Recently the government released figures for third-quarter economic growth, celebrating a whooping 3.5% GDP increase. The market rallied as the Dow climbed above 10,000. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the White House announced the creation of 640,000 new jobs thanks to the stimulus package. Is all the hoopla just an overly optimistic, time-calculated cheerleading exercise right before the elections, or is this “recovery” real?
Last fall, the mortgage meltdown and other factors caused the economy began to tank, and with it, many bank loans went from stale to toxic. TARP’s injection of capital was designed to as a financial lifeline to help banks to stay afloat — especially the larger banks, because their failure would be devastating to the national economy. So the concept of “Too Big To Fail” was born, and it was subsidized by the American taxpayer. From every quarter, concern and fear reverberated.
But along with the American obsession for instant gratification and instant fixes comes a lapse in national financial fortitude. The prevailing sense is that government must solve not just the big economic, political, and social problems, but personal ones, too: my health, my kids’ education, my retirement. Government policy panders to the consumer (especially the poor) instead of championing the producer. Because the American taxpayer is ubiquitous and therefore invisible, someone else, distant and unknown, foots the bill. Ironically, this is literally true for the 50% of American income-earners that pay no income taxes at all.
So President Bush instituted the Mother of All Bailouts with TARP. Now President Obama has picked up the ball, and like Forrest Gump, he is out of the end zone and still running. He’s not about to let a good crisis go to waste. What was to be a bank bailout (which we could halfway justify to keep our economy from cardiac arrest) became the economic equivalent of treating ingrown toenails and breast implants as the government bailed out car companies, struggling homeowners, and insurance companies, too. Or maybe the objective was to build political power. In any case, running up a $1.4 trillion U.S. budget deficit in one year should set off major alarms.
Don’t forget: the Stimulus Package — the Grandmother of All Bailouts — was designed to stimulate the economy until the good times do roll again. But it’s sobering to read up on U.S. prosperity in 1930s and what happened to Japan in the 1990s. Back then, governments tried to sustain their respective economies simply by spending money, but it had the reverse effect. Again, nobody consulted the history books when the Cash for Clunkers program was designed. When it ended, car sales flatlined again.
The same thing will happen when the First-Time Homebuyers program ends. It’s like trying to fix a water leak with duct tape. With little consumer confidence and an annual revenue of $2.4 trillion, the government can’t prop up a $14-trillion economy, especially when it is obligated and/or committed to defend our shores, deliver the mail, feed the poor, and provide health care for the elderly and poor (soon to be everyone).
Reviewing Economics 101, the value of any goods or services has to justify the cost. If the justifiable expense can’t be paid for with cash, then it has to be paid for with debt. So today, when the government doesn’t have enough cash to meet its budget, it must borrow the money for every additional expense over its revenue, thereby sinking deeper in debt.
As a part of the stimulus package, the folks in Wichita, Kansas recently received $55,000 to help the underprivileged spay or neuter their pets. That money must be borrowed, since it is literally not in the coffers. The cost is more than just the expense: it’s a lasting liability that will have to be repaid with interest. Even though someone was paid to spay or neuter the pets, there is no long-term benefit to the whole. This kind of support is not worth the cost, nor the added interest, nor the crippling debt; it only hastens the day we’ll meet the economic “grim reaper” with a near-worthless dollar and hyperinflation.
This abuse of the American taxpayer continues today, where only $194 billion (or 27%) of the $700-billion stimulus package has been spent, doing little if anything to stimulate consumer confidence. Meanwhile, Washington adds insult to injury by limiting management pay while proposing plenty of legislation to give more government entities the teeth — no, the fangs — to destroy capitalism. And capitalism is the bedrock of our strength and prosperity.
The net effect of our government’s move to avert the economic crisis with TARP and the stimulus reminds me of the moment when President Obama told the world that America was arrogant. It’s hard for me to believe the world would think of us as arrogant with the amount of blood America has shed in countries like France, Somalia, and Panama (to name a few) — but I believe it is arrogant for us to believe we are Too Big to Fail.
As America debates whether to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan, in the ninth year of a war for ends we cannot discern, a riveting new history recalls times when Americans fought for vital national interests.
As Merry relates, the problem is not with “Young Hickory,” the protégé of Andrew Jackson, but with historians who ever allow political correctness to blind them to true greatness.
In 1836 at San Jacinto, Sam Houston had won the independence of Texas with his defeat of Santa Anna, butcher of the Alamo and Goliad. In eight years, Mexico had not tried to recapture Texas. For eight years, Houston and Texas had sought admission to the Union.
In 1844, Polk, twice defeated for governor of Tennessee, was seeking the Democratic vice presidential nomination on a ticket with ex-President Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s vice president.
But when the issue of annexation of Texas caught fire in the country, Van Buren opposed it, losing his patron Jackson. Polk rode the Texas issue to victory in Baltimore as the “dark horse” in the most dramatic convention in history. His opponent that November, the Whig Henry Clay, running a third time, was also fatally wrong on Texas.
Lame-duck president John Tyler, however, stole a march on Polk by annexing Texas by joint resolution of Congress.
But where was the southern border of Texas?
Santa Anna had signed Texas away to the Rio Grande. Mexico said the border was the Nueces River, far to the north. In dispute were thousands of square miles. To enforce America’s claim, Polk sent Gen. Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande.
Congress voted a near-unanimous declaration of war.
And as ever in wartime, bold men rise to immortality.
Col. Stephen Kearny set out from Kansas with 1,500 troops, marched to Santa Fe, claimed New Mexico for the Union and, with 300 dragoons, rode on to Los Angeles, into a clash with Capt. John C. Fremont, son-in-law of Polk’s mighty Senate ally, Thomas Hart Benton.
Zachary Taylor, “Old Rough and Ready,” routed Santa Anna at Buena Vista in a victory that would make this Whig general Polk’s successor as president. Bayoneted to death at Buena Vista had been the young hero Henry Clay Jr. His father had bitterly opposed the war.
To Gen. Winfield Scott, Polk gave command of an army that was to land at Veracruz and take the path of Cortez to the capital to dictate terms if Mexican diehards rejected a negotiated peace.
Leading an invasion force half the size of the defending army, Scott never lost a battle on his six-month march to Mexico City. The Duke of Wellington called Scott the world’s “greatest living soldier” and said his campaign “was unsurpassed in military annals.”
Riding with Scott’s army was Polk’s agent, Nicholas Trist, who would bring home a triumph rivaled only by the Louisiana Purchase. Trist was the chief clerk of the State Department under that devious secretary of state and future president James Buchanan, who ever had his eyes on the prize.
Given specific instructions by Polk on what he could offer Mexico, the cantankerous Trist ran afoul first of Scott, then of Polk, who ordered him recalled.
But Trist rode on to Mexico City, reconciled with Scott, seized the opportunity of a peace party in power, negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, came home and was sacked.
But under Trist’s treaty, Mexico had agreed to the Rio Grande as the Texas border, ceded all of New Mexico, which included half a dozen future American states, and signed away California, for $15 million and forgiveness of Mexico’s debts.
The renegade envoy had come home with half of Mexico. They ought to rename the State Department for this great American.
Some urged Polk to break his pledge and run again. He refused. He had done what he came to do: annex all of Texas, acquire California and settle the Oregon Territory dispute with Great Britain on terms favorable to the United States.
Polk went home to Tennessee and, in 100 days, was dead.
He lacked the character of Washington, the brilliance of Jefferson, the charisma of Jackson, but James K. Polk belongs with the immortals. None gave more or did more for America.
Bob Merry has made a major contribution to historical truth and written one splendid book.
It is conventional wisdom that it was the draft that ended the Vietnam war. According to this explanation, cowardly college students subject to the draft and their unpatriotic families, forced an end to the war. This is Karl Marx’s explanation. Material interests, not empty morality, are said to have brought the war to an end.
That fact that in those days the US still had an independent media of sorts that sometimes framed the war in moral terms is ignored. Are we sure, for example, that the film of the naked little girl running in terror down the road burning with napalm was ineffectual in arousing moral opposition to the war? Are we certain that it wasn’t an aroused moral conscience that brought about the end of the war but was college students’ fears for their lives and limbs?
If we ascribe ending the war to material interests, it makes ending the war look as unworthy as the war itself.
Yet, virtually every conservative columnist, commentator, newsperson and politician, as well as today’s antiwar protesters and apparently the Pentagon, believes that a military draft would reduce Americans’ toleration for wars because of body bags coming home to middle and upper class parents. Apparently, the lower class doesn’t mind its kids coming back in body bags.
Those in thrall to this explanation, which derives from Marx’s materialist explanation of history, do not notice that Vietnam was our longest war. It apparently took almost forever for the material interest of students and their parents to realize itself and stop the war.
Why are we afraid to say that the war stopped because American troops and the American population got tired, offended even, from killing women, children and noncombatants? Vietnam had not attacked the US. The US had interjected itself into a civil war in a far off place, as it has done in Afghanistan.
By invading Iraq the US started a civil war between Sunni and Shi’ite. In Pakistan the US has started a civil war between the religious tribal population and the secular US puppet state. In Palestine the US started a civil war between Fatah and Hamas.
One continuously reads from those Americans opposed to America’s wars of aggression that the wars are possible because they don’t affect Americans, just those few who sign up for the voluntary military. Thus, there are insufficient material interests at stake to stop the war. This is a common explanation for the weakness of the antiwar movement.
One could argue instead that it is the triumph of Karl Marx’s materialist thinking that has made moral protests impotent. What is morality? You can’t weigh it, define it, measure it. It can be dismissed as the whining of material interests. In contrast, material interests, such as lives, limbs, and bank accounts are real.
For whatever the reason, morality has shown itself to be an impotent force in 21st century America. Americans show no remorse at over one million dead Iraqis and four million displaced Iraqis due entirely to an American invasion based on lies and deception. The lies and deception are now well proven. Yet, there has been no apology for the horrors that Americans inflicted on Iraq.
Afghanistan is another example. Intentional lies conflated the Taliban with al Qaeda and “terrorists.” The diverse peoples in Afghanistan who were first ravaged by Soviet bombs are now ravaged by American bombs. Weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, people waiting for fuel or food, people asleep in their homes, people attending Mosques have all been murdered and are murdered routinely by US and its NATO puppets.
Each time civilians are murdered, the US denies it, only to be contradicted every time by the evidence.
Why is the president of the United States contemplating sending yet tens of thousands more US troops to kill people in Afghanistan?
The answer is that the United States is an immoral country, with an immoral people and an immoral government. Americans no longer have a moral conscience. They have gone over to the Dark Side.
Humanity has endeavored for millennia to control evil with morality. In the American “superpower,” this effort has collapsed and failed.
The United States needs to be censured for its immoral behavior, not have that behavior rationalized as being in its material interests.
Looks like we’ve finally achieved the wonderful integrated world of Bill Cosby. How do we know? Why, the mighty Wall Street Journal says so! And we all know that the Wall Street Journal (owned by neocon media mogul Rupert Murdoch) would never lie, now would they?
The Journal informs us breathlessly: “Decades of white flight transformed America’s cities. That era is drawing to a close. In Washington, a historically black church is trying to attract white members to survive. Atlanta’s next mayoral race is expected to feature the first competitive white candidate since the 1980s. San Francisco has lost so many African-Americans that Mayor Gavin Newsom created an African-American Out-Migration Task Force and Advisory Committee to help retain black residents.
“For much of the 20th century, the proportion of whites shrank in most U.S. cities. In recent years the decline has slowed considerably — and in some significant cases has reversed. Between 2000 and 2006, eight of the 50 largest cities, including Boston, Seattle and San Francisco, saw the proportion of whites increase, according to Census figures. The previous decade, only three cities saw increases.”
“The changing racial mix is stirring up quarrels over class and culture. Beloved institutions in traditionally black communities — minority-owned restaurants, book stores — are losing the customers who supported them for decades. As neighborhoods grow more multicultural, conflicts over home prices, taxes and education are opening a new chapter in American race relations.”
Aha! So what we’re talking about here is what is known as “gentrification.” Rich white yuppies and faggots are getting tired of the long commutes (not to mention the stratospheric gas prices.) They are using their still massive amounts of disposable income to buy up inner-city fixer-uppers, get them into shape and fortify them with heavy steel doors, security alarms, and private goon squads, and slowly push the indigenous non-white tribes out. Rather like the original colonization of America, only instead of exterminating these indigenes, the yuppies are simply pushing them out into the suburbs where they will victimize the less affluent whites. You know, normal people who got stuck about forty miles out from downtown when gas hit $5.00 per gallon, and then Obama got in and all of a sudden they had no more jobs and it didn’t matter they couldn’t get to work.
Since we’re playing with racial demographics, let’s think about this. Statistically speaking, what else started in the 1990s? The massive influx of illegal immigrants, mostly of the brown rather than the black variety, with a corresponding drop in the statistical percentage of negroes.
The Journal sez, “Demographic readjustments can take decades to play out. But if current trends continue, Washington and Atlanta (both with black majorities) will in the next decade see African-Americans fall below 50% for the first time in about a half-century.”
Maybe. But they will not be replaced by nice white two-income yuppie couples with one pretty little child each and two $100,000 jobs between them. Those are a dying breed. In a few more years of the Obama Depression, both Mommy and Daddy are going to be wrestling with Juan Mendez in front of the local Burger King for a chance to flip burgers at $6.00 an hour, and losing the fight.
No, they are being replaced by masses of spics who will eventually overrun both black and white, while the cubicle jobs will be taken by illegal immigrant “engineers” and “professionals” from Asia and the Indian subcontinent called macacas, or else they’ll simply outsourced directly to Taiwan or Indonesia.
Do not be fooled by the slow creation of what amount to fortified areas protecting the last of the white upper classes. This is the last gasp of a dying world order as the world slowly turns the color of sludge.
Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign for the Democrat nomination deliberately appealed to white supremacy, fear and anxiety, charged longtime Barack Obama colleague and Weatherman terrorist William Ayers and wife, Bernardine Dohrn.
In a co-authored article in the socialist Monthly Review magazine, the two radicals argued last year’s national elections had “racist” undertones and that President Obama’s ascent to power can be used to “build a new society.”
“[Hillary] Clinton flagrantly appealed to white voters’ identity as ‘workers’ or ‘women’—offering white people any reason to vote against Obama without saying he’s black—and followed the ancient and dismal road of racial discourse that appeals to white supremacy, fear and anxiety,” wrote Ayers and Dohrn.
The two referenced a New York Times opinion piece by feminist activist Gloria Steinem, “Women are Never Front-Runners,” written on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. Steinem argued the gender barrier had not yet been broken and asked, “Why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?”
Ayers and Dohrn charged Steinem had asserted a “superior victim status on the part of white, powerful women.”
The duo went on to claim the 2008 presidential elections had racist undertones.
“The invisible race talk was about ‘blue collar’ or ‘working class’ or ‘mainstream’ or ‘small town’ or ‘hockey mom’ or ‘Joe the plumber,’ but we were meant to think ‘white,’” they wrote.
Continued Ayers and Dohrn: “All the talk of Senator Barack Obama’s exotic background, all the references to him as ‘unknown, ‘untested,’ a ‘stranger,’ or a ‘symbolic candidate,’ or ‘alien,’ a ‘wildcard,“‘or an ‘elitist.’ . . . The discourse was all about race, us and them, understood by everyone in the United States even when the words African American, black or white are not spoken.”
{snip}
[Editor’s Note: “What Race Has to Do With It,” by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, can be read here.]
Worst movie in the history of humanity, 2012, yep that’s right!
This is the last time Hollywood liberal elites fool me into watching another one of their pieces of shit. This movie has got to be the most disrespectful anti-white, kill whitey, pro-communism, pro-black supremacy movie of all time, black panthers would be proud. They lured me in with the whole destruction of California, great to see them stick it to the libs and moronic termaweenie governor, and good to see yellow stone erupt and wipe out what’s left of the west, but I knew something was up when one of the main characters was a black doctorate geologist, who becomes the messiah of morality and good character towards the end of the movie as he saves mankind, even though no such thing exists within the real world, I guess that’s why they call Hollywood the city of dreams. The anti-religion aspects were present when a religious icon in brazil collapsed on the poor Brazilians asking for redemption below, while the Vatican dome turns into a giant bowling ball first killing the pope, then it cruises down the plaza crushing the poor Catholics in prayer beneath it. Not to mention The Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo, yes folks, a crack formed straight down the middle between God and Adam, one more spit in the face of organized pro-western religion. I swear semen was dripping from the screen, the liberals in Hollywood could not help themselves, they were literally in an orgasmic fever when they wrote this script, they had to humiliate western religion, I’m not a religious person, but for once can they keep it in their pants, for gods sake give it a break! When one religion is targeted for on screen destruction, while Buddhism is allowed to live on through the lone surviving monk, and Islam is no where to be seen but in a moment of prayer, something’s up, god forbid we offend Islam with the destruction of the black jigsaw puzzle they worship in the Sand Kingdom, of course the anti-American dictatorial terrorist supporting Saudi royal family lives on with first class tickets on the American ark. What the hell!!! If this was not enough, communism was celebrated throughout this movie, china built the arks!!! NO I’m not joking, the arks, had a made in china stamp on the bottom, but surprise they did not fall apart like all the other shit china makes. The swarms of Chinese ants worked feverishly building the arks that would save civilized man, they were organized in their movement of animals to the arks, organized in kicking the Tibetan people from their land to build the arks, just like good little communist in Hollywood, nothing wrong with china.
This is not the worst part, I have saved the best ( I mean worst part of the movie) for last. When the world is destroyed, the liberal assholes made sure the liberal higher then holly globalists pieces of shit in Europe survived, but the European people, just a passing moment of total destruction, the only Americans allowed on the ark were those who paid a billion euros a ticket, that’s right EUROS!! So only the liberal elites in America, warren buffet, bill gates and the likes were allowed to live, the rest of us cows left out to the slaughter. Wait there’s more. I’m working my way to the end of the movie, when they finally find land, guess what, of all the places on earth, the one land mass to survive un scathed, while the rest of the planets land masses are totally destroyed, completely submerged under the waves, every aspect of the Untied States, gone, Western Europe, gone, Asia gone, the rest of the Americas gone, gone, gone, all gone!! But nope they could not leave it at that, they had to jab the blade in one more time. The first of the surviving satellites came online and reveal, the worst of humanity has survived, if you call them human. Africa, yes that’s right Africa, not a single strip of land was damaged, matter of fact, its greener then before, and to top it off, the does not exist in real life black male scientist/geologist states with affirmation and joy, that the waves that washed over the Himalayas, and sure as hell washed the crackers out of house and home in the west, did not touch Africa!!!!! Can you believe this shit, all the n***ers survived!!! The simians, Nigerians, Kenyans, all survived, only greed westerners, to much religion loving Latinos, too capitalistic Indians (people from India), were totally wiped out. Even some of the communist Chinese workers were allowed to live, but Africa, the one place that did not assist in building the arks, no contribution other then the black scientist, and his future empresses (former black presidents “Obama‘s” daughter, who also happens to be a doctor of who knows whats what, is not married, no kids, and is not on drugs, or stuffing her face with chicken) they live on in Africa. Only good parts of the movie, California gets its ass handed to it, the “Obama” character, gets crushed by an American Aircraft carrier, and his bitch wife died before all hell breaks loose, so no appearances from the queen.
After the movie ended I could barely contain my rage, what a rip off. I can’t wait for the revolution, these libs have it coming to them, I thought nothing could be worse then “the day after tomorrow,” in which not only did they have Americans fleeing across the southern border like a bunch of illegal aliens, but after destroying the western civilization, just to make sure they got every cracker, the libs sent a tsunami to wipe out that last out post of semi-commonsense Australia. This movie tops the charts, Worst movie of all time. If you don’t like what I have to say, kiss my ass monkoid, I’ll see you on the battlefield!!!
In 2012 the earth was saved thanks to a Black geologist
When looking at the work of Roland Emmerich, what is most striking about his film resume is the intense devotion to Black Fictional Heroes. Will Smith as Captain Stephen Hiller in Independence Day flying a F/A-18 Hornet, when less than 2 percent of military aviators are Black was one thing; the most politically incorrect scene in film history was also included in that film when a half-naked African emerged from the bush clutching a spear and celebrating the downing of a 15-mile wide alien spacecraft as if he actually had something to do with disabling to the ship, is another.
That particular scene accompanies the montage at the end of film, showcasing the downed alien ships throughout the world. How on earth an African was able to chuck a spear miles into the atmosphere and bring down an interstellar spacecraft is a hilarious question that Emmerich seemingly leaves unanswered in Independence Day.
Recovering from this racial faux pas, Emmerich would cast Danny Glover in yet another “Black POTUS during the end of the civilized world ” that has become the predominate theme in film. 2012 was a visually stunning cinematic experience showcasing implausible action and an over-reliance on destroying popular landmarks that Emmerich’s movies have become gratuitously famous for in the process.
2012 is the anti-Knowing and I am Number Four, a film that exists in a parallel universe where Black people fill virtually every important vocational role instead of our reality where Black people enjoy an onus on barbershops and government employment. This is the beauty of Black Fictional Heroes, as popular culture through the medium of film, television and even pop singers and other entertainers are manufactured and carefully placed in a colorful form of Black product placement to let the viewer know that yes, Black people can be anything they put their mind.
Real-life employment and labor statistics might showcase a paucity of Black people in positions that movies and television routinely casts them in (think computer programmer, scientist, geneticist, inventor, dentist, vet), but this is why behavioral modification techniques and propaganda are so vital to propping up Black Run America (BRA). All Black people come from families as loving as that wonderful Cosby family was in The Cosby Show. Right?
The picture’s main premise isglobal warming on steroids, as large solar flares are found to be heating the Earth’s crust to an unstable level. An Indian physicist, working in conjunction with America’s chief geologist Adrian Helmsley,a black guy, makes the discovery. The black American scientist relays this information to his dubious boss, a white man who subsequently represents themoral failings of pragmatic government frugality, and then theblack President. Aglobal consortium of nationsresolves to save humanity by appropriating funds from rich donors who are offered seats in exchange for their donations. Of course, thisprivate fundraising effort is later criticizedby Adrian, the moral compass of the movie, for unfairly limiting occupants to the rich…
After establishing John Cusack, his ex-wife, and their children, the dismantling of Earth’s crust begins. I generally love disaster films, but that usually doesn’t imply watching billions of people die. This extreme seismic activity that eventually destroys almost all of Earth’s landmass is an allusion to the Mayan’s 2012 calendar prediction popular amongst the “woo” sect. In a nod to the noble savage meme, several characters mention the foresight of the Mayans and, in doing so, belittle Western technology as practically equivalent to antiquated superstition.
The movie continues in China, where the Chinese have been building ships to save humanity. Cusack is joined by a Russian billionaire who later dies in a horrifically violent manner, justified due to these reprehensible character traits: having a hot young blond as his trophy girlfriend and being a rich capitalist. In between, we get Mr. Miyagi Eastern mystic wisdom while the Vatican disintegrates, killing a bunch of Catholics. (Coincidentally, no Muslim monuments were eviscerated in the film.)
While in China boarding the arks, the black American scientist delivers a “We are the World” speech that inspires all of humanity. At the end of the film, with the natural disasters having extirpated almost all of civilization, one continent stands alone as the new birthplace of humanity: Africa. Yes, the only continent to survive a worldwide flood was Africa (South Africa to be specific!). So with the entirety of civilization destroyed, humanity can now progress into a new dawn free of the restrictions imposed by all those pesky conservative institutions.
Wait a second, a Black geologist? Everything else sounds entirely plausible, but a Black geologist? Here is a list of the 10 vocations with the lowest Black participation:
1.Artists and related workers—0.8% 2.Environmental scientists and geoscientists—1.0% 3.Cost estimators—1.1% 4.Farmers and ranchers—1.4%
4. Dentists—1.4%
4. Surveying and mapping technicians—1.4%
7. Farm, ranch, and other agricultural managers—1.5%
8. News analysts, reporters and correspondents—1.8%
9. Millwrights—2.1%
9. Miscellaneous physical scientists—2.1%
So what are the positions with the highest Black participation? Find out here.
Black geologists are rare in the field of geoscience; yet like the wine industry, the study of rocks and the ground we walk upon continues unabated. But a crisis exists, of course:
African American earth scientists ponder strategies to attract more students of color to a field with growing opportunities
Reston, Va. — Their work is essential to the production and preservation of things we take for granted every day — resources like water, natural gas, and petroleum. Yet, if you asked the average person what geoscientists do, most would be stumped.
And if you asked the average geoscientist why so few among them are African American, the reaction wouldn’t be much different.
Last month, a group of roughly fifty African American geologists, geophysicists, students, and corporate recruiters convened here on the campus of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to discuss the future of their profession and strategies for expanding their numbers. The theme of the seventeenth annual conference of the National Association of Black Geologists and Geophysicists (NABGG) was “Diversity in Geoscience.”
“Within five years, approximately 25 percent of our current staff will be eligible for retirement,” said Cynthia L. Quarterman, director of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service, a major federal employer of geoscientists.
“MMS has a five-point strategic plan for diversity,” Quarterman adds.
Noting that five different world records for offshore resource production were set on the outer continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico in the past year, she said that resource production is expected to double there in coming years.
A Black geologist can save the world in 2012, but in reality, a Black student interested in becoming a geologist can scarcely be found. So yes, Black students studying geology are between a rock and hard place (only 373 Black students were studying geology at American universities in 1996 and you can bet that every company that hires geologist for mineral inspection and oil exploration were interested in landing their prized Black employee from this lot) though the National Association of Black Geologists and Geophysicists does have exceptional corporate backing.
The desire to rectify the lack of Black participation in geology (and virtually every hard science) has been an Sisyphean task, though Sisyphus at least got the boulder up the hill before it came crashing down again. This article from 1994 showcases that Black participation in geology shows no signs of ever improving:
Bernard Hubbard, a graduate student in the Department of Geology at the University at Buffalo and one of the relatively few African Americans in the U.S. who is studying geology, has strong advice for inner-city kids.
“Don’t fear the professional fields,” he advises. “There are more of us going into these fields than you’d ever know. You’d be surprised at the number of people who come from the ghetto who really make it to the top, but you never hear about it. Your people are there!”
While the under-representation of minorities in all the sciences has received much attention lately, many studies and programs focus on biology and chemistry, and other more “popular” sciences. But African Americans are especially under-represented in geology.
The American Geological Institute estimates that out of 26,522 students studying geology at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the U.S., only 362 are black.
The National Association for Black Geologists and Geophysicists estimates that of the 80,000 working geoscientists in the U.S., just 0.4 percent are black.
Thank God for Black History Month Heroes, or else we’d only have Black people playing roles like in Mad Men that more align with the profession that they are found in real life. Here’s to you Adrian Helmsley, a Black geologist that we can all be proud of, and who saved the day in 2012.
And thank God for Emmerich, as the mulligan he was offered for the horrid shot of Africans, holding spears and admonishing a downed alien spacecraft as if they had something to do with its defeat was completely forgotten with the ode to Black people that was 2012.
