I don’t know how many of you have seen a meme posted by Occupy Democrats recently in which a stern older white women giving a lecture on race dares the white people in her audience who wish to be treated the way society treats blacks to stand up. When no one does, she berates them and tells them it is because they know black people are mistreated by whites and are ashamed of themselves. The meme is advertised as “brilliant” and “thought provoking”. Well, it did indeed provoke a thought or two I decided to share here rather than be confrontational on someone else’s Facebook page.

The obvious question is why Colin Kaepernick is celebrated for his refusal to stand on command while these “white folks” who came to hear a lecture are castigated for it. And then I wonder what exactly -specifically – is it about how black people are “treated” by “white folks” in “this society” that we are supposed to consider when making this decision to stand or not stand? How are black professors treated differently than white professors? How are black judges treated differently than white judges? Or engineers, accountants, pastors, teachers, computer techs, architects, lawyers. NFL players, county supervisors, campaign staff, police officers, models, toll booth workers, welders……the list goes on.

Let’s get down to cases, starting with this lecture itself. Did the white people make the black people sit in back? Did the black people have to pay more to hear this woman talk? Were there snacks and beverages provided for the white people only? Did the white people make the black people clean up the hall when the talk was over? Didn’t all those people in the hall come from “this society? Were they flown in from some other society?

Let’s play some more of the racial stand-up game. Which of those white people in the audience advocates black-on-black crime? Stand up. Which of those white people advocate teen pregnancy and illegitimate births? Stand up. Who is forcing black kids to drop out of school? Who is encouraging black kids to join gangs and sell drugs? Or take drugs? Stand up! C’mon, you guys – stand up! Don’t predominantly black public schools receive more per-pupil funding than schools with few minority students? I would bet those white parents in Mercer, Wisconsin would gladly trade Milwaukee for the state school subsidy they each receive. Is that the sort of treatment she is talking about?

And If it is all about race, how does this woman explain Oprah, Clarence Thomas, Barack Obama, Beyonce, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Herman Cain, Ben Carson, Prince, Mike Singletary etc.? Why not examine the millions of successful black people who have risen to the top of their professions and then talk about the choices they made to get themselves there? If she could tell her audiences why some people are successful when so many are not, THAT would be brilliant. And it would be helpful.

Her “very plain” (her words) conclusion for why nobody stood up is not brilliant at all – she states her own unproven belief that every white person in the room is a closeted (or not) racist ashamed of their privilege; aside from the irony that such a prejudicial condemnation based on skin color is the very definition of racism, it is most likely dead wrong. A more plausible explanation is that they were afraid to be humiliated by standing in response to such an obvious trap question from a belligerent and condescending tyrant with a microphone.

Here is a slightly more brilliant question – if white privilege is “very plain”, why do no mixed-race people (e.g. our President) not identify with the white half to claim the privilege? Why would privileged white people claim to be black to snag a gig with NAACP or claim to be indian to get a cushy job at Harvard and then elected to the Senate? Think about it – when is the last time you heard of a black person faking whiteness to tap into the privilege? Marrying a Kardashian does not count.

No one can dispute that statistically black people are worse off in this country in many important ways, but I would suggest that it is because people like this lady have gotten things their way during these past 60 years since segregation was replaced with affirmative action in the law. Her ideological rote recitation of white shaming rhetoric from the 50’s is considered “thought provoking” by Occupy Democrats. It probably provoked a thought in this lady’s head 50 years ago; from the short clip I have seen I can’t say if she has had any new ones since, and the ones that are in that head were probably put there by somebody talking down to her when she was the same age as those she is guilt-tripping on whatever campus this was filmed at.

Here is a thought provoking question: why is that a higher proportion of black people today have college degrees than did white people in the 1950s, and have not translated that 300% increase in educational attainment into the same levels of prosperity? Maybe the universities and colleges should re-evaluate their decisions to throw in with the leftist indoctrinators and go back to providing rigorous and relevant educational content. Real education can make any life matter.

The problem is not just that blacks today are not as well off as whites, it is that on balance, black people today are not as well off as their own grandparents – more live in poverty, more live in broken homes, more are unemployed, more are in prison, more live in unsafe neighborhoods, more have drug addictions, and more have abortions. All “white people”, did not bring this about; liberal white people did, by undermining the values that produce independent and productive adults and coherent civilizations, and ostracizing black leaders who speak up in favor of traditional values and individual liberty.

If you have a black child, who would you rather have come and speak to her about what she can do to be successful in life – Ben Carson or this whitey-stand-up lady? This lady would tell your little girl that she can’t be successful until all the white people in the audience stand up. Ben Carson would (I think) tell her not to wait for someone else; he would tell her to study hard, work even harder, respect others, marry once and marry well and THEN have children, trust in God, give to charity, volunteer, save money, avoid drugs, don’t commit crime, eat healthy and exercise, and obey the ten commandments. I suspect that Dr. Carson would make quite an impression on your little girl; conversely, I doubt that your little girl would remember the old white lady’s name in a week.

If there is any validity at all to the largely delusional notion of white privilege that is proving to be such a lucrative side gig for university professors who do not teach or do research that anyone reads, it is the privilege of being raised with traditional values; proportionately more white kids are raised in drug-free and crime-free homes with two parents, regular church attendance, continuous employment, discipline, and education as a priority. In households where these factors are present, black and white families are indistinguishable in terms of income, wealth, health, and levels of social dysfunction – suicide, drug abuse,sexual abuse, etc.

For centuries, medical practitioners were certain that infections were caused by too much blood, and the “settled science” treatment was to attach leeches. When the infections worsened, the smart people’s answer was always, more leeches. As fevers rose, the answer was, even more leeches. As the patient slipped into coma, still more leeches. And when the patient died, the cause of death was obvious: not enough leeches. Never did it occur to them that they were wrong about the cause of infection; and those who dared question the orthodoxy of the day were labeled deniers, banished from medical practice, and shunned by elite society. The word deplorables comes to mind.

This is pretty much the story of the progressive movement over the past century – guessing wrong about the causes for all the troubles in the world and answering every failure of their own policy prescriptions with demands for more leeches (government programs and tax dollars). Poverty does not cause sociological dysfunction; it is the other way around. Race is not a disability; embracing racial victimhood is.

Had I been in attendance at this lecture, I would have taken her challenge to stand up…and then walked out. That does not make a racist; it just means my mind has not been occupied by democrats. It was not a brilliant thought-provoking lecture clip, it was involuntary group therapy where only one person gets to talk.