While millions of African Americans are lining up to elect America’s first black president and millions of conservatives are lining up to elect America’s first female vice president, few are lining up to make a difference in their community. Because the media places so much emphasis on the office of the President of the United States, many African Americans are overlooking the fact that many of the conditions that plague America’s inner-cities can not be solved by the President of the United States or by government officials (a fact that Obama has stated several times in his speeches and in his book: The Audacity of Hope).
Far too many voters are looking to young powerful political figures like Barack to solve their problems much like the Jews looked to their new upcoming political figure, Barabbas, to do the same. They do so without realizing that the government cannot solve many of the self-inflicted problems that we face today. This not to say that government (as it was during Christ’s time), do not have a role and a responsibility in resolving some of the crucial and critical problems facing African Americans like health care. However it is to re-emphasize what many African American social scientists and health professionals have been saying for years, and that is - some of our health conditions from Aids to drug addiction are self-inflicted, while other health conditions from diabetes to high blood pressure can be traced to improper diets and the lack of exercise. Although Obama tries to eat right and exercise regularly, as president, he cannot mandate that we do this as well. Obama is not looking to the government to help him stop his addiction to smoking, nor should we look to government to stop our own destructive behavior.
Additionally, as in the issue of health, neither McCain or Obama can save the inner-cities of America, nor do their parties have an agenda to do so. As President, these individuals will not stop:
1. Drive by shootings
2. Black on black crime
3. Teenage pregnancy
4. Aids due to irresponsible sex
5. Single parent homes
6. High School drop-outs
7. Drugs in the black community
8. Low test scores among black youth
9. Alcohol abuse
10.Music with negative lyrics degrading our women and youth
11.The deterioration of the black community
12.Nor will either candidate develop our young people to be outstanding responsible citizens
Older blacks recall the times when we had no blacks in the White House or sympathetic members in Congress, but we had unity in our community and a host of volunteers determined and committed to make a difference. With these committed volunteers (led by the clergy) we built schools and colleges, insurance companies and banks, and our own Negro Baseball league and news organizations. We looked out for our neighbors, we spanked our children, and rather than aborting children conceived out of wedlock, we raised them to be voters and responsible citizens.
Committed to cause, African American volunteers met annually in national conventions to establish their own agenda and to draft plans for progress. History reveals that those plans always included a deep commitment to trust in God and not in the government. During the 1896 Convention, Booker T. Washington opened with the following remarks:
“The aim will be, as in the four previous years, to bring together for a quiet conference, not politicians, but the representatives of the common, hard working farmers and mechanics and the back bone and sinew of the Negro race, the ministers and teachers. I want to emphasize the object of these conferences. When they were first instituted, it was to confine ourselves mainly to the conditions within our own power to remedy. We might discuss many wrongs which should be righted; but it seems to me that it is best to lay hold of the things we can put right rather than those we can do nothing but find fault with. To be perfectly frank with each other; state things as they are; do not say anything for mere sound, or because you think it will please one or displease another; let us hear the truth on all matters. We have many things to discourage and disappoint us, and we sometimes feel that we are slipping backwards; but I believe, if we do our duty in getting property, Christian education, and character, in some way or other the sky will clear up, and we shall make our way onward….”
Thirteen years earlier in 1883, Frderick Douglass put it this way:
“If six million of colored people of this country, armed with the Constitution of the United States, with a million votes of their own to lean upon, and millions of white men at their back, whose hearts are responsive to the claims of humanity, have not sufficient spirit and wisdom to organize and combine to defend themselves from outrage, discrimination and oppression, it will be idle for them to expect that the Republican party or any other political party will organize and combine for them or care what becomes of them. Men may combine to prevent cruelty to animals, for they are dumb and cannot speak for themselves; but we are men and must speak for ourselves, or we shall not be spoken for at all. Parties were made for men, not men for parties.”[1]
African Americans need more than a black man in the White House, they need black men (fathers) in their own houses and millions of volunteers in their communities. Can we have both? Yes. But we must do two things:
1. We must stop the elimination of future black voters through Abortions
2. And we must have as many volunteers lining up to put our community in order as we have voters lining up to put a black man in a White House.
As a former Community Organizer, if Senator Obama has inspired us to do anything, we should be inspired to improve the conditions in our communities rather than waiting for the Baracks and Barabbas’ (political figures) to do it for us. Romans 8:31
Rev. Wayne Perryman
Rev. Perryman is author of Unveiling the Whole Truth: What the Media Failed To Tell American Voters and The Drama of Obama Regarding Racism
[1] Documentary Negro History pp. 661