Diligence

I sit on an important committee at my church that does many great things for the black community. There are several prominent members who had faith in me when I chaired the first Men’s Economic Conference’s a couple of weeks ago. I was surprise that they chose me because I’m the youngest by far on the committee. Not only did they allow me coordinate this conference the committee quadrupled my budget. Nonetheless, it turned out to be an extraordinary day and I think my pastor knows my name now. (hehehe, I go to a very large church.)

Last night, we began making tentative preparation on our next upcoming event in February. I am very excited to participate in this endeavor. It’s the annual black history month event that I attended right before I became a church member this year. We were discussing ideas for a theme. We talked about the change of MLK platform after the March on Washington. Dr. King began to talk about economic empowerment for the black community. Some say, this was inspired his death.

The conversation quickly moved into what is our community doing today. Most of the members talked about diligence in our community. One member said, “Black men in America don’t know nothing about diligence.” In general, I do believe our community lacks the drive to empower themselves. I firmly believe that we as a people become complacent in our situation. Many of us are on welfare, section-8 or if we really doing well making three dollars over minimum wage. There are some that persevere, while the fast majority is still living in the projects that their grandmother grew up in.

In September, I had the pleasure of having lunch with Dr. Cornel West. Someone asked him, “What do you love most about black people.” I can’t recall his exact words, but he said something like this, “Our people have always made the best out of every situation.” It’s true! I know many people, who have been living check-to-check for over 20 years, including my mother. When my mother was getting food stamps, my four-person family was happily living in a two-bedroom apartment without cable, making soul train lines and singing our hearts out.

But, something changed.

My mother was blessed with a better job. She began to expose us to a different lifestyle. She nurtured thoughts of a better life.

Unfortunately, enormous amounts of our people living in poverty don’t make that change. We have generations and generation of teenage mothers, welfare recipients, children of violence and the list goes on. I told the committee our people don’t have HOPE! This is the main cause of our complacent being.

We have endless amounts of talent, yet we don’t know how to channel this talent into something LEGAL and PRODUCTIVE (that’s another post.) The poverty stricken black folks in America don’t know the sun will come out tomorrow.
James Brown had a song something about “Open up the door/And I’ll get it myself.” The door is open… how can we get up and get it ourselves.

It’s a tough unjust world. It’s truly hard for our people to conquer their dreams. A large amount of us face adversity in some form every day of our lives. We must not allow hardship stop us from achieving our goals.

I think it important that we educated ourselves about our elder’s stories.

Can you really imagine walking miles to work for over a year in Montgomery under the sweltering heat?

Can you really imagine a high school drop out going on to become a congressman and president of our oldest civil right organization?

Can you really imagine being an incarcerated felon and redeem yourself in the Muslim religion to become on of our greatest civil right activist?

Can you think of a black successful person who has not gone through tremendous amount of adversity?

H E Double L NO

Our blood is strong and our people don’t even know it.

Diligence! When is our people going to learned that’s all we need to succeed?