When I watch the news on television, it often seems like I live in an alternate reality. I listen to pundits talk about the issues of our nation and why certain groups and individuals have issues with the current administration and, at the same time, are ignoring the elephant in the room.
We act as though Southern politicians, who are from the old confederacy, have legitimate policy issues with the first African-American president, and it has nothing to do with his race. We act as though the outward disrespect President Barack Obama has constantly been shown is normal for the way we treat our president, while admitting this is the first time we have witnessed this personally and quickly find some historical parallels with what people called Lincoln.
We have the greatest gift this country could have been given in an African-American first family that represents everything positive about America, and if we cannot discuss race with this family, where do we start?
Listen to our talk shows and notice how rarely they have a legitimate discussion about race. African Americans desperately want this conversation and European Americans are trying to avoid it at all cost, but have it we must. The future of our nation and maybe the planet may be determined by how we do this.
A love story with America
If it’s a discussion about how we can both grow America and an honest analysis of how important an organized, political and economic African-American community is to the future wellbeing of America, we are heading in the right direction.
Instead, what we are hearing, especially from the far right, is that white people arming themselves is the only way they can be safe from a potential threat from the inner-city ghettos, or black and brown people.
Unfortunately, all of those extra guns and weapons have been the cause of far more deaths in the white community than they were intended to save.
But that conversation takes root when we are not having the more honest conversation about why African Americans have more to win then lose with a strong America. There is an also a powerful conversation to be had about how loyal African Americans have been to a nation that has rejected them over and over again.
That, my friend, is a love story unlike any we have experienced in the history of man. Because it is a story about a race that has become too educated and indoctrinated in the American way of life to want to go anywhere else or be welcomed in large numbers anywhere else in the world.
Part of the problem
The health of America and the health of African Americans are one and the same: When America is sick, we feel it the most, and America cannot get well without us getting on our feet.
Our $1 trillion or more in consumer spending is the bedrock of the American economy, and we represent a huge percentage on what America spends on law enforcement, prisons and emergency-room visits. If we can take 50 percent of African Americans off of food stamps and other social-welfare programs, there would be no conversation about a budget deficit.
I would even suggest that we alter our laws to make it mandatory to serve in the military if one cannot pay child support or gets arrested twice for a drug or weapons offense. This will drastically impact crime, reduce the number of young, black men in prison and put some athleticism back in our military ranks and get some of our black youths trained.
We need a conversation about race before Obama leaves office, and we can use his and his family’s incredible charisma in structuring the kind of America we want today and tomorrow.
The elephant in the room is too big to ignore, and it’s bizarre to watch otherwise-intelligent people convince us that we should not believe our lying eyes.
CHARLIE JAMES has been an African-American-community activist for more than 35 years. He is co-founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. County Institute (mlkci.org). To comment on this column, write to QAMagNews@nwlink.com.