Why Us? First, Happy Birthday to all of you birthday guys and gals out there. And for all you folks getting ready for upcoming events ease up a bit if you would. Respectfully, you may not like what I’m going to say. I’m getting ready to “hit the highway” and I thought I’d get my “spring cleaning” done early if I could. Such nay be a cause for celebration. It’s about getting things done and getting them done right. When I was much younger I had a “Jonze” for anything done well. It could be art, music, writing or anything, as long as it was done well I liked and appreciated it. Around this time I thought that Sammy Davis Jr. was the baddest cat in the entertainment industry. What he did he did well and in fact as an entertainer many considered him the best of his day. I and many others eagerly awaited his autobiography which he titled “Why Me?” It is now many years later and the examples he gave us in his book of courage and fortitude we have seen played out in many venues many times. Sometimes with the success as he had and sometimes without, hence the roles of courage and fortitude to be called on over and again. As I see examples of courage and fortitude played out today I would once more ask, “Why Me”, and not just for myself but for all of us and more importantly for very different reasons. The point is and please don’t be surprised, that as I travel about New York and elsewhere I notice that everyone seems to know that we are in deep crap except us? I see hundreds of faces of varying hues representing other faiths and nationalities and in their expressions and body language they project to know something we don’t. I’m taking license here I know but the reasoning justifies it. It’s more than our understanding that issues of significance are not being addressed by our leadership, as if that by itself is not an indication that something is amiss. The organization, “100 Black Intellectuals” stated in an article last year that the Black church has had over 240 billion dollars in program money pass through its hands of recent. But this goes deeper than asking why and where it all went. It’s more than Al Sharpton asking if, “We have all lost our minds?” It says that something is seriously wrong in our community. The question is why does everyone else appear to know it, and we don’t? Then too, what exactly is it that we don’t know? Try and observe for yourself that other folks of whom I speak seem to know something we don’t. If we are in such a righteous position why doesn’t “the man” seem worried? Ponder that idea with the observation that others possess that knowledgeable gait and posture that we lack. For us to be in such a righteous position, the man does not seem worried and the guarded silent confidence of our “friends” should be disarming. Getting down to basics, it’s usually about “the money”. We don’t often acknowledge it but there is a lot of money in the black community (I went over this in one of my previous comments). All the New York black homeowners of those million dollar brownstones in Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant and the rest of Brooklyn, the property owners in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island testify to that. So can all the homeowners in Atlanta, Raleigh, Miami, Charlotte, Huston and Dallas Texas, Los Angles, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis Minneapolis and other cities not to mention those possessing other types of ownership. The professional basketball players, all the brothers playing pro football and baseball and those in the entertainment industry can testify to that as well. The question is, with all that equity, why is there not a black owned car manufacturer or airplane manufacturer? I’m talkin about a black owned company that can go to Ghana, purchase the minerals right out of the ground process them, design the vehicle, produce it and market it. Because for sure, brothers and sisters drive cars and fly from one place to another. Why is there no nationally owned supermarket chain or furniture manufacturer? Brothers and sisters surely must eat and have furniture in their homes. If I was living in China or India and I saw this from all the way on the other side of the world I might say those people need to have a discussion irrespective of the Dennis Rodman fiasco (do you believe in signs?). Something is not right. And to make matters worse slavery is making a strong comeback in our own community (as some of the organizations involved in it might surprise you as would the amount of money involved even now). Is it true that most churches have several services every week? Is it true that as the deacon walks up and down the aisle he knows how much money each person in that row has in his or her pocket or purse? Somebody please tell me because I don’t know; is the service set up to extract said money from that pocket or purse? Let’s see, with 240 billion dollars passing through our churches hands, with all the equity that many of us possess and with the lucrative church as our only national black industry some of us want to own our neighbors as slaves and that is not a question... Having been a history major in college I had the opportunity to study several disciplines. One of them was war so I may say that at least to a small degree I’ve studied war. Somebody please tell me because I don’t know; is it true that there exists circumstances where some of us may have acted mendaciously and unscrupulously and acquired vast sums of money as a result? I ask this because history teaches us that for a lack of other options, such individuals or groups would resort to conflict or even war to hide their deeds and protect their fortunes. To say the least, this devastates life and property but it is too often one very real reason why wars are fought. The problem is that after the dust settles those same people who had money and power before the war are still rich and in power and they will now change the rules so that their conduct is legal. Imagine what that would be like for us. Is this a part of what people know in their silence along with the fact that we, to put it lightly, may have made some serious mistakes. Surmise that we do not need a new paradigm but new leadership. Regardless of what other people may respectfully observe, this is what I and other brothers and sisters see. Something needs to be done, soon and with surety. These are not our only problems. Some of them are many times more severe than the few I’ve outlined here. I was in Harlem recently and there was this brother explaining something to three well-dressed mink coat wearing, mature black woman. I would venture to say that he was a frat brother but even as he suggested so to the women I would not know the signs. “You see that little church around the corner?” He said, “They own the entire block of buildings on 125th Street from Eighth Avenue to Seventh. That’s every building you see from this corner, all the way down to Seventh Avenue and I’m in a position to know. Think of how prime is this Harlem real estate in today’s real estate market?” The women were pointing their heads up toward the sky in disbelief. “That little church around the corner?” One has to realize several things here (I’m going to commend the brother later). One important point to consider is that if something is in fact amiss within the black church, how this might or might not reflect on Christianity and the other billions of Christians around the world. In a worst case scenario, if something is amiss within the black church and it is reflective as such, it needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency. That means several things. One is that if there are obstacles that stand in the way of the healing of the black church, those obstacles need to be addressed or healed themselves and perhaps first if that be the case. In the inner city that might mean any one of several agencies including but not limited to law enforcement. Deal with it. Never doubt that I am and always have been pro law enforcement and before that I am and always have been a Christian. As in our great metropolis where the police have shown a steady support for other religious groups, protecting their freedoms and ensuring tolerance for them, might they show the same resolve for the Christian community? Here within our church community we simply but urgently need the police to enforce the laws as they are recorded in our constitutions. Bring justice home to our churches, cleanse them and heal them. It’s important for Christianity, our larger community, all religions and more and absolutely necessary that they bring about justice, without regard to the consequences to them personally, no matter what... If the larger police departments cannot do it we must do it ourselves methodically, thoughtfully, with first things first. It is disheartening to see others knowing and understanding our plight while we’re laughing, playing games on our smart phones, in another world listening to music or doing other things. There was hope in that brother’s statement that signaled to me that others see the urgency in resolving our affairs as well as I do. Importantly he is not the only mature, socially positioned brother I’ve recognized of late as having that perspective. I’ve noticed several in the past months as well as some of them representing larger groups. Our situation is critical and other people see it even if we don’t. With much humility it’s needless to say I’m in part taking my “Q’s” from those astute brothers I’ve come across in the last few months. It’s a welcome sign for me personally after working so hard for so long to help bring a more reasonable perspective about. So all may not be lost even at this late hour. The problem is that the remedy will be severe as I’ve expressed several possible options to close friends. To balance that out consider that we’re talking about the future of over 41 million people and that forever is a long time. This commentary is brought to you from The Potential Enterprise Co. Leslie T. Lox, author and principal of The Potential Enterprise Company.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 07:31:28 +0000
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