NEW HAVEN CT Sept. 29 (DPI) – The nation’s grinding, relentless discussion on race relations, an appealing meme now for the mainstream media, received another illogical contribution this week from The New York Times, when an African American professor from Yale University likened himself to victims of police shootings because “America does not have a plan” for him and other African American men.

This deliberately provocative premise struck many readers as not only wrong-headed but intellectually dishonest – for one thing, many readers asked, since when did a government – at least a government of free people – plan people’s lives? And for another, how could anyone blessed with as much privilege as an Ivy League professor possibly declare that society fails him?

To his credit, the professor, Chris Lebron, conceded his life has turned out pretty well: “For somebody like me to say all this, sitting in the ivory tower in the Ivy League, I seem to have disproved my own point. Because as I write this, I have been allowed to pursue, and in large part achieve, my plan of life.”

But readers by and large dismissed the column as irrationally and needlessly provocative, while neither seeking to heal or improve race relations, much less enlighten anyone.

And readers – including black readers – almost universally challenged the notion that the writer could or should claim racism, or that the nation or the state owes him or any person of any background “a plan.”  The highest recommended among more than 300 reader comments:

“Does America Have a Plan for My Life”… really!? I’m Black and I never thought, or asked, a question like that; I was too busy taking advantage of, and appreciating, the opportunities that ‘America’ has available for the people that look.
And the picture that was used for this article is bias; my wardrobe is not limited to jeans and skippies (sneakers). Also, I do not believe that I am at special risk, regardless of the images and stories that the media pushes down the general public’s throat, I’ve experienced more good than bad while living in this country.
By the way, I should have been a statistic: raised in NYC by a single Mother, Father was in Prison for providing for us the best way he knew how, and I grew up in several neighborhoods where anything could have happened.
I thank God for this country. And I hope it gives my children the opportunities and optimism that it gave me.

Other most recommended comments:

You have PH.D from MIT. You are an assistant professor of African-American studies and philosophy at Yale University…one of the best colleges in the U.S. You are published author with many more books to come. Your salary puts you in the top 5%. I can promise you the other 95% … who don’t enjoy your elite perks …would love to trade places with you…today. America’s plan for you ….by any measure …is going pretty well isn’t it? To compare yourself Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile who were caught in the firm grip of poverty and didn’t have one tenth the opportunities you have enjoyed …is the very height of narcissistic absurdity. Get real.

This article, disgracefully, implies that police shootings of blacks is a holding the black community back. It is not. There are many, many other factors that dwarf this. These include: lack of jobs matching the education and backgrounds of urban city blacks, excessive violence in urban areas (more blacks have been killed in inner city violence in Chicago alone so far this year than by police in the entire country), unbelievably high illegitimacy rate (about 70%) that is root of much of the poverty in these areas and the fact that education in the primary and secondary school levels leaves much to be desired. These are the real problems, not police violence. The sooner Mr. Lebron and black community leaders see this (and act accordingly) the better. Considering they even fail to even mention these facts, unfortunately, speaks volumes.

To the author: At this point it is difficult to discern what it is exactly that displeases you. It seems that you can at least admit that you have it better than approximately 90% of Americans, whether they be white, yellow, brown, black, or etc. However, your social status and the hefty salary that you command puts you in an elite circle within America. So, it seems that unless there is some sort of Bolshevik Revolution anytime soon in the United States in which the “elites” of society are killed or sent to the gulags, you have nothing to worry about.
Having said that, I would be remiss to mention the part with which you and I saw common ground. Towards the end of your aimless essay, you said that you have disproved your own point. I agree.

Oh brother, cry me a river. There are MILLIONS of successful black Americans who somehow made it to adulthood without getting murdered by police. The common denominator in 99.9% of these cases is failure to comply. Why is that? Why the constant mindset that you do not have to comply with an order given by the police? It’s so simple really.

America has no plan for you, you must do that yourself.