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I have written thousands of articles and a few books with the intent to empower minds with the hopes of enlightening the consciousness of mankind. For those who follow my words you know that I firmly believe education is the single most important ingredient necessary to neutralize those forces that breed poverty and despair.
It was the Englishman Francis Beacon who is credited with being the first to record the phase “knowledge is power”. I am probably not as intelligent as he but I say “knowing what to do with that knowledge is powerful.
I recently had what you might call an epiphany. I was being interview by a wonderful host Carla Armstrong on her radio show, “Designing Your Life with Carla”, for a segment called “For Women Only”. As the conversation progressed, we talked about Big Mamma, the community, the children, and African American issues.
Then this Angel dropped the bomb on me! She asked, “what happened to us and John what can we do to make it right”. If I recall I responded with an answer, something like, it was televisions fault. While in my mind I was feeling the power of the question, which really gave me a chill.
I will answer the first question, which is sure to be a Cosby moment for many. What happened was us? After the scam called integration, we began to believe we were accepted as equal citizens of these United States. For many African Americans they forgot about another black man, the least of thee, like white flight, ran from our communities. We allowed anyone to come into our community, setup shops, we stopped supporting our own business, and let our dollars, some say is nearly a trillion annually, go elsewhere. But the biggest problem was we STOPPED PARENTING!
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Chair Marcia Fudge reported that “the unemployment rate is double for blacks than for whites, we've lost more homes to foreclosure than whites and we've lost more wealth than whites”. To any reasonable person this is not equal!
Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois told us how to build our community. Marcus Garvey told us how to be self-sufficient and to take care of our own needs. Elijah Muhammad taught us how to carry ourselves with dignity and respect. Dr. King gave us faith and Brother Malcolm told us to do it by “Any Means Necessary!
With that said, I have been troubled, as I am sure many of you as well, struggle with Carla’s second question, which was what do we do. We are the most religious people on earth, we marched, prayed, and waited on Jesus to come to our rescue since we were dragged onto to these shores in the summer of 1619. I hope you feel my passion here, as tears flow, and it hurts to say this but the problem rests with the person you look at each day in the mirror.
People we are still in slavery, mentally, slaves to our debt, in slaved within the jails and prisons systems. But this is what Ray Charles can see – through death and imprisonment we are becoming extinct! Add to that black women have forgotten and in many cases have no desire for black men. The reality is this: if there are no black men to procreate - we all die!
Maybe the answer to Carla’s second question is to be the people we were created to be and when you look in the mirror each day; ask yourself what have you done? You have a choice to live or die and to continue the species. If not now “when”? If not “YOU” than who?
And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…
Twitter @ John T. Wills
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