Posted on 09/19/2014 12:31:39 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
Many images that came out of Ferguson, Mo., last month looked like scenes from Birmingham, Ala., in the 1960s: the gun-wielding police officers, the sign-carrying protesters and the chants demanding equal treatment and human dignity. But thats where the similarities ended.
For all the righteous indignation it inspired, the Ferguson turmoil has become the latest in a series of flash-in-the-pan causes that peter out without inspiring lasting movements for racial justice. As an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi during the 60s, what I learned was the importance of organizing at the grass-roots and how even small actions at this level can have national impact. That is why I cannot help but notice that many black leaders, in their efforts to drive change, are ignoring some of the great lessons of the Southern Freedom Movement.
For one, the black leaders we most often see in the public eye have become experts at complaining about what the white man does to black people. Al Sharpton and others fill their rhetoric with fury about the white power structure, but ultimately serve messages that are superficial and myopic. To be clear, I am no right-wing ideologue blaming black people for the oppression that has beset them for generations. At 71 years old, I have experienced my share of brutal and dismissive racism. But this one-track approach will not generate change. Perhaps the great lesson of the southern Civil Rights Movement is that as much as it challenged white supremacy, it was the challenges that black people made to one another that truly empowered the movement.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The author also never gets around to stating what exactly should be done. He says more black people should vote and new faces should emerge, but nothing about what they should change to solve problems in the black community.
I guess it’s taboo to actually talk about solutions, but voices like Bill Cosby, Alveda King, Niger Innis and Don Lemon have gotten it right. But nobody feels like listening.
He had me all the way up until he stated naming the ‘new leaders’ who should be listened to... that’s top down.
And the people in Ferguson? There’s a reason blacks in Ferguson are electing whites... it’s not that they don’t understand how to vote. They do. What the black community is saying - by their ACTIONS - is there’s something uncomfortable going on...
The old SNCC would work to figure it out.
SNCC was street level - and if this was 1964 Snick would know why the people of Ferguson were saying one thing and acting differently. They would talk it out, listen, and - as a group - come up with ideas and plans.
I suspect college educated blacks coming out of white liberal colleges aren’t connecting with the real black community...
As opportunity showed itself the blacks that took advantage became successful as any white person. Those black families that stayed together were the most successful. Those broken families walked the streets of false security by not taking advantage of education and instead listened to the race batting hate preachers of hell.
“Black people had the power to fix the problems in Ferguson before the Brown shooting. They failed.”
That’s racist.
There are ten thousand Fergusons in America that you’ve never heard of. They’re all run by Democrats.
That’s the common thread.
bump
Long overdue.
From Africa to the Caribbean nations such as Haiti, and then on to American cities where blacks hold a majority, everywhere where they are the majority, there is misery and poverty. And not just poverty, but extreme corruption.
Yet pointing out such facts called “racist”.
It is far past time to address this elephant in the room.
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