My book is published.  “Who Put Blacks in that PLACE?”

First and foremost, “Who Put Blacks in that PLACE?  The Long Sad History of the Democratic Party’s Oppression of Black Americans … to This Day” is about the last vestige of INSTITUTIONAL or SYSTEMIC racist government policies that have oppressed Black Americans for more than two centuries. It is not about the American PEOPLE today.  I have often written that the contemporary American culture is NOT racist.  The American people — Republican, Democrat or independent — are not racist.

Quite the contrary.  As I write in the introduction to the book – and past commentaries.

“To call America a racist nation is to ignore the fact that billions of times every day Black people and white people interact peacefully and in social harmony.  We pass on the streets, do favors for each other, serve each other in stores, play on sport teams together, come to each other’s aid and work side-by-side or under each other’s supervision.  We risk our lives to save each other in times of danger.  We fight side-by-side as brothers and sisters in the field of combat. We become friends, lovers and partners.

Racism still exists, most notably in America’s major segregated Democrat-controlled cities in which millions of Black citizens are confined to a “place” of inferior status.

Find this book on Amazon now!

The book is based has been more than 20 years in the making. (Obviously, I had other things to do.)  It pinpoints to where INSTITUTIONAL racism still exists – and why.  It is racism that is almost exclusively found in the major cities that have been ruled over by one-party Democrat political machines for generations.

I was motivated to write the book because of the longstanding false narrative that the Democratic Party has been the leading force for civil rights.  The facts say otherwise.  The false narrative has led to an erroneous common knowledge about the history of American racism to this day. 

The title may seem a bit controversial, but “place” is an important word in the Black Community.  It has two meanings.  It refers to physical separation – segregation – defined neighborhoods … the back of the bus… separate washrooms … and more.

“Place” also has a social and cultural meaning.  Blacks were expected to “know their place” – of supplication and inferior standing.  Not knowing his place is what got Emmett Till – and others – murdered.

The book is the result of my more than 50 years of experience in the Black community.  To show it is not just a false or exaggerated claim, I feel obligated to share some of my personal activities.

In the 1960s, I joined forces with Black activist Connie Mack Higgins and Hispanic newspaper publisher Jose Carlos Gomez, operating as a rainbow coalition before Jesse Jackson institutionalized the term.  I managed the campaign that made Higgins the first Black elected to leadership (vice President) in the Illinois State Young Republicans.  Also in the 1960s, I worked with Call for Action, a civic group investigating unsafe inner city housing.  In the 1970s, I joined forces with prominent Black activist Hecky Powell to form the biracial Evanston Coalition. I worked with Reverend Harold Bailey’s Probation Challenge in fighting Chicago’s racist city hall – winning the “heroes” award from the group – and with Marva Collins in defending her Westside Prep School from the city hall efforts to shut it down – a history that was seen in the movie “The Marva Collins Story” starring Cecily Tyson.  I have recruited Blacks, Hispanics and Asians for various boards and leadership positions for the first time.  On a personal note, I have been the father of a Black Jamaican daughter and a Marine grandson, who was tragically killed in Afghanistan.  Ironically, a test of my DNA showed one percent Nigerian. (After getting my DNA results, I called my Black daughter and told her that we were more closely related than we ever imagined.)

Okay, enough of the personal biography.  What about the book?

Yes, it is controversial because it corrects a false political narrative that the Democratic Party has been espousing for generations.  The book explains in great detail — 477 pages of detail — why Blacks in our major Democrat controlled segregated cities STILL suffer poverty … high unemployment … poor quality education … substandard housing …  unequal justice … crumbling infrastructure … high crime … and unsafe streets. 

These have been the realities for generations. Immigrant Jews once lived in ghettoes.  So did immigrant Irish and Italians.  But those groups assimilated and integrated into the greater American society.  Why have Blacks been uniquely oppressed and segregated since arriving on the North American continent? 

Even after the Civil War and emancipation … even after the civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s … even today … millions of Black Americans are excluded from the American opportunity society.  In the more than 50 years I have spent time working in the Black segregated communities, the only thing that has changed is that the streets are a lot more dangerous and more deadly today.

Why is that?  And why has this been the history during a time that the Democratic Party has had largely one-party control of those same cities for generations?  Why have things not changed even when Black Democrat mayors have taken over – as in Detroit and Baltimore.

I wrote “Who Put Blacks in That PLACE?” in an attempt to answer those and other questions with facts and statistics – and the real history of racism in America. The book is filled with the statements, commentaries and activities of those who lived the history – 1930s to today – of modern institutional racism.

What I describe in the book is the institutional political racism.   It is a racism of governance that endures because it is the basis of political power, personal profit and prestige for those who maintain the system.   The national Democratic Party pays lip service to civil rights, but that condones the racism of their powerful political urban machines – much like national Democrats of yore tolerated the Jim Crow racism of the old solid Democratic South.

If you are interested in learning more, you can find the book on Amazon in paperback for $24.99 or as an eBook for $6.99. (End of shameful promotion.  LOL)

So, there ‘tis.