“I’ve spoken of the Shining City all my political life. In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.”
We the People. The most empowering combination of three words ever inspired of God to man. In a nation unique in its unselfish approach to addressing the problems of its people, these first three words of our Constitution highlight the framers’ intent to encourage inclusion, fairness, and opportunity for all. In the history of mankind, there have never been three more powerful words that conceptualize the vision of a freedom seeking people.
“We the People.”
This signifies the confidence of a Heavenly Father who confirms that within a collection of unified individuals are the answers to our most inspired dreams and solutions to our most daunting problems. By searching within, we can overcome our obstacles, we can mend our differences and forgive, we can choose our pathway, support, defend, and provide for our own families, we can receive Heavenly guidance and be led in keeping our nation free. These three words of self-empowerment capture the mission of a country that continues to improve to find its better self. We have done better than any other society in the history of mankind due to our innate ability to see beyond our many differences to instead embrace our commonality…being Americans.
I have written this book, in fact, to educate and empower all Americans.
“We the People.”
With an understanding of the pitfalls experienced over the last sixty years by millions within our minority population, we can establish warning buoys that will prevent our country from traveling into that same destructive territory.
There are lessons to be learned from the Black communities’ journey over this last century. Some are based on God’s spiritual truths that define happiness for all of humankind. Others show the benefits of political empowerment of the individual, transferring power away from the powerful and influential. All solutions center on the concept of accountability and point to the precept of the Golden Rule—treating others as we ourselves would like to be treated. Acceptance of this creed should not only be expected as part of an individual’s demeanor but should be demanded of those paid to serve in the public square.
The Golden Rule should be the standard by which we hold all educators accountable as they teach our children. There should be no employment protection, tenure, or labor union-contrived job security for those who provide inferior and inept services to others because of their race, color, creed, religion, or zip code. The legacy of our nation is predicated on this notion, the foundation of empathy and the genesis of charity and compassion. At no other time in the history of mankind has there been a better implementation of the Golden Rule than in America. It has generated an attraction and sense of endearment that has drawn billions from around the world to its shores. It is this inherent attraction that can be best defined as “a shining city on a hill.”
For centuries, our forefathers sacrificed so that we might be the recipients of the blessings of freedom. Should we not be willing to pass those same freedoms on to future generations? How do we?
We are First and Foremost AMERICANS
“We must be righteous. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.”
We owe a debt to those who have paid the price for freedom to understand the cause for which they sacrificed. “If we forget what we did we don’t know who we are.”427
The Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Federalist papers, Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution represent visions of freedom over the centuries that were fought for, enhanced, built upon, and passed on. The 1439 Gutenberg Printing Press opened the doorway to mass education, inspiration, and to a new dawn of thought and reason. It is ironic and fitting that the first book printed was the Gutenberg Bible. This event marked the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of an enlightened Renaissance. This invention empowered individuals with an opportunity for independent thought, to ask questions, and to debate a plethora of ideas. It allowed for the blueprint of a nation, still centuries away, whose environment empowers individuals “to think and reason beyond all previous boundaries.” It was indeed a historical paradigm shift that would lead to the concept of freedom, a time during which the connection of the individual to a Big God empowered them to dream big. This empowerment to dream allowed an envisioned future free of control by kings, popes, and landlords.
As we equip ourselves to hold on to these gifted freedoms, it is imperative that as Americans we remain educated and engaged. The documents that define our nation’s values, principles, and priorities were inspired and written to be a guide for an educated, thoughtful, independent, and engaged “We the People.” We must become involved in civic affairs to ensure that we are properly represented.428
It is the obligation of a free people to roll up their sleeves, lift their voices, to serve each other, and then cast their ballots to hold their representatives accountable. In a free society our elected officials reflect who we are. If we are a good, wise, and honest people we will in turn elect those who are good, wise, and honest legislators. If our representatives become debased, with lack of character, it is a direct reflection of who we collectively have become. We must therefore be personally accountable to higher laws that demand that we seek our “righteous” desires. Holding others accountable to the same is therefore possible. We must make our influence felt by our votes, our letters, our teaching, and our advice.429
In a country founded on the premise of individual freedom, religion, speech, thought and expression, the press, association, and the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, our vote reflects the individual’s innermost thoughts, intents and desires. Collectively it is a vote for or against God, the author of all freedom. It is therefore up to “We the People” to vote wisely. This act is a precious gift, paid for by the blood, sweat, and tears of generations and experienced by only a handful in the perspective of time. The collective power of “We the People” should not be frivolously taken for granted or abused. It is our responsibility to vote wisely, vote as an educated citizen, vote for the welfare of our nation, vote for the blessing of our God, and vote often.
An Eternal Truth: A Marxist is a Marxist is a Marxist
One winter a farmer found a snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion and, taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The warmth quickly revived the snake, and resuming its natural instincts, it bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. ‘Oh!’ cried the farmer with his last breath, ‘I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel.’
The farmer in this fable failed to understand the immutable nature of the snake. It simply did what it was instinctively designed to do. The Royalty Class Black Man is to the Black community what the snake is to the farmer. They, by nature, innately seek wealth, power, and fame to the detriment of the community that trusts them. They appear harmless and feign advocacy until warmed by the opportunity of self-interest. This is when the empathy-free and heartless ways of the liberal Socialist are revealed.
How best to explain the heartless-soul of a Socialist/Marxist Royalty Class Black politician than by defining the heart and soul of a narcissist. They are, at their core, one and the same. The focus and endgame for both will always be self. A narcissist will pretend to be operating from high standards, but the reality is that they are only critical of others while the standards for their own behavior are non-existent. This results in them being flaky hypocrites who pander to the public image while something much darker lurks under the surface. They frequently make promises that they have no intention of keeping and spend a lot of their energy seeking people who will adore them (i.e., illegal immigrants) or who they can vent their aggression on either by provoking fights or spreading gossip and lies.
Narcissists often follow a pattern of seducing and then abandoning lovers and friends, as well as other people they have conned into admiring them. Their lack of empathy and excessive self-interest mixed with an ability to manipulate and charm others make them highly abusive to live with. It doesn’t bother them to exploit their partners. They will hinder any attempt by their partner to regain self-esteem and will seek to keep them servile and, in effect, a kind of slave (i.e., the poor, urban Black community).
The reality is that a narcissist is like a selfish child; they find it hard to share anything, especially attention. They have a driving need to be the center of attention and will go to lengths to be the focus of everyone in their environment. Often, they will fabricate stories to make them seem more important than they are, and they will consistently blame others for any wrongdoings they commit. This behavior flourishes in those that are charming and attractive because this gives them an advantage and allows them to get away with this behavior more often. They pretend to be humble and very likeable in public and choose a less socially-competent partner to be their foil and will mercilessly exploit them to get whatever they have chosen as their goal. Narcissists usually sulk or get angry if they are seen to be in the wrong or make mistakes, they will rage or throw tantrums and often insist on rewriting history to cover their mistakes (i.e., the Socialist/Marxist Congressional Black Congress).
Works Defines and Refines a Man
The Minimum Wage
The number of employed high school students has hit its lowest level in more than twenty years, according to new figures from the National Center for Education Statistics. In 1990, thirty-two percent of high school students held jobs versus just sixteen percent now.430
These unemployment statistics have an even more profound impact when gauging the amount of Black teenage males across our nation who are not participating in the work force. In a segment in which seventy percent are fatherless, forty percent are dropping out of high school and college, and an increasing number are being drawn to gang violence, the opportunity to learn life skills through work is imperative. A 2014 national study found that ninety-two percent of Black male teens are unemployed in Chicago and eighty-three percent are unemployed nationally.431 What is numbing about this report of non-working youth, unemployed now, soon to be unemployable, is the lack of outcry from politicians who mandate anti-Black policies like the minimum wage law. These same politicians are educated enough to understand that they are also sentencing another generation to hopeless misery.
In a Wall Street Journal article, “The Young and the Jobless,” the minimum wage hike has driven the wages of teen employees down to $0.00. Economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, wrote that the seventy-cents-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would cost some 300,000 jobs. The teen unemployment rate in September of 2009 was 25.9 percent, the highest rate since World War II, up from 23.8 percent. Some 330,000 teen jobs have vanished in two months. Hardest hit of all: Black male teens. Congress began raising the minimum wage from 5.15 dollars an hour in July 2007, and there are now 691,000 fewer teens working.432
There is a reason that labor unions favor the perpetual increasing of minimum wage. With each increase, it gives employers justification to hire “skilled workers” (union labor) versus unskilled entry-level teenage workers trying to get work experience. Within months of being inaugurated, President Obama suggested raising the minimum wage from 7.90 to 9.50 dollars per hour, this time tied to rate of inflation.433 This is a gift from a grateful Black politician to Socialist/Marxist White labor unions that have never been a friend to the Black community.
The New Frontier of Civil Rights Education
It is imperative for America’s future that our children’s education becomes our number one priority and at the forefront of our nation’s dialogue. Regardless of the community, “We the People” must garner the same passion that was once present during the civil rights era. This is the new civil rights issue of our era. It impacts millions of Americans and plays a vital role in providing a gateway to the American Dream. Quality education also provides protection from the progressive stealth of Socialism/Marxism. As stated by Karl Marx and John Dewey, the goal of this anti-American ideology is to indoctrinate trusting minds to become part of its collective. “The first battlefield is the re-writing
of history.”
“You can’t make Socialists out of individuals. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society, which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.”434
Solutions
Immediately revive the successful Washington, D.C. voucher program, which impacted over 2,000 poor inner city children per year and 16,000 over the two terms of President Obama.
Develop a nationwide plan that grants students who receive federal education assistance the opportunity to take their federal voucher to the public and charter school of their choosing. Push decisions to states to offer enough options so that the choice would be meaningful.
Streamline teacher-quality programs at the federal level and award them to states based on how well they promote good teachers. Demand better transparency from schools, such as a more useful grading of public schools’ performance, which lets parents make better choices.
Give parents more choices in schools to push reforms in troubled school systems.
Remember God.
“Truth is scarcely found. But integrity and truth are hardly found within the Black population as a whole, at least not where it involves Black people. Most Blacks have pledged allegiance to their Blackness, not truth, not to America, not even to God as many profess. Integrity and truth has to go out the window if it somehow poses a threat to the ‘positive’ image of Blackness.”
The greatest influential institution within the Black community as early as 1758 has been the Black church. Religion offered a means of catharsis, as Africans retained their faith in God and found refuge in their churches. They have long been the centers of communities, serving as school sites in the early years after the Civil War, taking up social welfare functions such as providing for the indigent, and establishing schools, orphanages, and prison ministries. As a result, Black churches have fostered strong community organizations and provided spiritual and political leadership, especially during the civil rights movement.435
The church of my youth in the early ’60s segregated town of Tallahassee was Bethel Baptist. It represented the community’s gathering place for civil rights updates, strategies, and demonstration planning. The Black church today continues to have an influence. A book published in 1990 by researchers Lincoln and Mamiya titled The Black Church in American Experiences surveyed 1,900 ministers and 2,100 churches to find that around 71 percent were engaged in some aspect of community service or outreach program. This included day care centers, job search assistance, substance abuse prevention, and food and clothing distribution. Churches in Harlem have undertaken real estate ventures and renovated burnt-out and abandoned brownstones to create new housing for residents. They have fought for the right to operate their own schools in place of the often inadequate public schools found in many Black neighborhoods.
Here lies an interesting paradox. As a community, Black Americans are far too religious and involved in the church to be experiencing so many social problems. The destruction of the Black family, Black mothers accepting the degraded value placed by others on the life of their own unborn children, and the gross abandonment of Black men as responsible husbands and fathers highlights that there is something peculiar about this reality. It reflects a detachment of the head from the body, a kind of cultural and spiritual decapitation. The church is the primary institution among Blacks, but it is obvious, considering our societal challenges, that the head is not properly communicating with the body.436
The influence of liberal secularism has embedded itself deeply within every sector of American society, including the “Christian” pulpits. The challenge to the Black ministry, who, in the past, represented an oasis for hope and progress, is whether they still envision their godly calling to guide their flock to promised blessing available only through adherence to God’s laws.
In today’s “groupthink” popularity culture, guiding will take an absolute faith in the cornerstone of the Christian faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. It would take courage to take a stand against pride, popularity, and profit. It would take God-fearing leadership to call out those who consider themselves Christian Ministers yet fall in line in support, marching arm-in-arm in advocacy for anti-God Socialists, Marxists, and atheists. What has become crystal clear is that far too many Black Christian ministers today do not have enough of either faith or courage.