America poison so freely flowing all around us these days.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
Mike, a link directly to the article would be appreciated. Thanks.
One might say you would be “proud to know her” because she was black Trump supporter, thus affirming some correctness in your opinion. If she were white you’d not have made this post. To me she was a human being of color who did not have any sort of a solid family life.. certainly having been one of twelve kids (yeah, some folks like large families.. but this is a bit much and smacks of a young life devoid of necessary attention). She married at 16 (could I venture that she was pregnant at the time?) and ended up divorcing five years later. Apparently her depression at the time and being saddled with two kids led to her trying to commit suicide (very likely the SID death had a contributing guilt impact). It’s not uncommon at all in dealing with depression to engage in religious interests, and even changing beliefs over time in trying to find “answers” from which to cope.
From there is what interests me. Not her current politics and rah-rah Trumpism. I’d want to know what fed her desire to academically achieve, who her mentors/helpers were in life that gave her a boost, what she does, and has done, to maintain her drive. THAT’s the secret to her success for others to draw upon.
Apparently she had some controversy with students at Vanderbilt who thought she was conveying a little too much personal opinion in the classroom and a petition was sent to the administration.,, which may or may not have culminated in her retirement from there. Point being, it might reveal something of her overall demeanor. I’m no professional in this stuff by any means… but I can’t help but wonder how a woman of color with her background of obvious economic and cultural, and racial struggles (by her own admission) developed traditional non-color opinion. It certainly doesn’t make her “wrong”, but the road that led her to her “today” might be inspiration to others.
Mike,
In addition to Dr. Swain, I urge your readers
to read, if they have not, Shelby Steele’s “White
Guilt” and Thomas Sowell’s “Intellectuals and
Society.” If one wishes to experience lucid
reasoning about American issues, which one will
not in the MSM, then read these.
I recall reading somewhere that Steele had mixed parents.. that is, black father, white mom. If we presume we are all products of some variant of nature vs nurture he likely has an interesting perspective in that white guilt resulted in the civil rights changes of the 60’s… vs. black demand for change. Not read his book but read about it in reviews.
Regarding Sowell, one would have to not only define “intellectual” but the limitations. Sowell had the idea that what defined intellectuals was the measure of their “output”, or product. If one spent a life of being a Plato or Socrates their final product is simply nothing tangible.. as compared to a scientific product such as developing a vaccine. He suggests that the intellectuals who are wrapped in knowledge aspire to having some influence of power to show their prowess.. and more often than not they fail society in some form. It’s rather like Spock confronting Trelane (“The Squire of Gothos”) by saying, “I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline; I object to power without constructive purpose. ” (One of my fave quotes.)
The irony here is that both these gentlemen on some level seem to fit fit Sowell’s definition of an intellectual without a “product”.. assuming being a published author is not a product. Open to speculation, of course.
Marc,
I read “White Guilt” recently, and realized how
prescient Steele had been. He “put his finger” on
the dynamics presently at work. I think only an
“insider” could have done so, and with such
authority.
Another white guy
While it’s chic and appropriate to hate Bill Cosby these days because of his (admitted) immoral crimes against (female) humanity, and thusly assign his entire life of accomplishment onto the dump heap of cancel culture… there was a time when he was a doctor of education and he did speak from a measure of credibility and was respected for same. That having been said… back in 2004 at an NAACP event he gave a speech.. oft referred to as his “pound cake speech”… (look it up) where he actually made some concrete sense…
“In the speech, which was subsequently widely disseminated and analyzed, Cosby was highly critical of the black community in the United States. He criticized the use of African-American Vernacular English, the prevalence of single-parent families, perceived emphasis on frivolous and conspicuous consumption at the expense of necessities, lack of responsibility, and other behaviors.”
Yeah.. my point… you can blame whites when you decided to look at yourselves as well.
I find it an interesting black cultural situation that I personally know of no blacks who went through Jim Crow and systemic racism who are bitter, yet many of young blacks who have never experienced such disgusting treatment are bitter and think of themselves as victims. One young black I know who was raised by a white mother and father, treated wonderfully by them and their white grandparents, actually the entire extended family, was herself a wonderful person who went to college and came back a bigot against whites including her family. She has said she was never treated well by her white family. Now married with children, this person has become more like their old self, thankfully.
Alan,
When my daughter went off to college, I read
or looked over some of the stuff she was
assigned in class, and it made me want to go
punch the instructor. The Long March through
the school system is very very advanced.
Another white guy
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Dear Doug:
Thanks, as always, for the link!
Reblogged this on It's Karl.
Dear karllembke:
Thanks, as always, for the reblog!