June 29, 2020

A must-see movie for all Americans!

WND - June 29, 2020

Wow! What an insightful and powerful movie! A must-see for all Americans!

My wife, Gena, and I could not more highly recommend the new movie "Uncle Tom,"produced by insightful radio host, author and culture warrior Larry Elder. You can preview the trailer, stream the movie 24/7 on demand or purchase the DVD at UncleTom.com.

The movie features a host of prominent people via news clips, including Denzel Washington, John Legend, Trevor Noah, Kanye West, former president Barack Obama and Jay-Z. It also features former congressman Allen West, 2012 presidential candidate Herman Cain, commentator Candace Owens, Lt. Col. Allen B. West, Robert L. Woodson, Brandon Tatum, Carol Swain, Chad O. Jackson, Eugene J. Ralph Sr., Jesse Lee Peterson, Damani B. Felder, Kelvin Austin, Patricia Watson, King Face, Joel Patrick, Pastor Stephen Broden, Michael Ayetrwa, R.C. Maxwell, Rob Smith and Viswanag Burra.

As the official movie website explains:

In this eye-opening film from Director Justin Malone and Executive Producer Larry Elder, Uncle Tom examines self-empowerment, individualism and rejecting the victim narrative. Uncle Tom shows us a different perspective of American History from this often ignored and ridiculed group.

Elder explains at the beginning of the movie, "An Uncle Tom is someone who sold out and embraced the white man by rejecting the idea that you're a victim."

Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and a specialist in the study of race relations and multiculturalism (himself an African American), writes and teaches prolifically on the cycles of victimization.

In his groundbreaking book "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era," Steele explained: "In 1955 the killers of Emmett Till, a black Mississippi youth, were acquitted because they were white. Forty years later, despite the strong DNA evidence against him, accused murderer O. J. Simpson went free after his attorney portrayed him as a victim of racism. The age of white supremacy has given way to an age of white guilt--and neither has been good for African Americans."

A few weeks ago, Steele was on "Life, Liberty & Levin," where he wisely explained how Americans get stuck in theses cycles, or what I call social salad spinners, by using the example of the recent racist violence and protests:

So, it feeds this old model of operation that we've developed that America is guilty of racism, guilty of the sin and has been for four centuries, and minorities are victims who are entitled. And so when people start to talk about systemic racism built into the system, what they're really doing is expanding the territory of entitlement.

Well, that's a corruption. And I know it's a corruption because the truth of the matter is, blacks have never been less oppressed than they are to date. Opportunity is around every corner, and in all of this, no one ever stops to say, well, you're unhappy about where minorities are at in American life and blacks continue to be at the bottom of most socioeconomic measures. You're unhappy about that.

Well, why don't you take some responsibility for it? Why don't you take more responsibility? I would be happy to look at all the usual bad guys, the police and so forth if we had the nerve, the courage to look at black people, to look at black Americans, minority Americans, and say, you're not carrying your own weight.

You are going to go have a fit in a tantrum and demonstrate and so forth, and yet you're not -- you're not doing -- are you teaching your child to read? Are you making sure that the school down the street actually educates your child? Are you becoming educated and following a dream in life and making things happen for yourself?

Or are you saying I'm a victim and I'm old and the entitlement is inadequate and I need to be given more; and after all, you know, you whites that racism has been here for four centuries and slavery and so forth, and so it's time for you to give to me.

Well, that's an exhausted, fruitless empty strategy to take. We've been on that path since the 60s and we are further behind than we've ever been and we keep blaming it on racism and blaming it on the police. I'm exhausted with that.

Robert L. Woodson, civil rights veteran, a former head of the National Urban League Department of Criminal Justice and founder and president of the Woodson Center, who is referred to by many as the "godfather" of the neighborhood empowerment movement because of his lifetime of work to help low-income people transcend their impoverished conditions, takes Steele's argument one step further.

Woodson recently told Tucker Carlson: "In the past 50 years, $22 trillion has been spent on poverty programs. Seventy percent goes not to the poor but those who serve poor people. So many of those people taking office use this money to create a class of people who are running these cities, and now after 50 years of liberal Democrats running the inner cities, where we have all of these inequities that we have, race is being used as a ruse, as a means of deflecting attention away from critical questions such as why are poor blacks failing in systems run by their own people?"

Woodson believes that what many are now calling "institutional or systemic racism" is actually a ruse and that the real history of black America is not being told. Watch and listen to Woodson's incredibly wise words to Tucker on the problem with looking at life through the prism of racism. (Woodson also recently published a superb Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that hostility towards police has actually hurt not helped black people.)

With all America has recently endured, and as we approach another 4th of July, the time is perfect to watch the culture warrior film "Uncle Tom." It is a genuine reminder through the personal stories of people just like you and me that it's high time for everyone to refuse to drink the Kool-Aid of victimization and strive for betterment. Their testimonies of overcoming life's obstacles and brokenness to discover the American dream will also inspire you to discover yours!