Nov 20^th

Cal Thomas begins this morning’s effort by writing, “College campuses are again in turmoil.” Cal is a bit late to the current “bash the college students” campaign of the conservatively correct. He finds it, “…amusing to read that Derek Bell, Harvard Law school professor, had claimed the Reagan administration had disengaged from civil rights causes and that…George Bush’s campaign about Willie Horton an African -American Massachusetts prisoner who had raped a white woman while on a weekend furlough was also a contributing factor to racial fears.” Yes sir, that sure is amusing. Of all the possible records of criminals committing violence while on furlough, George H.W. Bush just had to use a black convict raping a white woman. Then Thomas tries to blame Al Gore because, “…he raised the issue of furloughs for convicted felons in a debate with Michael Dukakis.” So Al Gore is to blame for this crime? The issue is whether it is responsible to use an account of this crime, that surely promotes racism, to push a political agenda. This is exactly what Bush did.

Then Thomas complains that, “Who is to blame for the…racial conflict…The left isn’t blaming the first African-American President although he has done very little to substantially improve the conditions of poor African-Americans.” First, notice how this conservatively correct columnist focuses on “blame’ and continues with his blame game as he lists other issues. Not once does he suggest a solution to any of these problems. It is not his job to suggest solutions; his job is to blame liberals for whatever difficulty exists.

We look into the record of Ronald Reagan and Barak Obama on unemployment; for the first five years under Reagan Black unemployment began at 14.6 percent and five years later had dropped to 14.5 percent. For the first five years under Obama, Black unemployment began at 12.7 percent and five years later was at 9.7 percent. (I’m using this five year period because these data were only available for the first five years of Obama’s Presidency.)

The peak Black unemployment under Reagan was 21.8 percent; under Obama it was 16.9 percent. The minimum under Reagan was 11 percent; under Obama it was 9.6 percent. Finally, under Reagan Black unemployment was higher than the rate under Obama for 26 consecutive months. These data are readily accessible on the internet if Cal Thomas had been interested. He wasn’t of course because they didn’t fit his agenda.

Thomas tells us that students should be “concerned about the falling value of their degrees.” For college graduates and beyond (advanced degrees) the unemployment rate is currently 2.5 percent. These are the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Very recent graduates will have a higher rate partly because many of them will have moved on to graduate school.