Pheonixops
Proud Liberal
"While that does have some truth to it (if that quote is correct)..."
At the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, April, 1865, Fredrick Douglass delivered the following speech called What the Black Man Wants. In part:
Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, "What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don't disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot- box, let him alone, don't disturb him! [Applause.] If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone,--your interference is doing him a positive injury.
Thanks for the entire quote that show the context! The ironic part is without Government intervention, those very things I put in bold above would not have happened. In my opinion, Government intervention to protect the Civil Liberties of it's Citizens is a good thing. I DO think that some Government programs lend themselves to be abused and I think that the generational cycle of dependency on that system should be clamped down on. In my opinion, to assert that those programs were started with a sinister purpose is pretty much an outlandish assertion. I think in some way whether on purpose or by mistake, it's insulting to "the Blacks" to act like all they want is "free stuff", favoritism, subsidies, etc.
I have stated over and over again that the Black people in my family (sisters, cousins, mother, grandparents cousins, etc.) and friends are Democrats, NONE of them are on Welfare, they all have CAREERS most of them are married, have children, and raise them VERY well.
There is an old saying that seems to apply here:
If the shoe doesn't fit, don't try to wear it.
When some people try to make assertions that contain blanket generalizations and insults, it's almost immoral not to address and correct the aforementioned.