State of Black America- Continued PART 2

     In my last post I discussed issues tied to the Black community and want to expound a little more before I move into the success solutions.  Each time I hit a letter on my keyboard, I have to think about how really touchy it is to discuss anything relative to the Black community because most issues are emotional and are truly considerate private. Each line may "ruffle feathers" but when it is all said and done, I truly will lay out a competent plan of correction which will effect change for Black people and improve life for all Americans.  There are many underserved groups, so my desire is to START with Black America before I address other groups.  My thoughts are we must come out of "hiding" and address our social issues in a forthright manner or else nothing will ever get done. Not the traditional bickering and arguing along with the desire to "jockey for position" to allow for personal gain and exploitation of the Black community.  As a race of people, we must move forward from handling things in an emotional manner and shift to a more intellectually sophisticated and strategic manner.

     I had a friend tell me one time that Black people simply cannot or will not work together to really get things done.  My response was to advise that it is currently a realistic perception but we do have to look at cause and effect before stay with that type of comment.  First of all, the Black community has not had generations to develop wealth and its own positive, independent financial culture.  I have noted before that we have only been able to legally vote since 1967 and have had to battle racism and true hate along the way.  While there has been some opportunity, the social strata keeps Black people divided. We have to be realistic by understanding we are centuries behind and if we stay with the same operational models, we will get no further over the next 50 years!

     We have to learn to embrace technology understanding united we stand and divided we fall and simply learn how to work together.  We no longer have truly relevant leaders in the Black community.  Unless it is an emotionally charged issue, we simply have not shown that we will unite and sustain anything but our individualism.  Without the emotion, there is simply depraved indifference to social concerns in our own communities.  When we take a look at our prominent community leaders, they are still the same leaders from the 60's and there has been no torch passing with any passion.  Martin Luther King led during a toxic time and his individual passion gave us a sense of purpose. His non-violent approach is completely the opposite of how we handle negative situations today in the Black community. The younger people have aligned themselves with celebrities and do not even know the relevance of men like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.  Both individuals are relevant, but they are pursuing the goals of the Black community with antiquated social models which lead to the same results....minimal success.  This is a technological and informational age and we are still "yelling" to try to get what we want! Who is here now to lead a mobilization effort from a financial and asset based perspective in the new millennium??  

     The Black community is just being pulled in so many directions.  The only solution is to create a financial base which can force unity & pride in the community while limiting our reliance on the government to take care of our community troubles.  There truly are quantifiable ways to fix our ills which will be discussed a little later in future posts. When you are muddling day to day, there simply is no focus or regard for learning how to work together to fix our problems.  We have no understanding of where we fit nationally or globally.   In addition, we do not understand our Black history and have nothing to embrace but the streets of survival. My perspective is that we "drive looking through the rear view mirror" in the Black community.  That is to say we are not forward looking and are always running from our past.  We have not socially policed our own neighborhoods and this has led to moral decay and a feeling of indifference.  This disenfranchisement has led to a lack of respect for law and authority.

     Unfortunately, Black people have always glorified parts of the criminal element because it went against the establishment or rule makers which did not include us.  Why is it that Black people truly love the movie, Scarface??   I remember growing up and a lot of the Black movies glorified the street hustlers.  The true dysfunction of it all is when the O.G.'s used to say in the hood, "respect the game and the game will respect you" instead of saying "eliminate the game".  The mindset is the criminals of today do not have the same rules as the criminals of our day??? What????

We have some exciting topics to discuss and my goal is to educate the readers before we transition to actually effecting change.  I am looking forward to it...are you??

The State of Affairs of Black America

     Whenever you make an attempt to address issues in any culture, invariably, if you tell the truth you run the risk of creating a backlash not only from those that disagree, but those who understand the truth but get upset because they feel you are publicly airing "personal business" of a race of people.  I set up this blog over a year ago and just now got to the point where I felt my fingers were nimble enough to take on such a serious matter along with the negative recoil that comes with it.  I am not some elitist that aims to talk down to people.  I grew up in a project in Columbus called Sullivant Gardens and thankfully, things looked up for my parents and we were blessed to able to move to a western suburb where I had to learn to deal with other races and other thought processes.  I currently live in the inner city and understand the day to day struggles people that are less fortunate deal with on a daily basis.  Unlike most, I do have a viable solution to make corrections that is not a bunch of hot air or idle rhetoric about something I know nothing about.  Over the next few weeks, I want to address a number of items but will also outline a "fix" that is unique which can save a race of people.  I consider myself a moderate politically as there are personal benefits to my life on both sides of the aisle. On the Democratic side, there are a lot of giveaways and on the Republican side there is a lot of what I perceive as fear of change.  The key to all of this is where does Black America really fit in??

     It can become a little dangerous to talk in absolutes.  But for most who are poor, their life of poverty is a lot better than it was before Obama was in office.(Of course, i will elaborate on this comment!)  The entitlements are extreme and there is a lot of abuse in the inner city.  The black community is very apathetic and there is a corrupt mindset because of the day to day life scramble.  Democrats do not understand African Americans because they see entitlements and giveaways as the cure and the Republicans want the other extreme, which is to give nothing and "tighten the ol belts".  Black people are resilient survivors and understand that we are not on equal footing with our caucasian counterparts.  We have only been able to vote since 1967 and still today, we have to work through shenanigans on voting day just to make our vote count. 

      In the hood, people get up each day trying to figure out how to "get" money, not necessarily "earn" money. You also have to try not to "get got" which means, whatever you get, you are not trying to have someone take it so the trust level of each other is really low.  It gets pretty primal day to day.  I limit the scope to the hood but most Black people that are in touch with other Black people know the realities of the hood even though we are not supposed to talk about the realities.  As I address some items, keep in mind this is a Blog of future action, not a Blog of attacks. 

     The entitlements are extremely manipulated in the hood.  Let's start with the Earned Income Credit.  This is a governmental giveaway that is abused by more people than the IRS could ever imagine.  Poverty stricken people are exchanging kids and social security numbers like M & M's with a total disregard for the law so that they can get a larger income tax return.  Generally, the person giving up the kid's socials gets a cut of the return.  This is not even considered criminal activity in the hood, it is considered a "come up" because everyone is doing it.  The government also changed food stamps to a Directions Card in Ohio so that it would limit the exchange of food stamps to those who are not eligible for food stamps. Does this work? No! If I walked into a room of 100 Black people from all walks of life, 95% would say they know someone from whom they can get food stamps! Food stamps can be purchased for 50 cents on the dollar and a lot of the money goes towards items other than food!  In the hood, you can go into a hole in the wall bar and buy any soaps, body washes and other personal items for bargain costs from those who are stealing daily. Not only do the bars not care about stolen items being sold in the bar, the patrons do not consider it a bad thing to buy stolen items right in the front of the bar! I won't even touch people running around talking about "Did you get your Obama phone so that you can get free minutes"? The mindset is of personal survival and it has corrupted the "community first" mindset that we really need to have to get through these trying times.  In all fairness, a lot of Black leaders are trying old ways to deal with new problems and just do not yet get that they are wasting their time.

    Just think, Black people have not formally mobilized nationally to protect our own interests since Martin Luther King.  Could you really see someone standing up for a cause today and have the police hosing them down with high pressure water? Not! We tried the Million Man March...we mobilized for a march and then went back to our own lives.  When you hear of great Black people, you hear of individuals that have overcome, not of community groups really affecting change.  We have been taught to beg for a piece of the pie and chase minority set-asides instead of understanding how to leverage our position.  We have no assets and and have a large net worth gap that we will never correct without doing things differently.  We keep going to the government and begging for 40 acres & a mule when we have the ability to do much better if we use some modern techniques that have fallen in our laps.

        We almost have to beg Black people to get up and vote because most do not feel like their vote counts.  We got all hyped for Obama, just because he was Black,  and then went right back to the couch when the midterms came around and made things bad for ourselves.  The key is without a national mobilization effort, we are no good to each other.  My next post will discuss why Mark Zuckerberg can play as critical of a role in the lives of Black people as Martin Luther King....I know that is deep but stay tuned for a touch of reality!

Black America- Real Talk Real Solutions