I think that Michael Meyers (and his late mentor, Dr. Kenneth Clark) is so committed to his vision of racial integration that anything that deviates, even in the slightest degree, from what he believes is appropriate and correct is suspect and deserving of condemnation. Meyers, in short, is not a social thinker and theorist but a fanatic.

What Meyers has forgotten is that given the multitude of issues and problems faced by African Americans that there can never be one true way to address and begin to resolve, or at least ameliorate, these difficulties. Meyers continually wants to substitute his own social engineering ideas and concepts instead of pursuing practical and pragmatic solutions.

A less fanatical person would support the sort of programs that Myers so roundly condemns not because he or she believes that these steps represent the one and true approach but, because, they are incremental steps whose effectiveness can be measured and judged by, in part, the number of black men who successfully complete the programs and receive degrees.

Contrary to Meyers' claims programs of this type are in the best tradition of American culture and inventiveness. I think that such eminent black figures as Dr. George Washington Carver or Dr. Charles Drew, both of whom were expert physical scientists who greatly valued practical experimentation, would recognize these programs as experiments or pilot projects designed to test a hypothesis. Meyers (and Dr. Clark) would prefer to condemn the hypothesis even before any data is generated. This is not social science but superstition and magical thinking

"What Meyers has forgotten is that given the multitude of issues and problems faced by African Americans that there can never be one true way to address and begin to resolve, or at least ameliorate, these difficulties."

Excellent points and analysis, PT. I always find your remarks to be incisive, thoughtful and on point. Moreover, you consistently present your views minus the vitriol and invective that often dominate my posts. My first inclination in responding to Meyers' latest idiocy is simply to call him a sick ass "assimilado," or an interlocutor (see definition #2) in a twenty-first century coon show featuring Ward Connerly and Larry Elder as end men.

I want to be more like you when I grow up.

Moreover, you consistently present your views minus the vitriol and invective that often dominate my posts.

I try to keep my eyes on the prize. But I have to admit, most of the time I am one angry mofo.

But I have to admit, most of the time I am one angry mofo.

That's valid.

I learned to use it as fuel rather than presentation (though you'll note I'm not above letting folks know I'm annoyed). 

I must truly be bent because I don't regard your posts as being vitriolic or filled with invective.

That's 'cause you're mad too.

Most of us are, about something or other. 

"Laughter is always good medicine."

It gets me down the road.

James Baldwin did say that "to be Black and aware in America is to be in a constant state of rage." Price Cobb says it's time for us to move from rage to entitlement. So far, I'm not finding the two mutually exclusive.

"The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I need to believe that right about now...

I think of it as raw rather than rage...like every eigth person rubs you with coarse sandpaper as they go by.