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By Tom Pain
Feb. 6, 2007 A Dallas Morning News (DMN) article this week described the "ordeal" of Kneeland Youngblood as he sought to gain membership in Dallas Country Club (DCC), the most prestigious such club in this area. Like many elite clubs around the country, DCC has had no black members in its history. Youngblood is seeking to become its first, and initially applied about six years ago. In a move that seems almost destined for failure, Youngblood has opted to take his story public. An unknown staff reporter for DMN got the "scoop" and it appeared above the fold on the front page. How could she have known the business of a private club? Her article claims that several DCC members have told her that race is involved in the hold up of his application. Specifically, his past position of the board of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH coalition was cited. Conveniently, Youngblood was out of the country when the story broke, yet he was still able to be contacted by this "hard working" reporter and made the typical politically correct statement: "The club, and the club alone, has the right to decide," said Mr. Youngblood, founder of Dallas-based Pharos Capital Group. "I have great friends and great sponsors who are members of the club. Regardless of what happens, I will continue to have those relationships." Even the author admits that Mr. Youngblood’s six-year wait is not unusual: "It took a decade for some of the best-recognized faces at the club to get admitted." And the club president notes that DCC has female, Jewish, and Hispanic members – other groups commonly excluded by elitist clubs in the past. He notes that the club is simply hard to join. There are currently 250 – 275 names on the waiting list and the club admits only 20 – 25 new members each year. Yet, "friends and business partners" of Youngblood say that "the holdup is just another sign that racism lingers inside the nation's elite country clubs, leaving important business relationships and top layers of society effectively closed to many successful, prominent citizens." My Opinion DCC is a private club. It can discriminate if it wants to. Why doesn’t Youngblood force his way into the KKK? There’s a private club that could really use some black members. You can’t make someone want you. If some DCC members are racist, and they would seem to be a minority based on Youngblood’s wide and vocal support by many of its members, they are not going to suddenly initiate "important business relationships" with him just because he forced his way into their club. And there is nothing stopping him from having "important business relationships" with anyone. One does not have to join a club to have those relationships. In fact, since Youngblood was named by Black Entrepreneur magazine as one of the "75 Most Powerful Blacks on Wall Street," it doesn’t appear that he’s having a problem initiating business relationships at all. He left his medical career and started a private equity investment firm in 1997. He now manages $500 million of other people’s money. If only I could be discriminated against like that. Furthermore, why would anyone want to be in a club with racists? Former Dallas Mayor and one-time U.S. Senate candidate Ron Kirk, a black man, refuses to apply to any of those elitist clubs. I agree with his decision. For the record, I am not going to apply to them either because I believe the absence of black members gives the impression of racism. Youngblood ought to raise his principles and withdraw his application. He is too good of a man to wallow around in the DCC muck. Is U-K Becoming Another DCC? In the sense that it has taken to letting scum in as members, yes, it is. I have been posting here for more than two years. I have contributed more than 250 articles, and despite what my critics claim, the huge majority of those do not criticize fellow U-K writers. In others, and absolutely within the Rebuttals section, I have criticized other writers – with very accurate and reasoned accusations, thoroughly documented with the words they wrote that are the object of my criticism. Unless I am mistaken, that is the very purpose of the Rebuttals section. That section was created specifically as a place in which one could criticize the other writers. It was created after members complained that bickering had overtaken the main U-K page. Almost all of my criticism since the creation of that section has occurred within that section. Now, I am being attacked for using the Rebuttals section as it was intended. No one denies the accuracy and solid reasoning behind my criticisms. No one has ever documented a single instance of error on my part that, if true, I did not immediately admit and apologize for the mistake. No one has ever alleged that my mistakes were intentionally meant to distort. More importantly, those I expose rarely deny the errors I cite, or if they do, they don’t provide evidence justifying their denials. Lately, anonymous U-K writers have appeared under alias, both on the main page and in the forum, exponentially exceeding with their attacks against me any vulgarity and cruelty I have ever written. Lacking any defense to the accusations I’ve made against them, and horribly embarrassed at having been exposed as fools or prejudiced distorters, they’ve chosen to return anonymously and spew baseless invective at me. Too stupid to use wit or truth, they’ve resorted to posting outrageous lies about me – insults with no basis in fact or logic. I do not mean this article to complain about that treatment. It is really water rolling off this duck’s back. But, I did want to address their intent behind these laughable attacks. It is obvious, and has been stated, that their intent is to drive me from this site. I wanted them to know how close they are to doing that. Just as Mr. Youngblood should do, I will resign from this "club" when its membership become an embarrassment. Their insults of me won’t drive me away, but parading up and down the site like idiots, such that anyone associated herein takes on that odor as well, will. I understand that others have left for similar reasons. In their world, being exposed as liars and distortion artists was just as embarrassing as being associated with idiots is to me. The difference is, they had the power to eliminate that which embarrassed them. They only had to stop lying and distorting, or they could have done as I do – humbly admit one’s errors and apologize to the readers. Unfortunately, their low self-esteems and weak character prevented that. I cannot make the idiots on this site intelligent. I cannot make the Moderators on this site do their job – while my posts get deleted if they are simply located in the wrong thread, these idiots’ personal attacks that do not relate to any U-K article (two blatant infractions of the oft-stated rules) remain. Before I leave, I will resort to the same tactics used against me. But for now, I am taking the high road and ignoring the idiots. Just as Youngblood should ignore those idiots who don’t want him in their club. ------------ About the author Tom Pain: Just an American boy with so much common sense, it hurts. Email: thomas.pain@hughes.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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