Progressives keep saying that we "need a national conversation about race." Then they shout you down as a racist if you say anything that doesn't agree 100% with their views. Here are some suggested topics for that conversation:

● About 70% of black babies are non-marital births, which is highly correlated with poverty. How do we reverse this trend, and restore the black family to what it was back before welfare and minimum wage laws, when a majority of black kids were born into two parent homes and blacks had a higher employment rate than whites?

● Blacks make up 13% of the population, but commit 53% of the murders, with about 85% of the victims being black. How do we get the black murder rate down to near the white murder rate?

● Whites are twice as likely to be murdered by blacks as blacks by whites. How do we end this imbalance of racial violence?

● Houston has about the same size population and income level as Chicago, and a larger minority population, but has half the murder rate of Chicago. It also has concealed carry laws while Chicago has strict gun laws. How is the availability of guns responsible for the black murder rate in Chicago?

● Before the Community Reinvestment Act, black-owned banks gave loans to whites at higher rates than to blacks, just as white-owned banks did, because of their credit histories, and both gave Asians loans at higher rates than to whites, for the same reason. How is using an individual's credit rating racist? Did not the housing bubble and economic collapse it created hurt blacks worse than whites?

● Blacks make up 13% of the population, but receive 40% of the abortions. Planned Parenthood, following founder Margaret Sanger's dream of preventing more of the "unfit" (as she called minorities) from being born, locates clinics heavily in black neighborhoods. Is this not a racist genocide?

● How do we cope with the explosion of black flash mobs looting stores and beating white, Hispanic, and Asian people because of their race? Do they not hurt blacks most by making the cities where they live poorer?

● The race riots of 1967 in Detroit, followed by a growing crime rate, led first to "white flight," then to "black flight" as the middle class, professionals, and business people left the city with their skills, jobs and tax dollars, thus ensuring the city's collapse. How do we prevent the black underclass from driving out people of all races and destroying the cities where they live, thus making life miserable for poor black people who cannot relocate? Do bread and circuses for "the headcount" work?

● If discriminating on the basis of race is morally wrong, why do we allow universities to discriminate against Asian students in the name of diversity?

● Barack Obama sends his children to private school. Why did he take away the right of poor black parents in DC to do the same, by eliminating vouchers, at the behest of the teachers' unions?

● Is it not racist that the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of the shooter produced a national outcry, while the death of Christopher Cervini, an unarmed white teen shot dead by a black man who was also acquitted, went virtually uncovered in the media and received no mention by the president?

● In Florida, the "Stand Your Ground" law proportionally has been used as a defense by more blacks than whites. Is not repealing such laws, like the one sponsored by then State Senator Barack Obama in Illinois, racist?

● Back during segregation, the all-black Dunbar High School in Washington, DC, educated the kids of poor black folks, with fewer resources than white schools, yet got better test scores and turned out some of the most successful black leaders in the professions. Now it is an "integrated," failing ghetto school. How do we get back to having good schools for inner-city blacks, with strong parental involvement, as Dunbar High was? How do we eliminate the Progressive racist view that black kids cannot compete successful, thus need special protection and programs?

Unfortunately, any Progressive who reads this will scream "racist" or "BS" at me, rather than discuss the failure of Progressive policies for black Americans, because what they want are docile, impoverished blacks voting for them, not a successful, upwardly-mobile black population who might not vote as told. So a real conversation on race, asking tough questions, will never be allowed. And blacks will go on paying the penalty for Progressive racism, but without knowing why.

Thanks to Dr. Thomas Sowell for his excellent research that produced the information on banks and on Dunbar High cited above. I recommend his book Race and Culture: A World View.

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine@gmail.com. All Hall's other books are listed here.