The Price of Freedom

I was not surprised to find that the subject of the round table discussion, though filmed ten years ago was still relevant today. I think that since the mid 1980's the overall growth and achievement of the African-American community as a whole has seemed stagnant from what I have been able to gather through reading literature from the past and present, and talking to my mentors and professors. It seems as though the quality of life has improved ten fold for a select few in the black community, declined ten fold for a few, and remained the same for the great majority of black Americans.

We all know the problems, but where are the solutions? Though the round table panel did an excellent job outlining the problems among African-Americans and the root of those problems, only 30 seconds per participant was allotted to discuss what they thought were the solutions to those problems. I feel that this speaks volumes. I feel that this lack of being solution oriented as opposed to problem oriented is one of the reasons we have been bogged down under the weight of tradition, lack of motivation, and short sightedness in the black community. I would love to see programs where we discuss what we think are the solutions to the biggest problems among African-Americans.

I would also like to see black Americans become proactive instead of reactive. We do not have to wait until a problem puts our backs against the wall to begin solving it. For example many people feel that jobs are leaving the U.S. That is not true! In fact the number of jobs in this country are on the rise, and have almost always increased, but these jobs are in service industries not in manufacturing. Seeing this trend we as black people should as a community try to educate our youth so that they will be qualified for these service jobs. We are always crying about how there is nowhere for an honest man to work anymore, but that is a fallacy. There are plenty of places, but Cone Mills or the Ford plant are not on the list. We better get prepared before we find ourselves as a community not qualified for any of the jobs available.

Dr. Calvin Mackie, did a great job, in my opinion tapping into the spirit of young people and motivating them. Unfortunately, as some of you who were there may have gathered while we were watching the video, I heard him give that speech verbatim at an event last year; therefore, it has lost some of it's magic for me. I will conclude by saying that everyday, we should "wake up running" as Dr. Mackie says; but every night we should decide to what place we are running. Plans change and people must change with them; yet if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.