Thursday 2 February 2006

What shall we do with the Negro?

Message from Frederick Douglass to Pita Sharples, Tariana Turia and anyone else who wants to 'do something' for 'their people':
Everybody has asked the question . . . ‘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 wormeaten 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!
It's a message that is clear and unambiguous. [Hat tip Stephen Hicks]

2 comments:

A. J. Chesswas said...

From what I've heard coming from Tariana Turiana and Peter Sharples it seems they would agree. At least they would be more likely to agree than Auntie Helen and her associates on the left.

Peter Cresswell said...

AJ, I think you've bought The Myth That Will Keep Costing You Money.

As I've said here before you need to read their small print. They don't want 'their people' left alone! They don't want 'their people' to stand on their own feet, unencumbered by welfare! They don't want indepependence and 'self-determination' for 'their people' as individuals, they want a 'subsidised independence' for 'their people' as a collective. They don't to stop racially-based funding -- they want it increased; they don't want to stop state paternalism; they just think the people delivering 'resources' to their people should be their people. But someone has to pay for them there 'resources,' don't they. And those people are everybody who the IRD thinks owes them money.