In my neighborhood, in DeKalb County, Georgia, where last month an extra one percent sales tax was quietly extended through a referendum only its advocates seemed to know about, I see able-bodied teenage boys waddling in pants with crotches down to their knees, throwing potato chip bags to the ground. The Ph.D.'s who insist that these youth are disadvantaged and write nonsense about such things as "post-traumatic slave syndrome," cannot, despite their abilities to take a far-removed obscure occurrence and weave an entire school of thought around it, make the simple observation that the droopy drawers restrict mobility nearly as much as the slave shackles of old.

Before they snuck in the special voting day on the sales tax for "our children," as the signs proclaimed, the tax proponents did not consult with me. I wish they had, especially when I consider how much money such consultants as Joy DeGruy Leary make giving advice that requires even more money. Joy DeGruy Leary has copyrighted the title "Post-Traumatic Slave Disorder" on her web page and has capitalized on this disorder that she seems to have come up with by making presentations to governmental institutions and companies like the FBI, police bureaus, school districts, universities, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and Nordstrom's. In an essay for a volume titled Should America Pay: Slavery and The [sic] Raging Debate on Reparations, Dr. Leary defines the syndrome: "PTSS theory states that African Americans sustained traumatic psychological and emotional injury as a direct result of slavery and continue to be injured by traumas caused by the larger society's policies of inequality, racism and oppression."

I thought this already was the rationale behind affirmative action and countless grants and scholarships given on the basis of race over the last several decades. But apparently the entrepreneurial spirit invades therapists where an opportunity is seen in every false-guilt-ridden corporation and governmental institution, not to mention academia and thugs who need therapy.

But I would have saved taxpayers money. If they had asked me, I would have suggested that they cut the school budgets by firing most of the custodial staff, the groundskeepers, mechanics, and the kitchen staff in all high schools and replace them with students.

My idea, however, is not a new one. I give credit to Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee University, who was born a slave. Tuskegee was built by children of slaves, who also grew their own food and produced products, like mattresses, at the school, in the hours they were not studying. In his autobiography, Washington writes about the initial resistance he faced by those who felt they were too good to do manual labor. Eventually, those who participated in the upkeep of the schools built up pride in the school and in themselves. Vandalism was eliminated. One is less inclined to carve one's initials (or paint graffiti) in something one has built himself.

Why not start charter schools in which students would learn the trades? Such schools would provide a good argument for vouchers. It would make such educations affordable for low-income families. Why not find a run-down building and have students fix it up, maintain it, and take care of the grounds? Too many of these adolescents have no fathers at home and live in apartments.

Allowing them to work with their hands would give them an idea of the self-sufficiency necessary to be good family men. One of the pathologies of our culture is that young people of all races no longer have the skills to be self-sufficient and have energy to burn.

An observant parent can tell you that children find self-esteem from doing and accomplishing something—not from some addle-headed teacher proclaiming their value. But the educationists believe that children will get self-esteem because they tell them. So they devise all kinds of curricula. What this has the effect of doing to children who do not get enough exercise is to bore them out of their skulls. Continued...