Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative Threatens some Blacks

Today, President Barack Obama launched his “My Brother’s Keeper Initiative” which is designed to bring together industry, faith-based organizations, religious groups and business owners to help create, fund and monitor programs which has been proven to help erase the enormous gap between young minority males and their white counterparts.  Some of those programs already have a proven track record and others are still in the experimental phase.  These programs would seek to open doors which has been closed and locked to minority males for years.  This was supposed to be a good thing but as luck would have it; to some it wasn’t seen as an opportunity to fix these long broken promises and times.  It was seen by some as another excuse to keep this nation as broken as it always been.

Now I did expect individuals like Mr. Charles Hurt to be offended by the comments made by President Obama considering that there has been nothing that this President has done or said which has seemed to agree with him at all.  Mr. Hurt is political columnist for The Washington Times and can sometimes be read in The Drudge Report.  His take on this launch could be summed up in these words “The reason that Mr. Obama is so terrible at being his brother’s keeper is his towering arrogance, his general dislike of other humans and his belief that he has all the answers. Simply put, he is just terrible at getting along with people”.  The only problem with this take is listening to an attitude like this is exactly why this nation is broken.

What I did not count on, however, was the voices of educated and highly enlightened African-Americans who seemed to miss the point of this speech as bad as Mr. Hurt did.  I guess they may be more aligned with Mr. Hurt than even they realize.  I say that because many of them speak in the very same manner as Mr. Hurt, people like Mr. Trevor Coleman who was quoted in the Washington Post speaking about President Obama’s speech at Morehouse College saying “it’s time for President Obama to get a new speech for black audiences, the personal responsibility finger-wagging is getting old”.  He also said that “he was disappointed that Obama almost always defaults to the clean-up-your-act message when talking to predominantly black audiences.”  “The Post goes on to quote Leola Johnson, an associate professor and chair of the Media and Cultural Studies Department at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.,  who said Obamas’ speeches “are actually not aimed at black people.”  “They’re actually for white people, liberals especially,” she said”.  Even A. Scott Bolden, a Washington lawyer and Morehouse graduate took a shot saying “it’s interesting that President Obama is always asking black people to take responsibility for themselves.”  “It would be really nice if he’d take responsibility for black people in his second term.”

So you see, by their account it is not the responsibility of our young minority males to own their choices, especially when there is an African-American president in the White House.  We all should just sit back and look to President Obama to determine their destiny.  Bull s******, if we consider ourselves men then we must also take responsibility for our decisions and determine our own destiny.  No one owes us anything and the only true limitations that can be placed upon us are those we impose upon ourselves.  In other words, if you allow others to determine who you are then you deserve all that you get.  If you want more, if you want better then step up and stand up.

Parents should never relinquish their responsibility to teach their children and instill in them values that they can be proud of.  When you child comes home from school make it a rule that nothing is done until all homework is finished and if it takes a few minutes of your time read with them or let them read to you.  It only takes about 5 minutes of your time to help your child gain the confidence and pride that they will need to make a better life for themselves.  Just 5 minutes and who will say that their child is not worth 5 minutes.  Parents stop using the television, teachers and others to raise your kids.  You prayed for them now do right by them.  Stop looking at them to become the next Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Robert Griffin or 50 Cents, not all of them will be that.  You might have the next Noble Peace Prize Winner but if you are so focused on them getting into college on an athletic scholarship, then you will miss the love of science or technology that they show.

President Obama mentioned that he was well aware of the obstacles that have blocked progress of our community for so long but he was also very much aware that even though the doors are unlocked and opened, our young minority males must be the ones who walk through them.  Instilling a pride in them to know that they are better than the streets or how they are portrayed by characters on television and even in the minds of some of their peers is the best gift you could ever give them.  Don’t let them give up on themselves because if they do, so will those around them and if that happens we all lose.  See the best in them and make them see the best in themselves.  Don’t let a day go by that you do not say to them that they are better than that.  Do that and it does not matter how crooked the policies are because our young minority males will stay straight and believe it or not if they stay straight, their road will eventually straighten as well.