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Originally posted by Kimmie1913
I do agree with you on that. Our "leadership" is abysmal. Our successful role models are always quick to dispel any responsibility for those that come behind them. People who have some influence over how our young people think are unwilling to use their power for good instead of evil. (You know what I mean) It is disheartening and it does make the job that much more challenging for those of us who are successful and willing to go back to our communities and work and stand with them and try to make a difference.
I think that the biggest challenge for people who have "made it" is effectively working with people they are trying to help make it. Living and working in an urban environment like Baltimore, this is often a hurdle. In order to be effective you have to connect with people on some level. There have been a lot of pronouncements about the morals of this population. Have you found those sentiments to be a hindrance as you work to make a difference? I tend to find moralizing to be a great way to alienate your audience. Chapters here that have a nose in the air, "I made it out, why didn’t you attitude?", do far less community service and are less effective with it.
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Soror, its obvious that your heart is in the right place, but that is the "liberal" conundrum. Because we feel others pain, we have a tendency to absolve them of their role in their failure. We allow them to continue to abuse our funds and trust because they know our heart is to big to allow them to suffer at their own hands. We all know women and mothers who let some no good man live off of her while she works, pays the rent and car note. Why, because their heart rules their head. The same with liberal social programs. We won't let people starve, go homeless, or uneducated, no matter what their part is in creating their situation. There is a law in business known as "perverse incentives". That is where the rules create the opposite effect of their intent. Women should not be rewarded for having multiple children out of wedlock, given preferential housing, food stamps, and free healthcare. By doing so, the law creates a dis-incentive to behave responsibly because there is no tangible downside to being irresposible since your "mistakes" will be rewarded. Kimmie, you decry "moralizing", but what good is instruction without a moral component. Without a sense of shame or delayed gratification (which is what morality imparts). Morality is an inherent component of responsibilty. Telling 13yr olds that it is okay to have sex as long as you use a condom is not teaching responsibilty because it lacks a moral component. We must do more than reduce disease and pregnancy for what ails our communities. We have lost our moral compass, that sense of "doing right". Instead we have descended into moral equivelency, amorality, and secular humanism.
The biggest problem with social programs is that there is no parallell impetus for personal self-improvement, character development or a sense that the recipient must earn the assistance other than just being in the condition of need. We can no longer administer these programs as they were done one or two generations ago. Everything that effects our communities must be re-thought.
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