Can blacks control themselves?

Maybe Tavis Smiley was telling the truth when he told C-Span program host Brian Lamb and the world that "black people are an emotional people" – his point being that their primeval emotionalism prevents them from obeying rules.

His statement was in response to Lamb's question about why Smiley, moderator of Thursday's Democrat presidential debate, had not enforced the no-applause rule used in all candidate forums. Is Smiley's claim that they would not have listened because they are an "emotional people" a truism?

Maybe Smiley, wittingly or unwittingly, in but a few words, let the proverbial cat out of the bag regarding what could be argued as the reason for much of the anti-social and deplorable behavior of far too many.

Maybe that's the reason blacks committed unparalleled atrocities in the 1992 Los Angeles riots (aka the Rodney King riots). Blacks really didn't mean any harm; they were simply unable to control their emotions – so they looted, burned, murdered and caused mayhem on a spectacular level.

Being the emotional people Smiley stated blacks are explains why they overturned cars, set fires, fought with police, looted and plundered after the Detroit Pistons won the NBA championship not many years ago. They were just finding an outlet for the euphoria they were experiencing.

Uncontrollable emotionalism would certainly explain the fights and the people in the audience storming the stage barely an hour after the MTV Music Awards began back in 2000. Black participants and attendees were so overcome with the emotion of the moment that they had to find a release.

Said uncontrollable emotionalism would certainly explain why, during the most recent "Juneteenth" celebrations, blacks resorted to knifings, overturning cars and murder. They were unable to contain their exuberance.

Yes sir, Tavis Smiley hit the nail on the head – or did he? Could it be he was correct about the emotionalism but wrong about the people – and if so, why? The eponym for emotion doesn't have a picture of a black person beside it in the dictionary. Yet, that is exactly what Smiley, the media and those Democrat candidates in attendance seem to think.

Smiley's comments to Lamb were pejorative and insulting. They most certainly would not have been acceptable from the lips of a white person or conservative black. But in his case, they went unchallenged because "he's down with the struggle." There is an element of Erebusic depravity to be found in the groups that are paraded across the television screens at the beginning of every newscast. And it is most noteworthy that that element is almost without exception predominantly, if not entirely, black. It seems that the lead-in stories every evening on local news programs portray blacks at their worst.

The question that begs an answer is, why? Why is it important to present the worst elements of a populace of people? The answer is, in no small part, because that is what sells. Even more problematic – that is how elites view blacks. They view them as incapable of controlling themselves.

They view blacks as a victim group somewhere beneath Magdalenians on the evolutionary ladder. It is this mindset that assuages their wrong-minded feelings of superiority. It is this mindset that elevates their condescending opinions that blacks cannot survive or get ahead without their help. It is this mindset that feeds into the idea that blacks who not only condemn such malevolence, but themselves live above it, are castigated as sellouts, Uncle Toms and "trying to be white."

It is this wrong-headed elitism that engenders bitterness and resentment toward those who are public in their disdain for such commonality. It is also that which competes against modernity in favor of those who blame slavery, racial injustice and whites for the realities of everyday life.

Smiley's response to Lamb's question not only gave credence to the aforementioned mindsets, but demonstrated that he himself ascribed to it. Had he been doing his job – had he understood the importance of the moment pursuant to said debate, he would have exercised control over the situation and demanded appropriate behavior (read respect and decorum).

But instead, he abdicated his responsibility and then offered a deplorably condescending attribution of impuissant reasoning that painted an entire people with a single brush stroke.

He was wrong, and all those who agree with him are equally wrong. The candidates pandering to blacks in the debate that evening lent their support to that level of behavior. They elevated themselves in their own elitist minds – but they did nothing to elevate a people or recognize that the overwhelming majority of blacks are upstanding citizens, not only capable of exercising control, but also of condemning such inappropriateness.

His words also slandered his own family, which I would like to think raised him better than that.

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Who speaks for black America?