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Black History Month 2010, Part III - Looking Forward, Glancing Back
February 16, 2010
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. Celebrating Black History Month, Part III
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In this, the third part of our celebration of Black History Month 2010, it's time to look forward and then glance back and celebrate at least some of what African-Americans have given to the world. This, at a time when our industry, our economy and our nation is severely challenged.
Historically, we have not yet reached the promised land, but we have made some progress. We the people have built a union more perfect than it was 234 years ago. A nation founded on the original sin of slavery has elected an African-American president.
Solving The Issue Is Not One-Sided
There are those who say African-Americans should look inward for solutions to our most pressing problems. The problem with that notion is that we don't always hold the means to solve problems that we did not create, but have been forced to solve. These same people say it begins with the classic interplay between the aggrieved blacks and tolerant whites. As consummate victims we lay ourselves at the feet of our fellow citizens, exhibiting our lack of achievement as evidence of their failure, hoping to wring from their sense of conscience what we must assume, by the very logic of our claim, lies beyond our individual capacity to attain and achieve.
Here's an inherited nightmare question I'm sure many have thought about, but few have asked. How effective are suburban, middle-class "Generation Joneses" going to be in denying "status rewards" to rebellious ghetto teenagers who father illegitimate children? Welfare programs, it might be said, are what support "dysfunctional behaviors" in the ghetto. Change welfare and this behavior has to change as well. And then we have to also include the overly simplistic notion that socioeconomic determinism is somehow to blame for the incentive provisions of certain government transfer programs and individual misbehavior.
Entitlement Programs Help But Don't Solve
Let's face it: We live in a new age. The United States of 2010 is not the same America of the past. It is those years and decades, which we've been examining during these past weeks. It was not so long ago that the air was filled with cries of civil rights, affirmative action, equal opportunity, "war on poverty," "The Great Society" and "Black is Beautiful."
While some progress has been made, for the most part, little is happening other than lip service from the corporations involved, who seem to believe that somehow the covenants we've asked for will be implemented eventually and that we should continue to be patient. But America has been known to make promises along that line, first to the Native Americans and then to black slaves. History bears out how those promises have been either kept or broken.
For some African-American leaders whose power depends on appealing to white guilt of the large inner-city ghetto with its population of poor blacks, this can be very useful as a symbol of continuing injustice. The suffering of the poorest African-Americans creates a fund of political capital upon which all members of the group can draw when pressing racially based claims, such as those following the recent disaster after the earthquakes and aftershocks in Haiti. It's much the same as it was following Hurricane Katrina.
On the other hand, do we really want to tell a striving middle-class businessman who has barely managed to escape the ghetto that he has a special moral obligation to go back and tutor poor black children solely because his skin color is the same as theirs? The answer is "yes."
The War On Poverty Is On-Going
Included in the inherited nightmare now are also the new ghettos, with their gigantic shelters, busy social-service facilities and deteriorating housing, which employ thousands of social workers, guards, correctional officers, nurses and physicians at a huge cost. They may become even costlier in their contribution to dependency, illness, delinquency and waste. As much as they are defined by what they do, they are also defined by what they lack.
The so-called "war on poverty," whose goal was to uplift the poor, has been redesigned to contain the poor and simply keep them alive.
Just ahead of the mid-year national elections, America today is still, for the most part, a conservative land whose people are preoccupied with jobs, Iraq, health care and other economic issues -- perhaps more selfishly than at any time since the 1950s.
Moving Forward
It is important that at this time in American history the African-American community put aside any philosophical differences and network together economically, if we are to have any hope of progressing or even surviving in this new America.
As we celebrate February, Black History Month 2010, we must keep in mind that while Black America may have the power within itself to save itself, the only real way to resolve America's race problem is to find a solution for its underclass. And we have got to be willing to make an enemy and an example of anyone who stands in the way of that solution.
We must discontinue practicing the exhibitionism of non-achievement. We have got to look forward to tomorrow, next February and beyond. We will have only ourselves to blame for not dealing with "the inherited nightmare." Our future lies in removing the nightmare and replacing it with more pleasant dreams. We then make America a better place for ourselves and automatically that makes it a better place for our children.
The Future
A key part of Black History Month should be about giving our children the tools to accelerate the history we celebrate and providing them ways to write some history of their own. It's their future. A future that begins by looking forward and than glancing back. Looking forward to a tomorrow filled with hope and glancing back to a past that still gives us a reason to want to stay in the struggle.
Word.
Next Week: Part IV
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