As stated in my first offering, to this newsletter,
we have approximately 11,000 African American elected officials.
If we consider them as leaders
then we have a lot of people in leadership positions.
Numbers can be mis-leading though.
For instance, look at the U.S. congress:
The U.S. House of Represenatives have over 430 members of which less than 10% are African American
The U.S. Senate has 100 members and African American ZERO.
As we get to the state and local level of politics
we usually have representation but not enough to carry our agenda forward
and to make matters worse some of our African American elected officials seens to get amnesia-about the US
once they are elected.
I guess that some feels that if they don't get amnesia they may end up like
Adam Clayton Powell, Earl Hilliard or Cynthia McKinney.
Yet this should not be an excuse not to carry our agenda forward.
Having said that, however, it would be unfair to lay all the blame for the stagnation of our communities,
crime. poverty, respect, ownership of property and businesses,
or lack of financial institutions at the feet of our African American elected officials.
This holds true for many of our national spoke persons and organizations.
So, where does most of our problems within our communities lie?
I say the problems lies with the US and African American people and so does the solutions.
We complain bitterly about the problems plaguing us, continually,
but refuse to come together as a force to solve them.
Make no mistake the problems are ours
we can solve them if we take the time to get our priorties in order.
Even though our problems seens national they are local and this is where they need to be attacked.
Who should lead the attack?
Since ministers in our communities are listened to
and obeyed more intensely than any other person or group
in our communities they should be the natural leaders.
However, unless the people demand they come together as a unit
on one accord and deal with the problems not enough of them will make an effort,
on the contrary, they will continue to have other ethnic groups build our churches and take our offerings and tithes
by the billions and put it in other folks financial institutions.
This must stop but it will only stop when we demand that it stop.
"Grass root" activist, elders, and business people should be a part of this problem solving coalition.
This group will be able to come up with innovative ideas
that will start to re-vitalize our communities
stimulate our minds in areas of economic development,
safety, social behavior, political awareness and voting.
I put voting last because until we get a handle on the aforementioned areas
voting is an act of futility....
1. WE MUST STOP OUR MONEY FROM LEAVING OUR COMMUNITY.
2. WE MUST USE OUR MONEY FOR OUR OWN DEVELOPMENT...HOMES, BUSINESSES,BANKS ETC..
3. WE MUST BEGIN TO CHOOSE OUR OWN POLITICAL CANDIDATES AND FIANCE THEM AND WORK TO GET THEM ELECTED.
We can no longer wait for some one to do for us that we can do for ourselves.
We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and hope for a miracle to come along,
We can no longer keep being redundant in our thinking and actions and expect a different result.
You don't have to be smart to figure this out.
Can we get busy demanding of ourselves what we demand of others?
Suggested reading: Chains and Images of Psychological Slavery..Amin Akbar
Mis-Education of the Negro..Carter G. Woodson