Blacks Must Drop Victimhood and Reclaim Dignity

That is the title of an article written by Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint, a "Must Read" article by people of all races and colors.

It talks about abandoning victimhood and adopting an attitude of can do.

New York and Boston - Martin Luther King had a dream that some day his children would "live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

He wanted his children to become strong, beautiful people. But what we see today in poor African American neighborhoods is a nightmare.

We know there are forces that make the ability to escape poverty seem bleak: overburdened single-parent homes, a high dropout rate, joblessness, gangs, drugs, crime, incarceration, deaths at an early age from guns fired by angry black men. We know that systemic racism and governmental neglect still exist.

Yet we in the black community must look at ourselves and understand our own responsibility. We sometimes inflict ourselves with a victim mentality, feel hopeless, and do self-destructive things that make our lives even worse. Many people who are trying to make it find themselves struggling against fellow African Americans so lost in self-destructive behaviors that they bring down other people as well as themselves.

These forces are decimating our communities. And they are not what Reverend King and other leaders took those whuppings for. This is not the future for which our ancestors escaped slavery or resisted it. None of our forebears sacrificed their lives so that their children's children could call each other "nigger."

The problem is not just the people wallowing in victimhood, it is leaders like Jess "Scam Man" Jackson and Al "Tawawna Brawley" Sharpton that are perpetuating the idea of victimhood so they can make money and maintain power.

The power of Black Americans does not lie in being victims or voting as a block for Democrats, it lies in proven themselves by raising them out of their predicaments, getting the best education they can, avoiding gang involvements and not letting anyone, Black or White, stand in their way of success.

America needs Black Americans, they have so much to offer our nation, but to do this, they must rely upon themselves to better themselves.


Mr Minority