The gift of competition

HEADNOTE

Why It's Time for Black Americal To Stand Up

Black America is currently mired in a detour, intended by neither blacks nor whites, from the path to the mountaintop that Martin Luther King envisioned. Having

learned to cherish victimhood over action, separatism over universalism, and peer-group acceptance over intellectual achievement, a great many blacks are now being slowed on their path to success. As they are shepherded by black leaders into a conviction that they inhabit a fundamentally hostile, alien nation, today's black children are at grave risk of being stunted in their ability to make the best of themselves.

The first step on the road to true equality should be combating victimology. When the process of bringing blacks to equality with whites began in the 1960s, the conception of blacks as a race of victims was appropriate, because it corresponded with reality. Most black people were poor. Those who were not still faced concrete barriers of discrimination in employment, education, and use of public services in all parts of the country.