By Robert L. Woodson
This summer, law professors Amy Wax and Larry Alexander
caused a stir with an op-ed lamenting the decline of what they called
“bourgeois norms.”“All cultures are not equal,” they rightly observed.
Those that encourage self-restraint, delayed gratification, marriage and a strong work ethic tend to thrive.
Those that tolerate or excuse substance abuse, out-of-wedlock pregnancy and dropping out tend to break down.
For more details about the ill effects of the cultural breakdown in black communities, click here to view the video: “The State of Civil Rights in AmericaToday.”
Frederick Douglass, circa 1866. Photo: The Granger Collection
According to this narrative, black progress is determined not by personal choices and individual behavior, but by white supremacy, America’s history of slavery and discrimination, and institutional racism. Touting “bourgeois values” is interpreted as an offense against authentic black culture.
The assumptions underlying this narrative bring to mind
Frederick Douglass’s description of slaveholding whites, some of whom gave
their slaves time off between Christmas and New Year’s Day—and enough alcohol
to keep them drunk the whole time.
“Many of us were led to think that there was
little to choose between liberty and slavery,” Douglass wrote. “We had almost
as well be slaves to man as to rum.” When the holidays ended, the hung over
slaves happily returned to the fields, desperate to get away “from what our
master had deceived us into a belief was freedom.”
According to Douglass, some slaves chose not to spend
their holidays drunk, but to engage instead in constructive activities like
visiting family, hiring themselves out, or engaging in recreation.
Even under
slavery, the differences in culture and behavior celebrated by Ms. Wax and Mr.
Alexander had potency for blacks.
Nothing was more of a threat to the whole
rotten institution than a self-disciplined slave who walked with dignity in the
face of mistreatment.
A better life has always been available to those who
reject undisciplined and irresponsible behavior, and embrace self-determination
and personal responsibility.
So-called bourgeois values have always empowered
blacks to persevere and overcome bitter oppression. They provided the moral
“glue” that held the black community together during the hardest of times.
The life-affirming values that enabled Douglass and
others to survive retain their potency in the 21st century.
Hundreds of
examples of achievement against the odds prove this point.
Click Here To View The “Profiles of African American Success” Documentaries.
In cities around the
country, activists like Bertha Gilkey have ousted drug
dealers from public housing projects, transformed their communities, and
sent hundreds of young people to college.
Neighborhood moral mentors and
character coaches from Washington, D.C., to Milwaukee have
changed the behavior, attitudes and life trajectories of once-violent gang
members.
Today, the race grievance industry declares that what
constitutes “normal” for blacks is different than what constitutes “normal” for
whites. In the same way, 19th-century slaveholders assumed that idle
drunkenness was the hallmark of authentic black culture.
Mr. Woodson is founder and president of the
Woodson Center.
