'Django' from a different angle
By The Bakersfield Californian
The writer of the Feb. 10 letter "Elements of 'Django' exist today" said, "It will take many years more for the negative ramifications of slavery to end." I find this to only be true if one wants to use past historical misdeeds in order to maintain "victim" status.
After hearing Dr. Benjamin Carson's speech at last week's National Prayer Breakfast, I was inspired to learn what he had to overcome in order to achieve his stature at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His mother never allowed him to use excuses as to why he could not succeed. She cleaned houses and had little education but was very wise. She noticed that in the wealthy white houses where she worked, they didn't watch much TV and instead read books and studied. She thus made her children do the same.
Another successful person I admire is Charles Payne of Fox Business News. He has told of how he was constantly bullied by other young black kids because he would always dress up and worked toward becoming a businessman. He said the children would say he was "trying to be white."
The previous writer quoted statistics that indicate blacks are more likely to be incarcerated, live in poverty, be unemployed. Some reasons: single-parent homes, no discipline, no father present, drugs, promiscuity. In other words, the same reasons that whites are in prison and not succeeding. If you don't want to be in prison, don't do anything illegal.
Lastly, "Django Unchained" was not a factual historical movie, but just a movie.
Anne Grogan
Bakersfield
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