Posted on 10/12/2005 5:37:10 AM PDT by linkinpunk
Ten years after the Million Man March, what’s changed?
By Leonard Pitts
Ten years later, more than 65 percent of our children are still born out of wedlock.
Ten years later, we are still five times more likely to die of homicide.
Ten years later, still fewer than half of us own our homes.
Ten years later, we still marry less, go to jail more and die sooner.
Ten years later, the promises we made that crisp Monday in October lie fallow and unredeemed.
On Sunday, it will be a decade since African-American men descended on the Mall in Washington.
Ten years later, two things strike me about the Million Man March. The first is a sense that we black men and our countrymen seemed to be talking about two different marches. We kept hearing that we were going to Washington to support the notorious Jew-baiter Louis Farrakhan and to attack America for its mistreatment of us. We kept saying we were going to attack our own mistreatment of our women, children and selves. And, that though Farrakhan organized the march, many of us joined it not because of him, but in spite of him. The conversation we wanted to have was bigger and more important than this
regrettable man.
The second thing that strikes me is the optimism we felt. We stood in a crowd of us, generation be-bop, generation do-wop and generation hip-hop, gathered to slap backs and shake hands, to hug and laugh and be, shoulder to shoulder and man to man, serenaded by the heartbeats of African drums. On a podium far away, speakers spoke, but they were not the show. The show was us, standing there on what felt like the pivot point of change.
Yet 10 years later, here we are, still damned by numbers. Because change is not something you talk into existence. Change takes action.
Some of us did go back to our communities and work to change them. But too many of us, it seems, just went back.
And yes, I know about cops and courts, about the loan officer at the bank and the hiring man downtown and I know about the lies too many white people tell themselves, including the one that goes, “liberty and justice for all.” I know about the truths some people won’t, can’t, face because to do so is to cut too close to their most cherished conceits and necessary
self-deceptions.
But I also know that much of what is needed to fix our communities requires no white person’s consent:
Get educated.
Seek a career, not a job.
Don’t make children you can’t support.
Understand that support means more than money.
Marry the woman.
Model manhood for your children.
Save some money.
Buy a home.
Build a life.
Easier said than done? Yes, very much so. Yet I persist in believing that for African America, changing the world lies in the embrace of these and other old-school dictums. And that revolution can be as simple as having dinner as a family, checking homework and going to church on Sunday.
I thought we understood that as we gathered under that autumnal sun. I thought this was what we meant when we hugged and laughed and made promises to the future.
But 10 years later, the future is here and it is hard to glimpse even the bare
outlines of change.
Good read.
And I am impressed Leonord Pitts can write a whole article without blaming Bush for the plight of blacks.
The smartest news you'll find in print this month...
"Get educated.
Seek a career, not a job.
Don’t make children you can’t support.
Understand that support means more than money.
Marry the woman.
Model manhood for your children.
Save some money.
Buy a home.
Build a life. "
THE most telling statistic, and one that is kind of tough to blame on White Racism.
he did.... just put in "the man" or "the courts and the cops".... it's all the same.
The only way that the "black man" is going to "rise up"... is if he stops seeing himself or limiting himself by being a "black man". He needs to rise above that and EDUCATE HIMSELF and HIS CHILDREN. That is the only choice he has. This country honors hard work. No "program" will lift up anybody. Only work, struggle and living the "right" way without drugs, alcohol, illegitimate children, laziness and dependence on the plantation owners of the Democratic/Rainbow Coalition or the government tit will set them free.
Good post. From "Get educated" to "Build a life"...words of wisdom for every individual.
Sure you can - they're just having the babies that white folks won't have.
I'm sure it is easier than you think. If we searched we would probably find lots of articles on the subject... even from "respectable" people.
What has changed since the "Million" man march on Washington?
Minister Farakahn has been taken up to the Mother-Wheel-In-The-Sky for further instructions. Stand by.
I am going to save this as guidance for my grandsons...
Leadership that exploits and demagogues victimhood and always blame others syndrome is not real leadership.
Bump
Stay off crack, stay out of gangs, don't shoot each other, failing that-Blame Whitey
Ten years later, still fewer than half of us own our homes.
Stay off crack, stay out of gangs, go to school get an education, get a job, failing that-
Ten years later, we still marry less, go to jail more and die sooner.
Stay off crack, stay out of gangs, go to school,Go to church, learn to respect women, not call them your whores, keep it zipped, don't do crime. Failing that- Blame Whitey
Ten years later, the promises we made that crisp Monday in October lie fallow and unredeemed.
Quit listening to Democrats, they want to keep you on the plantation, and Blaming Whitey Be all you can be, get a job and become a Republican.
I would add one in there before that one that says something like:
Pick a better woman
(i.e. one that isn't so easy to make a baby out of weblock with--that one cuts both ways, you know)
Bush's fault, of course.....
What's changed? Well for one thing, Farrakhan's muslim brothers destroyed the WTC and murdered 3000 Americans.
'weblock' - the relationship which might result from internet dating:)
Corrupt leadership and poor planning always translates to poor results.
LOL!
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