WHEN WILL WE LEARN?

This evening “60 Minutes” did a story on another disturbing aspect of a portion of the black community. Don’t snitch.
Many blacks refuse to acknowledge the self-destructive traits that we perpetuate in our community. The “60 Minutes” piece discussed the fact that the hip-hop community, at least prominent factions of it, endorses this credo, and a lot of young people follow like lemmings.
With the many problems that face the black community crime is the single factor that magnifies all other problems. Is can be argued that crime affects the lack of economic opportunity in the black community. For example, one of the reasons there are few large grocery stores in some black communities is because of the high cost of insurance and the high incidence of retail theft. As a result, poor people in those communities have to pay more for the goods they consume. Likewise, if they leave the community to shop, they have to pay the added cost of traveling to other communities to do their shopping. Either way, the absence of large grocery stores increases the cost to the average person living in poorer black communities.
Drugs and violence affect poorer black communities out in the open. People are killed in the street, sometimes by accident. The lives of young people hang in the balance, and in many communities, the balance is not tipped in their favor.
Yet, here we are with prominent persons advocating that people ignore the crime in their communities. These “artist” mostly rich, are for the most part able to avoid the day to day tragedy to which other less fortunate persons face everyday. Who are you to say do nothing about murders and drugs dealing in your community when, at the end of the day, you can retreat to your estate behind locked gate with armed security?
And to think that many of these young children are spending money to help provide these “artists” with the benefits that allow their retreat while the young have to duck to avoid the bullets that fly when the killers and the drug dealers are prowling and littering the streets with crack vials, shell casings, and lifeless bodies.
It is important to the health and well being of these poorer black communities that the thugs be stopped. Certainly, it is easier said than done. But, when you have well-known and well-respected persons saying don’t cooperate with the police, something must be done.
How can the leaders in the community counter such irresponsibility? Now is the time for the leaders in these communities to speak up and denounce these “artist” who, in some instances, can no longer claim to be a part of the community.

Racism in America

Racism is inherent in America. But for racism, there would be no America.
By the time Europeans arrived on these shores with settlement in mind, native peoples had already established rich and intricate cultures. Because Europeans believed the native peoples were savages and less than human, they took what they wanted, the land. For the same reason, the native cultures were destroyed.
Racism created the environment that bolstered the American economy. Most people have the incorrect notion that slavery was limited to southern states. Not true. Slavery existed all over the United States and its territories until it was confined to the south in the 19th century.
Racism did not disappear with slavery's end. Both northern and southern states had some form of Jim Crow though the 1960's. Just one generation ago! Remember, in the 60's at least two southern states abolished all public education just to keep black children from going to school with white children. Every advance in civil rights had to be fought for either in the streets or in the courts. Not a single solitary advancement came about because the white politicos decided to do the right thing. Not until the Voting Rights Act in the 60's did black have an enforceable right to vote. Before that, blacks were subjected to threats and intimidation at the polling place, and at the mercy of poll taxes and other schemes to deny them the right to votes. And, I must repeat, this was not in 1865, lasted until 1964.
We live in a country where nooses are still hung up in workplace break rooms (WalMart), where minority workers are made to use certain bathrooms (Tyson), where white executives refer to black employees as jelly beans at the bottom of the bag (TEXACO), where blacks are denied applications for certain apartments (NALCO), where black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants.
Racism is a part of our complicated heritage.