Black leadership is an oxymoron.

For anyone interested, here are sort-of representative excerpts from the TimesÂ' message board (home page link). The messages are interesting for their almost unanimous lack of specific solutions:

Â"I pray that this black on black killing will stop, I'm afraid that in time, we will no longer exist.Â"

Several suggest a self-fix: Â"Black people, we always want to holler the Man is keeping us down. No, it's you keeping yourself down.Â"

Several cite family: Â"We as parents have a responsibility to set boundaries and expectations for our children and not act as if it is OK to act like thugs and thuglets. We need to make sure that our schools expect excellence and not failure. It starts at home with expectations, consequences and responsibility.Â"

Several express frustration with what has been the focus of the black Civil Rights movement for decades, blaming oppression by whites:

Â"What more can I do? I vote to give more school resources to all kids, after-school programs, school vouchers, civic centers, job programs, anti-gang activities, faith-based programs, more police, etc. Don't blame white people.Â"

And: Â"A white person adding their critical opinions about the problems in the black community can fully expect only an assault on their character with no consideration or debate of that opinion. Unless their opinions are laced with white guilt, all they can expect is the undeserved title of a racist.Â"

M----- makes a very good point (I’m quite serious), and one which I’ll build on by asking what’s up with the silence of white leaders on this matter? The silence of Asian-American leaders? Of Latino leaders? Where is the compassion among the conservatives? The heart among the bleeding-hearts? Why is this not a problem at the highest levels of our government?

For the record, my comment was posted simultaneously with M-----’s, so when I say there’s a good point, I was referring to the original post. Not that there are no points in the comment, but I have not read it yet and was not referring to it in my comment.

Can I keep jumping in on my own post? I think there are those out there who read all comments, whether they partake or not - this Bud's for you.

Clint's succint point above, while obviously super hot-button, equally obviously contains truth. I mean, where are the leaders on this life & death issue? I saw Jesse in DC, protesting Bush/Iraq, but he has yet to make an appearance in L.A. - or elsewhere - to demand that black men stop killing black men. Rev. Al is threatening to seriously muck-up the Dems by running for prez. The Civil Rights Commission keeps going on about Florida, while never proving race-related voting rights violations. The Nation has a cover story about the black case against war in Iraq...

Why don't whitey liberals at The Nation instead make the case against the black-on-black war in L.A., New York and elsewhere?

In his book "Bias", Bernard Goldberg says TV newscasters are paranoid about featuring black crime for fear of appearing "prejudiced."

I posit that the civil rights' movement, by exclusively focusing on blaming whites (and earning a lot of cash in the process), has painted themselves into a tough corner: When a problem arises that may have nothing to do with white complicity, not only is the movement ill-equipped to address it, it's in their best (financial) interests to ignore it. And white liberals, so accustomed to the racism mantra, are suddenly silent - while young black males die at 18-times the rate of young whites.

And Tk, thanks for jumping in. This is not as sexy as SUV's, but I'd love to see it debated from any and all angles.

To answer Tk's question, "Where is the compassion among conservatives?", I refer you to the excellent Heather Mac Donald, senior-something or other at the Manhattan Institute. Her compassion is less emotionally-expressed (a nice thing), and more of the "how-do-we-fix-this?", hard-nosed school of thought (another nice thing).

http://www.manhattaninstitute.org/html/mac_donald.htm#macdonald

Check out her articles "Rewarding Rioters" and "Lessons from Cincinnati". Also see Tamar Jacoby, William Raspberry (sp?), John McWhorter, and Abigail Thernstrom. These are white and black writers who regularly address race & crime, welfare policy, homelessness and the like. They advocate equality, equal opportunity, etc., they're all problem-solving oritented, and they're all refreshingly unencumbered by the politically correct dogma that prevails when such subjects are addressed by the mainstream media.

At the risk of quibbling, I’d say that we’re all encumbered by something, be it political dogma of the right, left, or center; or experience (or lack thereof); or religion (or antipathy to religion). It’s one of the things that always bothered me in the cultural wars (if they are in fact over) — that if PC is the term for the left’s language, then there must be an equivalent on the right, possibly CC (Conservative Correctness). Hey, I think I’ll try to get that into the memstream.

Not that this means the ideas of these writers are bunk, just that they have bias as well. The trick is to discover it and try to slice through it.

I think you may have just revived interest in that old band, 10 CC.

Adding Stanley Crouch to the list, I'll say that these writers - most of them admittedly right of center - often suffer the same fate as the last Times' commentor above bemoans: For offering their unconventional ideas, they earn the "undeserved title of 'racist'". If they're black, it's even worse: They're "sellouts", "Uncle Toms", etc., because their analyses and solutions re poverty, homelessness, etc., are at odds with the liberal establishment. The establishment - called the Poverty Industry by some - feels threatened. And why? Because today's black-on-black murder rates show their policies on welfare, housing and crime to have utterly failed an entire generation. The absolute irrelevance of King's inheritors is exposed in these tragic numbers.

Even so, the above writers are usually ignored by the mainstream press, especially the N.Y Times. As MacDonald puts it, the Times is "a proponent of victimology and double-standards."

Meanwhile, in New York, remember Jay-Z, the Wendy's Four, and the other 95% of blacks who are killed by other blacks. What's anybody gonna do?

Um, Jay-Z? Do you mean Jam Master Jay?

Being an original Run-DMC collector, and having once shared brown-bag 40 ouncers with the 3 of them, I should have known better. But I'm West Coast - I only ace pop quizzes on Niggas With Attitude on up.

Should stick to the 187s on Tupac, Biggie, etc., etc.