Part II: Is The African-American Community A Victim Of Failed Leadership?

In Part I of this series, the tragic state of 9 key indicators of African-American progress since the "Civil Rights Movement" were identified. This is only the tip of the iceberg of failed leadership in the African-American community.

The prison population has nearly tripled, the high school drop out rate is increasing, college enrollment is declining, the African-American business community is vanishing and the intellectual gulf between African-Americans and the rest of the Free world is wider now than it was in 1965.

Yet...this is what African-American leaders call progress. Worst still, African-American leaders have led their people to the economic slaughterhouses in mass. Billions flow out of African-American commuities every year with little or no tangible return. Yet, their leaders have consistently failed to address this issue..why do they keep pressing the social and political agenda..instead of an economic agenda that can resurrect their neighborhoods, communities and improve the lives of their people?

To any casual observer, the socio-economic thrust of the African-American community seems bent on self destruction.. rather than self determination. Why should African-American leaders expect other ethnic groups to do more for their people than they are willing to do for themselves?

The debt to asset ratio of the average African-American worker is near 0% which means... African- Americans communities will suffer the most during federal cutbacks, corporate downsizing or any recession. The "so called" leaders that exist in the African-American business community seem preoccupied with proving to African-Americans that they have arrived.

Such African-American publications like Ebony and Jet seemingly insist on perpetuating these surface images of "so called" African-American progress. Frankly, they need these images to sell ad space to corporate America. There is nothing wrong with this. Glitz and glamour have sold products for years. After all it is the American way. It is precisely these images that every Presidential Administration parades before America that perpetuates the myth of African-American progress. Unfortuantely, this myth keeps African-Americans in a perpetual leadership crisis.

African-Americans do not control a single major financial institution or industry in America, neither has their leadership devised a plan to access the billions America controls. Practically all the "so called" gains their leaders keep pointing to...are short term at best. What else can they be...since African-Americans are not sitting at the industrial and economic table?

Until African-Americans find men of courage and conviction to take the mantle of true leadership and move them...as a group...toward understanding the sciences and applying the LAWS OF ECONOMICS, they will continue to be a colonialized people existing solely...for the purpose of economic exploitation. Where else can you find over 27 million thoroughly conditioned consumers? Where else in the industrialized world can you find over 27 million people satisfied with symbolic wealth and economic crumbs?

Yet every African-American leader of note has failed to address these issues to any meaningful degree. To further complicate matters, Federal, State, and Local governments are showing increasing signs of foot dragging on "Affirmative Action Programs". Since most high profile African-Americans got their positions because of "EE0C Guidelines", further relaxation could devastate the middle class financially.

Foreign investors are gaining increasing power and influence as America's trade and balance of payment deficits worsen. This development along with millions of illegal immigrants could mean EEOC is on the way out or severely curtailed. With all these realities and more staring African-Americans in the face, African-American leaders do not stick their heads in the sand like the Ostrich to hide from danger, they would rather hide between the pages of the King James Bible. African-American churches are bursting at the seams with name-it-and-claim-it Christians.

Many African-American church leaders seem bent on teaching their congregations to replace reason with emotion, true knowledge with mysticism and substitute salvation for science. It seems the direction the African-American leadership has taken their people is to nowhere, toward nothing and away from their true selves and their true destiny as a people. Being "Saved" in African-America denotes inefficiency, backwardness, intellectual stagnation, non-productvity and scientific ignorance. Is this the future Dr. Martin Luther King envisioned for America and his people? Hardly...

Maybe it is time African-Americans distance themselves from their current leaders and uplift themselves, enlightened themselves, discover their true selves and do for themselves without the Jessie Jacksons, Al Sharptons, James Clyburns, Harold Fords and Barack Obamas. Current African-American leaders are seemingly insisting on leading their people toward economic servitude and social deterioration and not toward growth, self development and life.