Once aware of certain racial realities, a person (especially a Christian) must try to avoid sliding into contempt.
Lawrence Auster goes much too far in his response to learning that black leaders wanted money for the moon missions redirected to social programs:
And that is all that blacks as an organized community have to contribute to our civilization: endless complaints about white injustice to blacks, and endless demands for the wealth and goods that white people have produced, and that blacks are incapable of producing.
This is absurd. In music alone (no small thing) blacks have made many enduring contributions to civilization.
(Maybe Auster intends some distinction between individual blacks and ‘blacks as an organized community,’ but lots of music will qualify anyway—think of gospel for example).
Update for readers coming from Auster’s blog: I anticipated the distinction between culture and civilization, and I accept it. If blacks have made no contributions to civilization, then let’s remember that civilization isn’t all there is.
Further update: Auster wrote “the black blackmail and dragging down of our civilization will continue and intensify, until the civilization is ruined.” This suggested to me that blacks ruin while provide little or nothing in return. It still reads that way to me, and that’s what I was taking issue with.
Happolati's Miscellany 
Indeed, a good question: should we, in considering the contributions of a group collectively, look only at their collective contributions, or also contributions of individuals? I, too, am inclined to considering both.
In which case, since there have been black scientists, engineers, inventors, and the like, such can be added to the musical and arts contributions. (Yes, I have a scientific / technological bias.)
Though it may still be the case, that collectively, one can view the sum of black contributions to Western civilization as far lower, in total, than those of whites, Asians, and others. Oh well; apart from Ethiopia and to a lesser degree, Zimbabwe (where there had been an empire in centuries past), most of the sub-Saharan African continent were the last places to be civilized (to the extent they are), and their descendents in other places didn’t have the opportunities to make major contributions until the 20th century, so some might argue that’s understandable. Regardless, that doesn’t have anything to do with the individual worth of someone who is black versus someone who isn’t, or how they ought to be treated under the law, obviously. So I’m not sure Auster’s rant is all that helpful, to say the least.
You post is titled “Blacks Have Contributed Lots to Civilization”, and yet you mention only one thing: music. Have you noticed that pretty much the only things people can ever come up with for black contributions are music and sports?
Yes, it is unhelpful to descend into contempt. But given the level of emotion and delusion involved in American race relations, it is necessary to speak frankly and factually. The truth has to be told: as far as the quality of life for white Americans goes, the contributions to that quality of life by the black presence in America is tiny compared to the problems they bring. The crime. The inability to live safely and raise children in most major urban areas. The drain on our pocketbooks in a thousand ways from welfare, the costs of crime and crime prevention, the necessity to live in the suburbs and commute to work, etc. The deterioriation of the quality of schools as standards have to be lowered enough that blacks can graduate. The degeneration of the culture, the coarsening, the sexual vulgarity – from the language to the standards of sportsmanship in professional sports. The normalization of illegitimacy – 80% of blacks born to unmarried females.
If we are going to be frank, it is a bad joke to even talk about “black contributions to civilization” compared to the mountain of problems they cause. I understand the desire not to be unnecessarily cruel or rude, to protect people’s feelings. But we are passing the time when that is relevant. The threat to the quality of life – even the ability to live at all, as the many recent white victims of black rampage and assault could attest – is too great for us to continue playing this manners game where we can never talk frankly about the problems that blacks cause for us whites without first genuflecting to political correctness by reciting the “but blacks contribute a lot to civilization” trope. In all honesty, they do not.
If you were to read through the archives of my (main) blog, you would see that I am no protector of feelings. I have several times discussed black criminality in particular. But that’t why I think it’s important to occasionally say something positive, when I have something positive to say.
How does it all weight up? I haven’t said anything about that, and I’m not sure I will. How do I compare ‘no woman no cry’ with elevated levels of rape? Maybe the fact that I don’t have stronger feelings about this reflects my relatively low exposure to blacks, though.
most of the sub-Saharan African continent were the last places to be civilized (to the extent they are), and their descendents in other places didn’t have the opportunities to make major contributions until the 20th century
Then how did they manage to make meaningful contributions to music and sports?
The amount of time they have been civilized (which, you understand, was done through contact with whites) is not what limits their contributions. The Japanese were living in a feudal society when they made contact with whites, yet a decade or so later they had absorbed so much of the white scientific, technological, organizational, and military knowledge that they were able to field a modern military capable of invading the far eastern portion of Russia. They were capable of doing that because of their high average level of intelligence. Their intelligence made their civilization ripe for picking up and capitalizing on the knew knowledge they gained for whites.
Blacks don’t have the lowest average level of intelligence. That means that although there are a smattering of high-intelligence blacks, there aren’t enough of them to sustain a white-style civilization or to capitalize on white knowledge. In areas of endeavor that do not require intelligence – such as the kinds of primal music that blacks enjoy, and athletics – blacks are fully capable of excelling on a level equal to or greater than whites.
That issue of average intelligence is why it is so disingenuous to suggest that because there are scattered examples of high-functioning black people, we should never make assumptions about black people as a group. Of course we should. We do it all the time. We assume that males are more likely to be violent criminals than females, even though there are violent females and non-violent males. We assume those under 16 should not drive, even though there are those under 16 who could drive better than many over 16. We cannot learn the character of every person we meet before we start making judgments about them; we don’t have time to do that. If a group of young, black males are walking towards me on a street it is necessary that I make evaluations about them before I personally get to know each of them.
I think the simple fact is that each people needs a nation and a civilization of its own. It is unhealthy for blacks to live among a people they can never match in significant accomplishments. They need to be off in their own nation, separate from us, and they need to work out their destiny themselves, according to their values and their abilities.
You mean like rap “music”?
Well, I myself wouldn’t consider that a contribution. I would think especially of gospel and reggae; other would no doubt add blues, jazz, R&B, etc.
Damn straight, I’d add blues, Motown. And blacks have contributed to country music – e.g. Charlie Pride. Then there’s rock and roll, which may be civilizationally problematic, in terms of its social effects; but it didn’t have to be; and not all rock is about libertine living and immediate gratification; some is poetic, and some political. Besides, country is little different, really.
Old school rap was genuinely creative; it incorporated elements of funk with rhyming lyrics about how rough life on the street was. That it devolved into Black Muslim rhetoric on the one hand, and misogynistic, materialist crap on the other, and in both cases, moved away from genuine music into just beats and samples, is tragic.
Please forgive the typos in my post – the most egregious of which was the first sentence of the fourth paragraph:
Blacks don’t have the lowest average level of intelligence.
I meant exactly the opposite – that blacks have the lowest average level of intelligence.
“If blacks have made no contributions to civilization, then let’s remember that civilization isn’t all there is.”
But the whole point of your post was that blacks have made “many” contributions to civilization. Auster and the rest of us are responding to the subject you raised. No one argued that civilization is “all there is”.
Auster wrote: “the black blackmail and dragging down of our civilization will continue and intensify, until the civilization is ruined.” This suggested to me that blacks ruin while provide little or nothing in return. It still reads that way to me, and that’s what I was taking issue with.