Where to start where to start...There is so much I want to say here and so many previous posts I want to respond to! Great insightful comments by all...
New leadership...hummmmm....I agree that the days of "one" voice for African-Americans is long gone. But wait, have we ever had that one voice of leadership? I saw an interview with Andy Young once and he said that the notion that Blacks were unified in the 60s was just that...a notion. We were not unified then, and we are not unified now. Should we really be? As long as you are not sacrifacing folks for personal gain then I don't mind if your politics don't necessarily match mine. Just be ready to fight for yours and put your money where your mouth is when the chips are down.
The future of "Black leadership", I think, will be a diverse group, but we must learn how to move from retoric to action. The Million Man March was a beautiful thing. I got goosebumps watching it, but name we one substantive (sp?) action that came out of it. One program, one call to action that lead to a policy change, anything. I watch both of Tavis' ((sidenote: why do we call Black leader by their first name like we know them: Jesse, Martin, Malcolm, Tavis, et. al??)) symposiums and thought the dialouge was great, but where was the ACTION behind the dialouge?? Let's work on that for a while.
As lastpoet stated, legislative action will always be needed, but let's DO something as well. The Gov. of GA is trying to get legislation passed here that will require standardized testing at several levels in the public school system. "WE" are up in arms about it because statistics show that Black kids will be disproportionately fail these tests and therefore be held back. The NAACP et al are trying to block the legislation. Now, I don't know if I agree with that, but in the mean time, let's also talk about WHY our schools are doing so poorly and lets take some action to bring them up to snuff. Let's get on TV and convince folks to tutor in the innercity schools, not just picket the courthouse. Let's lobby for better teachers, not just lobby for the standardized test to fail.
DoggyStyle, I don't think anyone is beating up Jesse or Bill, but they need to be held accountable for their actions and know that there are consequences to their "foibles". While God forgave David for his actions (once he repented) he did hold him accountable.
Another thing that 'irks' me about our so called Black leadership is our silence when we do wrong. Several months ago a young, Black female who was mentally challenged was brutally raped by 20+ black men. Not one of our so-called black leaders spoke out against this, no one canvassed the neighborhood, stormed the police station talking about justice, etc., but if the perps had been WHITE, what do you think would have happen?? We need to be as hard, if not harder on our own folks.
Whew...I feel like I've gone off on a big ole tangent so I'll just shut up now!
