Reason Party: James Baldwin vs William F. Buckley (1965)

Source:Reason Party- Conservative columnist William F. Buckley, debating author James Buckley, at Oxford, England in 1965.

Source:The Daily Post

“James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley (Part 6)”

Bill Buckley seems to be trying to making the case that racial-discrimination isn’t the only problem in the African-American community. That they also face issues of personal responsibility like having kids out-of-wedlock, fathers leaving their kids and ending up in prison, not finishing school and so-forth. Which I actually agree with Buckley on, just as long as he’s saying that racial discrimination like being forced to go to inadequate schools, being denied loans, housing, employment, etc, simply because of your race, are also contributing factors the plight (lets say) of the African-American community. A community that was kidnapped, that was kidnapped from the very beginning and forced to live in America. 

You could have a community of Americans by race, or ethnicity, or whatever, that plays by all the rules, lives up to all of their responsibilities, that could still fail, if they’re not allowed to attend quality schools, have access to banking, loans, quality housing, employment, not because of their personal and professional qualifications, but because of their race and ethnicity. Things that have nothing to do with what kind of businessperson they would be, what kind of student they would be, what kind of employee they would be, what kind of resident they would be, etc. And that is the real crime of legal racial discrimination in America and Jim Crow. Whether it comes from the private, or public sectors.