America is the future, bumpy though the road may be

This article is about all our personal and national integration efforts of bringing former slaves from Africa into our national fabric.

We are great as a country. No other country in the world has done integration of former slaves in the way we have, and are doing. There have been bumps in the road along the way, to include a civil war and Jim Crow laws where integrating slaves was a factor.

My major bump today is quotas; mostly called racial preferences and set asides and even called affirmative action.

From my point of view, this often becomes a lowering of standards to achieve a social goal. While well intentioned, it denigrates the standards that our American society demands, and gets. For example, when in the medical system trying to live, I demand the best of what our medical schools can produce to help me live. And in the same vein, what an insult to those who have made it through the wickets, only to be suspect of being quota babies that got advantages that may kill me, in the end.

As a Marine, one learns that those who follow and observe do watch what the leaders do with the good people, and the bad people. Toleration of bad people will drive out those good people who just want to do well.

Then there is the racial intelligence question I sometimes hear. As a Marine and later President of a small company, my style was to listen to the smart people in deciding what to do. Bottom line: the old time people (in this case ebony black rural people in SC) were trusted more by me than the PhD’s on the same subject. I am not stupid, so I did listen to both. And I never let myself get confused between brains and education.

And then, last, there is the “out of wedlock” issue, though I call it a custom that is not American. This is definitely a bump in the road. It is unsatisfactory. From this comes the other question of recent immigrants who bring the “American” tradition of families with fathers and mothers who raise children. Their customs reinforce the American way.

All negro’s are Americans, at least in this country. Some are better than others. It is important for me to say this from an intellectual contribution point of view.

When racial intermarriage becomes usual, then another bump may have been removed. Let the boys and girls use their judgment and experience to decide their future. I hope the present leaders can move away from making new genealogy categories such as “Latinos” and “mixed race”. We are just Americans. Of course, ignore Hollywood’s elitist offerings of the same.

Am I bitter? No. And I frustrated? Yes. Do I have hope for our future? Yes.

We are the New World.