A1: The Black Family

To be honest, I can't quite say I know exactly how to absolve Black America of its greatest problems. On a grand scale, that's damn near impossible.

No one man has the ability to move our people, and rarely, if ever, has he. In the 50s and 60s there was Martin Luther King. But there was also Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, who subscribed to different beliefs about how to correct the ills of society. They had unique followings.

Now we have new "leaders," and I put that in parenthesis for a reason. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are about the closest thing to leaders that we've had in some time. They both have their flaws - the main one being their desire to align themselves with causes that permit them to line their pockets.

Some (including Toni Morrison) once heralded Bill Clinton a champion for the black man. Clinton finds himself fighting for his wife against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. And Obama, and yes, I hope he wins the race. But say he does win, will Obama have enough power, as president of these United States, to bring about positive change concerning the issues I listed in my last post?

I doubt it.


Yet in still, here are the ideas I have for each of the problems I briefly discussed yesterday. If you don't know I believe one of our biggest issues is that we just lament our issues, and don't come up with ideas for solutions. Here's No. 1.

1. The Black Family. How do we, as a people, turn right the negative ills that have befallen the black family? I think the first step is to stop putting ourselves in positions where a family is broken before it's formed. Stop having children out of wedlock.

The marital bond was put in place for good reason. And the numbers show that the children who are born in stable, two-parent homes are more apt to succeed in school and life versus children born out of wedlock. This by no means says you can't raise a successful child as a single parent. It just says that the odds are against you.

On another front, our males must, and I mean must, be men instead of grown children. Be there for your seeds. They need you. Work with your child's mother for the child's best interests. Monitor what your children get involved in at a young age. On Friday I met a seven-year-old (white) kid who has a Facebook account. This should not happen. Be better parents and adults.

On another level, a lot of our families have been built on the traditions established by grandparents. They defined stability for most of us. Family gatherings, holidays and even birthdays centered around the grandparents. As some of them have passed, families' structures have fallen apart because there's no one there to continue the traditions we grew up with. Someone needs to step up, and continue to instill these necessary values in our children and give them that invaluable bonding time so they see the importance of family, so they know their family.

This isn't something that can be done on a universal level. It's a man by man, family by family situation that must be met head on by each family. No one man can say, "black families be better" or enact a law that forces people to do right in this situation. We have to desire to do right by our kinfolk, then do it.

Okay, I'm going to do this day by day. Tomorrow will be solution No. 2: The Black Soul.