I take no real pleasure in writing on this contentious topic, which is mostly contentious because in the current cultural milieu, anyone on the conservativish side of the political spectrum who whispers anything less than laudatory regarding anything about our fellow humans with the year-round all-season dark tan is promptly accused of being a racist. Also screamed at, boycotted, banned from higher ed establishments, de-banked, de-platformed, harassed in restaurants, threatened with unemployment and then screamed at some more. Although it may finally have reached a point in this year; a lot of otherwise tolerant, live-and-let-live conservative, Tea Party-ish, middle-class and working-class people are comprehensively tired of being called racists and screamed at for pointing out some hard truths. Call it ‘black fatigue, and I have it.

One of those hard truths is that certain inner city urban zones are violent, dysfunctional hellscapes, largely populated by black Americans most usually described as the urban underclass, places from which anyone with a shred of ambition, talent and enterprise – or even just a desire to live in a place where bullets don’t come zipping through the walls on a regular basis – wishes to leave, and to leave that ‘hood far behind. The rest of us would prefer, on the whole, to stay as far the heck as possible from such urban zones as our economic situation permits.
Public schools in those urban hellholes are commonly acknowledged to be total bear pits, from which anyone not black, or with parents who are (against the odds) desirous of obtaining an education as the rest of us know the concept, flee as if pursued by wolves.
Andre Williams, a gentleman of the year-round permanent dark-tan (whatever his other socio-political leanings may be) explains the breakdown of the American black community rather bluntly – and I suspect with considerable accuracy. It was my excellent good fortune to have served with and currently to live where there is a scattering of solid, patriotic, hard-working and responsible good citizens of his first cohort. Thankfully I have little to do with the rest of those so listed.
Alas, I have had to read endless news stories (both mainstream and from various blog-teams) about the depredations committed by one subset. How often does one read about some violent and sometimes vicious assault in a public place, a brawl in a fast-food outlet or entertainment venue, or a smash-and-grab robbery … and scroll down to mugshot of the arrested perpetrator, the surveillance camera stills or on-the-spot posted video, and think to oneself, “Yep, about what I thought…”

As for the other enumerated category – black Americans who sit at the top of the heap in politics, entertainment and academia, enjoying riches, respect, multiple lavish residences, and opportunities for their offspring of which my family could only dream, yet still complain endlessly and ear-splittingly about American society as if they were still living in the 1870s South, with strange fruit hanging from every tree, and the KKK all masked-up and ready to ride … I am straight-up exhausted in hearing from them. As a last note – I will reiterate my personal opinion that the maladies afflicting the urban black American community subset as a whole, are mostly self-inflicted in most, and a matter for the larger black community to fix. The rest of us are tired and purely out of well-meant sympathy. We’ve got our own problems these days.

Comment as you wish, regarding your own level of black fatigue.