(ThyBlackMan.com) A war has been declared against us politically, economically and racially. Yet our people are not prepared. Many are asleep. Others are in denial. And yet others think they have “arrived” because of where they live, the salary they make and what they drive. The common factor? All of them are asleep and all of them are unprepared. The raw survival skills of the African American community are at an all time low. Too many of our people cannot even feed their children or survive without government help such as food stamps, stimulus checks or WIC. We have gone backwards fast.
THE SLAVERY MINDSET IS THE AFRICAN AMERICAN VIRUS: Its symptoms are division, lack of priorities, excuses instead of solutions, getting offended, ego, talk instead of actions, all about self, lack of independence and ears that cannot or will not hear.
Where are our summits addressing the virus, exposing the vaccine, formulating plans to end police brutality and unifying African Americans across all spectrums? Where is Black Lives Matters when the threat goes beyond police brutality? Why aren’t our community groups on high alert? Because they are asleep, expecting the police to fly in with capes, save the day and do it all. And people calling for reparations are often begging for help in disguise because they know their people are not doing well.
ACTIONS CHANGE WHEN THINKING CHANGES AND THINKING CHANGES WHEN IDENTITY WAKES UP
Where are you Al Sharpton? Where are you Jesses Jackson? Where are you Nation of Islam in leading the way with action, not just talk and Final Calls? Where are you 100 Black Men (and women) unless you can sponsor superficial entertainment like football games and golf tournaments? Where are you King family that has taken Martin Luther King’s legacy exactly 10 feet, if that far? And that is when you can manage not to fight over his papers and his Bible. Where are you NAACP? Where are you SCLC? Where are you NOBLE and what is noble about standing down and staying quiet? And where is the implementation of your collaborative solutions? All of you, all I hear is crickets.
Where are our political, civic and religious leaders with the plans and actions which stop “black on black crime”? Why do our young people have to sell water when their parents should be taking care of them? And so many want their children to go back to school just to eat – or because parents don’t know how to be parents who educate their own children. Accountability, great expectations and personal responsibility are largely dead and gone. And when someone speaks the truth, egos cause you to be offended instead of listening, waking up, stepping up and making the necessary changes.
WAKE UP CALLS DON’T WORK WITH SNOOZE BUTTONS
Most African American leaders, from the pulpit to city hall, from the county commission to corporate America, have become opportunists who can be silenced, mentally neutered or castrated from uniting our people, neutralized from taking actions that get results and collaborating for real progress. This is the exact same mindset that caused the African American community to go backwards from stature in wealthy Harlem and Black Wall Street right back into the mindset of slaves. And today in America we, as a people, are the easiest to target, divide, oppress, and eliminate. That is the state of the black di-vision, divided because there is no unified vision.
THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY MISTAKES EXAMPLES AS SAVIORS
The priorities of the African American community are warped, to say the least. Expecting the Obamas of the world to do for us and the T.D. Jakes of the world to save us. All the while dependent on a government that could care less about you. Have you forgotten who you are as a people or is it that you never knew? You are consumers instead of investors. You are employees instead of entrepreneurs. And what grocery store chains, banking systems, hospital networks, gas station chains, gun ranges or life skills training centers, cities, towns or business communities do you own as a people?
BE THE TYPE OF PERSON THAT YOU CAN COUNT ON
But you are quick to celebrate with awards shows and presentations that make you feel better about failure and pseudo-progress. Black girls rock? Really? You’re a boss? Of what? A baller of what? Only the very crumbs and areas you have been allowed to control. But not real control in the big scheme of things at all. So you measure success by money as Dr Dre goes to the hospital and his family breaks apart. You measure success by people like Cosby who had a child on drugs, ended up in prison and had a life nothing like the Cosby show. You measure success by the Oprah’s of the world who have no marriage, no children as a legacy and no sense of who the Creator is. And you readily give awards to people for what they do to entertain you instead of what they do to empower you. All backwards.
I CHALLENGE YOU TO BE BETTER INSTEAD OF DEPENDENT, OFFENDED AND FULL OF EXCUSES
Those who seek to oppress and destroy us as a people are watching the division, the ignorance and the slumber. They watch while our people buy Jordans and waste stimulus money yet face eviction and stand in line for hours to get a $50 charity grocery gift card. They watch our abortion rates, our academic decline, our inability to feed our children, our emasculated males who will put on a dress for money, our single parent homes, our incarceration rates that we blame on others, our people addicted to weed, our focus on entertainment instead of real priorities and survival, our church leaders who promote themselves and fleece the flock instead of feeding the sheep, our role model who are talk show hosts and people who bounce or throw a ball and our self-destructive, self-sabotaging behavior. Then they laugh at us, not with us, and just shake their heads.
The African American community is on a slumbering, self-destructive path full of getting offended at the truth, making excuses and blaming or counting on everybody else for what we should do for ourselves. How many of you have your homes and cars paid off, $10,000 in the bank and could easily survive without struggle if you missed two full paychecks? How many of you could protect your home if it was under siege from racists or even people who look like you? How many of you are out of debt? How many of you are healthy without diabetes, heart disease etc? How many of you are in strong, lasting, loving and committed relationships?
I SUGGEST YOU SHARE THIS ARTICLE WITH EVERYBODY YOU KNOW
So this year, the year after 20/20 good vision, where is your 20/21 vision and what are you doing about it? Will you be better off at the end of this year than you were last year? Will you count on you more or your employer and the government? Are you prepared to survive and thrive? Or are you still asleep, in denial and full of scape-goating excuses. It’s time to wake up, get up, step up and make things happen. Your life and your success is up to YOU.
Staff Writer; Trevo Craw
