Acton Research Fellow Dr. Anthony Bradley spoke about his book Black and Tired: Essays on Race, Politics, Culture, and International Development at The Heritage Foundation earlier this month, and the video is now online.
Dr. Bradley explained just why he called his book “Black and Tired:”
The hopes and dreams, aspirations, virtues, institutions, values, principles that created the conditions that put me here today, are being sabotaged and eroded by those who have good intentions, but often do not think through the consequences of public policy decisions, because they have different views on the human person, and human dignity, then those who actually structured our government in the first place. And while the effects of this anthropology are not immediately seen, the long-term effects have been uniquely and harshly experience among a black underclass, and this makes me tired.
Dr. Bradley blames a “poisonous cocktail” of converging trends that has allowed a class of political elites to sabotage and erode the American spirit. He blames the decline of American religious life, the erosion of an understanding of human dignity, and concern with equality of results rather than equality of process. These trends are symptomatic of a pervasive narcissism, says Dr. Bradley, that sets them off and is then fed by them.
The black community needs an ethical rebirth — as Dr. Bradley says, “moral problems require moral solutions” — in order to escape the fatal “patriarchy of good intentions.” His book provides lessons for a recovery of black culture and a return to moral responsibility. He reminds the audience,
The Civil Rights Movement at its core was about … liberating African Americans from the control of others who sought to make their decisions for them, as if they were children. So during the civil rights movement you saw men carrying placards that read “I AM A MAN” — I’m not a boy.
For how to turn things around, to turn out men instead of boys, read Dr. Bradley’s book. Here’s the full video:
