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<\/a>To put it another way, Johnson and his peers had to find a way to keep black people disenfranchised while appearing<\/em> to empower them, and<\/em> ultimately ensure they voted Democrat in perpetuity. Fooling and manipulating a targeted demographic is certainly not unique in history and this progressive approach proved to work spectacularly: it remains ubiquitous almost 70 years later. Autonomous and competent people are not amenable to manipulation, hence it became necessary to make the targeted demographic embrace the opposite: helplessness, dependency, and victimization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n An important step was for the establishment (white) Democrat powers to choose emissaries to black culture in the form of black \u201cleaders\u201d who would reliably promulgate the desired message, i.e. you are helpless, dependent, and can't be held responsible because you are victims. At this point it's necessary to mention the premier black leader of the time, Martin Luther King, Jr, along his relationship with LBJ. Today MLK's name is exploited by the racialist black elite as Jesus' is by corrupt televangelists: they need them to legitimize their behavior but also need to marginalize these towering figures because what they stood for is at odds with their personal lust for power, money, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just like the current \u201cequity\u201d obsession among the progressive left is the antithesis of equality, many of the exhortations of MLK are contrary to today\u2019s leftist dogma: work ethic and personal responsibility<\/u><\/a>, education and family and, of course, \u201c... not (be) judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.\u201d In many ways MLK was the \u201cuppity\u201d black man with political pull that LBJ feared and, while there were intersections of common interests between the two, LBJ used King when politically beneficial, but otherwise disparaged him (Salon is a rabidly leftist on-line magazine but published a fascinating article in 2018<\/u><\/a> detailing LBJ\u2019s duplicity in regards to MLK).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Post-MLK \u201cblack leaders\u201d acceptable to the white Democrat powers had to be both controllable and able to turn on faux righteous anger like a light switch to incite susceptible black audiences on cue. Jesse Jackson emerged as the post-MLK prototype and was quite adept at soaring, emotional rhetoric that assured black people not only were they victims but that, no matter what, they always would be. The goal was never to truly elevate black people but to make them malleable: actually empowering them would be diminish Jackson's status and influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a general way, power can be obtained by either advancing people or by perpetuating discontent. The former is difficult and requires effort, the latter requires only words and the ability to fool people: empty promises, appealing to greed, sowing division, finding scapegoats for their failures. This was aptly discussed in a 1911, 6,000 word essay by Booker T. Washington. Washington (1856-1915) was born a slave, went on to write the seminal book, Up From Slavery, and was heralded as the preeminent black spokesman of his time. His 1911 essay, Intellectuals and the Boston Mob<\/u><\/a>, included the following observation: There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs\u2013partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, be-cause they do not want to lose their jobs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I wonder if Washington could have foreseen this would persist, stronger than ever, 115 years later, where in 2026 black people worth billions and holding immense political and cultural power cling to the \u201cbusiness of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the negro race before the public.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2007, Joe Biden, then in his mid-60s said (of Obama), \u201cI mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that\u2019s a storybook, man.\u201d While this statement was both galling and patronizing, it did provide insight into the mindset of the post-modern Democrat party, prompting one to ask, \u201cHow is it even possible he could have lived 65 years and never encountered an \u2018articulate and bright and clean\u2019 black person?\u201d The answer is simple: he and his political collaborators existed in such an isolated world that the only black people they knew were those as Washington described: buffoonish race hustlers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are a few present day examples of what what LBJ envisioned when he talked about giving them<\/em> a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference: spelling black with a capital \u201cB,\u201d giving them<\/em> their own holiday, erasing Uncle Ben from rice boxes, and ending the use of the word \u201cmaster\u201d when referring to a large bedroom. Similarly, a significant part of the strategy is to immerse blacks in lower expectations: blacks are uniquely incapable of<\/em> obtaining official ID in regards to voting laws, stop requiring SAT\u2019s because blacks can\u2019t <\/em>score well, limit prosecutions of black criminals because they just can\u2019t <\/em>obey the law, no longer require aspiring lawyers to pass the bar exam because not enough blacks are able to do so<\/em>, etc. Convincing black people they are inherently incapable is an excellent way of keeping them from becoming uppity and, combined with giving them consolation prizes in the form of, for example, made-up professorships, is \u201cjust enough to quiet them down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In August 2020 the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture released a graphic called \"Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness,\"<\/u><\/a> basically a list of behaviors and attitudes black people shouldn\u2019t or can\u2019t be expected to share. Items included independence and autonomy, the nuclear family, objective thinking, hard work the key to success, planning for the future, and delayed gratification. Somehow the elite progressives and\/or their black subordinates were too insulated to recognize its inherent and vile racism, but outcry from rational people led to its withdrawal in Oct. Nevertheless, for two months we had on full display the Democrat\u2019s disdain of black people, and their strategy of keeping them from getting too uppity: degradation masquerading as \u201cjustice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n by Reid Fitzsimons (note this article was first published at the American Thinker: https:\/\/www.americanthinker.com\/articles\/2026\/01\/progressives_give_them_just_enough.html) Affluent progressives have the ongoing challenge of maintaining their wealth and status while keeping up appearances of benevolence and compassion. Regarding race, in post-WW2 America, as the old use of intimidation by Democrats to manage black people receded more subtle strategies ...continue reading <\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/a>