Time to get a new agenda

- September 08, 2013

by Jeffery McNeil

After attending the commemoration of “The March On Washington ” and hearing the many speeches of progressives and civil rights activists. I didn't feel the sense of history that many others felt, I left disillusioned and depressed for those who still adhere to the Civil Rights agenda of the sixties.

I express gratitude for those who opened doors for me. I just believe seeing the black and white films of Selma and Birmingham are no longer inspirational, but depressing that many still rehash the same wounds from that period.

The truth is that the civil rights agenda is outdated and the poor deserve much better than those who claim to be their advocates. If the poor want to feel liberated they need to break away from these relics of the past. The protesters today remind me of football fans that reminisce about the 1959 Detroit Lions or 60 Philadelphia Eagles trying to relive their glory years as their current team suffers another losing season.

The poor don't need a message of hope they need straight talk raw and unfiltered. I will praise the black leader who tells how the Little Rock Nine and James Meredith endured being spat on and death threats to get an education. So our current generation can squander it walking around with their pants hanging down with their butt cracks showing or refusing to learn proper grammar because their homies may think they're acting white.

Some will say we should not air out our dirty laundry. The truth is our dirty laundry is aired out every day whether its at Franklin Park where the poor, mainly comprised of black men, are strewn out on the park intoxicated. Fights constantly break out over free clothes and ice tea. The park reeks of urine and alcohol because they pee on the trees and reek of liquor then when they leave it's crawling with rats because they don't pick up their trash.

I always seem amazed when someone tells me about shelter closings which advocates claim are caused by greed and racism. Being a former resident the problems of the shelter have nothing to do with racism but because many are disrespectful and morally deficient. It pains me to see the legacy of Mitch Snyder being desecrated. This man stood on the frontlines so the homeless could have a bed. How do they honor him? By sitting in front of the shelter, drinking, selling drugs and prostituting, meanwhile trashing the place with beer cans and paraphernalia, then complain about how the city is trying to relocate the poor.

How come none of these self proclaimed black spokesman tell them it begins and ends with personal responsibility. If working people can see the dirty laundry, you better believe business owners sit in their offices discussing it. It’s safe to say they are calling law enforcement and removing those defacing the area.

This is why claims by civil rights leaders that the criminal justice system unfairly discriminates against black people is preposterous. If civil rights leaders were concerned about criminal justice they would tell people to end self-defeating behaviors that draw attention. When you're walking down the street with your pants hanging down screaming M-fer you're pretty much going to look suspicious. If you’re caught on tape holding up a liquor store or robbing someone it’s not institutional racism, you are a menace to society and your ass need to be locked up.

Instead of civil rights leaders telling kids not to get involved with drugs, many advocate lighter sentences for crack smokers because white people get high too . What sense does that make? Instead of advocating lighter sentences for drug users one should advocate preventing people from ruining their lives with drugs.

Truth is the problems of the black community have nothing to do with racism, it’s self defeating behaviors like the foolish street codes as not snitching as crimes are committed, not wanting to learn because they don't want to be perceived as acting white. White people don’t make someone have five kids with no fathers or shoot your own brother in the back.

The problems I see with the black poor aren't with conservatives or racists. It’s the corrupt black leadership that claims to represent them. It’s the N.A.A.C.P, Urban League, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and MSNBC who plant the seeds of inferiority and capitulation instead of encouraging and empowering the human potential that god grants us.

Empowerment is dangerous and the black man that thinks independently from these race hustlers scare the civil rights establishment to death. When a black man rises up and repudiates the government plantation of welfare he is deemed a threat and he ousted by the civil rights establishment.

My final conclusion is if the poor are ever going to get out of poverty they need to think for themselves and purge the civil rights leaders that claim to be their advocates.