We have the Power

“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”
--Demosthenes--

“Power never takes a back step - only in the face of more power.”
--Malcolm X--

A lot has happened since the last time I posted an article on my blog. Before I go any further in this article I must state that my heart and prayers go out to the family of Sean Taylor. Since my last article, there was a march in Washington, D.C., Cook Commissioner William Beavers played the race card, and several high profile head coaching positions have opened up in college football without any being filled, so far, by an African-American coach. What do those three occurrences have in common? They demonstrate some of the things they we do or do not do that keep “us” from realizing our full power as a community.

We act as if we are powerless when we have all the tools we need to be a powerful voice in this country. If you listen to African-American radio talk shows or read letters posted in African-American newspapers you would think that we are powerless. That is not true. We have plenty of power. We just do not always use it correctly, creatively, or in keeping with contemporary realities. Our problem is that although we have the tools we lack the mentality. There are too many of us that are followers. When I write followers I do not mean workers or supporters. What I mean by followers is that there are too many people in our community that get angry only when we are told to be angry by a celebrity preacher, talk show host, or journalist. What I mean by followers is that there are too many of us that only see what is in front of us and do not see the big picture of systemic oppression so many times they actually help support our oppression. The best way to truly clarify what I mean by followers is for me to discuss our community’s reactions to the three examples that are mentioned in the first paragraph.

We Are Too In Love With The Memory of The Civil Rights Movement

On November 16, 2007, around five thousand (5,000) people, predominantly from the African-American community, met in Washington, D.C. in order to stage a rally/protest that was designed to put pressure on the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (“DOJ”) due to the lack of civil rights prosecutions by the DOJ, particularly regarding hate crimes. Some people that commented on the rally said that the rally may have marked the rebirth of the “civil rights movement.” That is one of our problems. We are way too in love with the memory of the civil rights movement. I agreed with the premise of the rally. I agree with the premise of building on the foundation that the generations before “us” have provided. I do not always agree with how we as a community go about affecting that progress. We need to diversify our tactics. We need to use all of the tools that we have today. Every issue in our community will not be solved by a rally or a protest or in front of a camera. If the purpose of the rally was to call attention to the fact that civil rights/hate crime prosecutions are way down then the rally was a huge success. But if the purpose of the rally was to affect change in the DOJ, then I am not so sure it made any difference. In this case, maybe the better course of action would have been to use the members of the Black Congressional Caucus (the “Caucus”) to force the DOJ to go on the record and explain the drastic decrease in civil rights/hate crime prosecutions. We could also use the Caucus to put pressure on the DOJ through the appropriations process. And this should be an issue that any presidential candidate, regardless whether he/she is a democrat, republican, or an independent, must answer before expecting any support from our community.

Playing the Race Card in Politics Does Not Help Our Community

Our community has been wed to the Democratic Party since at least JFK. Maybe it is time for a divorce. Our votes have helped the Democratic Party maintain total political superiority in county government for the past two decades and in city government for the past five decades. Yet, what have we really to show for it? Not much (well we did make some progress under Mayor Washington, but that is the subject for another article). Now the Mayor of Chicago and the President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners are both proposing large tax increases. Many people, including me, suspect that the tax increases have more to do with paying for political patronage than it does with inflation. And which community do you think the tax increase will hurt the most? That is right. It will hurt our community. Yet, when some democrats expressed opposition to the tax increase, Commissioner Beavers, a product and staunch supporter of the political machine in Chicago that was never fair to our community, used the race card. He stated that had the Board President been white there would not have been any problems passing the tax increase. Maybe he is right. Maybe he is full of it. It does not matter. The use of the race card is a red herring. In this situation race is not the issue. The real issue is why the tax increase is necessary and what can be done to keep taxes down.

We Are Too Dependent on Celebrity Preachers to Tell Us What to Think and Do

We sent five thousand people to Washington, D.C. to protest the inequities in the justice system, yet we have said or done nothing to address the discrimination in major college football programs across the country, which has resulted in only about five African-American head coaches out of one hundred nineteen (119) major college football programs. In addition there are only twenty-six (26) African-American offensive and defensive coordinators out of two hundred-forty (240) across the country. According to articles published on this situation, and there are plenty, African-Americans make up about fifty percent (50%) of college football players and only about 3% of head coaches. Our community has continued to ignore this reality. This situation is not really about football. It is about how we have refused to use our power to affect change for the better. How can we expect other communities to respect “us” when we act as if we do not respect ourselves? Respect is never given. It is always earned.

There have been no rallies. There have been no protests. And there has been no reaction from our celebrity preachers or community activists. The truth is we do not even need a bunch of protests. We just need a change in attitude. We need to quit helping our oppressors. We need to quit feeding the machine of discrimination. With all due respect to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, we need to learn to act without always depending on them or some other celebrity to tell us to what to do and when to do it. We have the power. All we need to do in this is situation is to start sending our sons to football programs that support or at least respect our community. The African-American head coaches at the major universities have not experienced a glut of African-American high school stars that want to play for them. No, instead our boys are going to football programs that may not respect our community. That is our fault.

We have the power to change that reality right now just like we have the power to address many of the issues that exists in our community. We just need to be ready and willing to use the power we already have by being independent thinkers that use a variety of tools creatively to make a difference.