MUST READ!!! KANSAS CITY MEDIA MOGUL CRAIG GLAZER TALKS RACIAL TOLERANCE!!!

TKC NOTE: Tonight Kansas City Media impresario Craig Glazer offers his EXCLUSIVE AND AWESOME analysis of racial politics in American popular culture from the Sterling saga to Country Club Plaza problems. Take a look:

Black and White
Not Together

The racial divide between whites and blacks may be nearing epidemic proportions. There are always three sides to a story; yours, theirs and somewhere in the middle, the truth.

African-Americans feel they have been crapped on ever since they were sold into slavery several hundred years ago and brought to America. While Abe Lincoln freed the slaves during the Civil War in the 1860’s, it really wasn’t until John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King teamed up and brought together new civil rights action where the nation finally got behind the idea of equal rights for black people. During the ‘60’s and into the early ‘70’s you would turn on your television and often see blacks and whites marching together for civil rights. In front of those marches were celebrities from sports, film and television as well as political leaders, both black and white. Behind them were thousands and thousands of those who believed in the cause, both black and white. Sadly, you never see that any more. Why?

The majority of black Americans have decided to separate from White America. In so doing, Black Americans of all ages have created their own language, their own style of music in hip-hop, rap and R&B, as well as their own clothing styles. For the first time Black America has its own movie stars, music stars and superstar level athletes in abundance. For the first time in US history there are thousands of black and millionaires, most in the sports or entertainment world. There are even a couple of black billionaires for example Oprah Winfrey, and Magic Johnson. Word is Tyler Perry and Jay Z are both nearing that mark. Again, all four come from the entertainment world.

So, why the big racial divide? White America, for the most part, does not dislike black people because their skin is black or their ancestors were slaves. That seems to be a fact. Are there still small pockets of racists who hate without any real reason? Of course, and they can be found among blacks and whites.

White America expected African-Americans to join them and be on the same page with such things as family unity, strong educational values, for both members of a divorced couple to participate in the raising of a child, and for black people’s public behavior to roughly meet that of white people. That said, there certainly are many examples of bad behavior of white people towards each other and towards minorities. There is no doubt about that. However, the numbers show with both crime and economic issues, though they are a much lower percentage of our population blacks cause the most violent crime. White America are the majority of ticket buyers for the NFL and NBA, both sports dominated by black multi-millionaire athletes. The division is clear, White America watches, listens to and reads on a daily basis criminal behavior on the parts of these same athletes ad nauseum. Daily. Weekly. These same white observers watch the news in the evening and it is dominated by murder, shootings, beatings and robberies unfortunately largely committed by people of color on a daily basis. These same white people see shopping districts that become dominated by young black attendees that almost always lead to the financial destruction of those areas. Example: Westport, 2000 young predominately white people eating, drinking, shopping and Westport’s attitude was ‘we’re busy’. When those same 2000 people became predominately black Westport’s attitude became ‘Where’s the police, get me the hell out of here, this is dangerous!’

I believe these simple opinions to be facts, others might argue that it’s simply a function of social economics, poor education and being born and raised in squalid areas like ghettos. I can’t say this isn’t true. However, in the early 1900’s Jews, the Irish, the Italians and Poles were in pretty much the same situation as black Americans today. Many could not speak English. The parents who came from overseas decided to dedicate their lives to making their children get an education, to become part of American Society and to become financially prosperous. As a group, they were all successful. In a couple of decades they moved out of the ghettos into upper and middle class lives in the decades that followed. In my opinion, this has been the failure of the black community over the last several decades. They have failed by not participating enough in the raising of their children, by not stressing the importance of education and by playing the blame game. Simply put, the white guy is still the enemy and not your friend. There was a time that was warranted, but that time has passed.

In one of my favorite action movies, Die Hard 3 starring Bruce Willis and co-starring Samuel Jackson as a pawn shop owner named Zeus, early on in the picture two little boys come into Jackson’s pawn shop with some stolen merchandise. Sam Jackson scolds the two youths and tries to set them straight. There is a conversation in the movie that goes as follows:

Zeus: Now, where you goin'?
Dexter: School.
Zeus: Why?
Raymond: To get educated.
Zeus: *Why*?
Dexter: So we can go to college.
Zeus: And why is that important?
Dexter: To get es-pect.
Zeus: RE-spect. Now, who's the bad guys?
Dexter: Guys who sell drugs.
Raymond: Guys who have guns.
Zeus: And who's the good guys?
Dexter: We're the good guys.
Zeus: Who's gonna help you?
Raymond: Nobody.
Zeus: *So who's gonna help you*?
Dexter: We're gonna help ourselves.
Zeus: And who do we not want to help us?
Dexter, Raymond: White people.

Don’t forget, though Jackson’s racist statement against whites is very wrong, he still goes and saves Bruce Willis from getting beaten to death, so he IS a good guy. He just is teaching racism. In so preaching to these young boys, he also preaches racism in that they don’t want help from white people.

Look, wouldn’t it be nice to walk on the plaza and see large groups of young good looking blacks on dates, smiling saying ‘Good day’ or ‘Hello’ as they pass as opposed to what actually happens now? When that day happens, the races will be well and truly equal. Don’t forget, folks, the President of the United States is black. Millions of white people voted for him. We’ve come a long way, folks. We still have a long way to go.