Somewhere We Went Wrong- Part 3

This will be my final post on the topic of "Somewhere We Went Wrong." By no means do I feel that I have touched on all that is needed to be touched, but I fear that this blog will come off sounding preachy and self-righteous to the point that it loses its' effectiveness. Let me further clarify that I myself am part of the problem, being that I have a child born out of wedlock and her mother and I still have not married. Yet I still feel that it has to start somewhere and why not with me.

I know many will say that we already have our "Black Leaders," I have a major problem with that statement. First of all, can anyone tell me when we had a Black Election and voted on who our leaders would be and what our "National Agenda" would be? What platform did these guys run on? Did they come to your church or local community center like candidates for any other political races and explain to you what their credentials were or what they can do for your community to make things better? Why do we as blacks feel that we have to have these leaders in the first place? Who is the leader for all Whites? Who is the leader for all Mexicans? Why aren't we raising our children to be leaders and to take control of their on destiny? Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson do they really speak for you and what you need in your communities? We have to stop accepting the status quo and truly question the motives and agendas of the people that claim to be our leaders. What makes them qualified to be leaders anyway? Just because someone walked with Martin Luther King does not automatically entitle them to be a leader.

Too many times our communites have accepted the loudest, boldest, most outrageous voice in the crowd and with open arms, accepted them to be our unofficial leaders instead of choosing leaders off of their body of work. I do not want to discredit the work that Jesse and Al have done over the years and they have brought attention to cases that would slip under the radar and have been instrumental on some of the more publicized cases, but it is easy to lead when the spotlight and glory is to be had, what type of leader are you in the trenches when all you have is everyday people saying thank you? Why wait until an injustice has been done, a waiter does not serve you at Denny's or the new movement to stamp out vulgar rap lyrics? Do we not think these modern day artist are just reflecting what is going on at this time and what they see in their environments?

If they truly are the leaders that we profess them to be, why haven't anyone called for their resignations? Are we better off today than we were 20 years ago? If you look around our communities there are four common denominators in every "hood": drugs, crime, poverty and despair. We continue to suffer while they fly around giving "token" speeches on any and every hot button topic they can. Jesse Jackson and Rainbow Push got bus loads of people to go back to New Orleans to vote for the Mayoral election after Katrina, but don't you think we would have been better served organizing and working with "The Habitat for Humanity" on getting bus loads of people to rebuild the Lower 9th Ward and East New Orleans? We need to recognize who the real enemy is, we have said time and time again how the system is stacked against us and how the government does not care about what happens to us. I ask you this question; if we know this and it has been constantly proven, why do we feel the need to wait for the government to handle issues that we can do as a community? Why haven't our so called leaders addressed this. Stop waiting for others to do what we can do for ourselves and lets get it done! Everyone is not fit to be a leader and I understand and accept this, but at some point and time we all have to take account for our own actions and make sure that we take care of our best interests.