You cannot compare yourselves with whites who, on average, have much more money, attended better high schools, already have a leg up in the job market because they are of the majority group and have relatives and acquaintances with the right contacts. The bottom line, I would say, is that most white students are born with a head start. One of the most striking examples of white equivalency came the other morning during a National Public Radio segment on Saturday's Million Youth March in New York. Dismissing march organizer Khalid Abdul Muhammad as a charlatan, a black professor said that the antics of the ex-Nation of Islam spokesman demonstrate the dearth of leadership in black America. Shipler's argument is faulty.
Whites are the majority group and control every facet of U.S. life.
Blacks, however, the nation's most despised minority group, need dynamic leaders, such as a Martin Luther King and Kweisi Mfume, to galvanize their interests. By putting down white leaders, Shipler was trying to blunt negative criticism of black leaders. The fallacy of white equivalency, in the hands of policymakers, worries me mainly because we often wind up with legislation that harms blacks. Yes, some of the problems are similar or the same. St. Petersburg Times.