A2: The Black Soul

So back to the answers for my top three problems facing Black America that have little to do with exterior circumstances. That was a mouthful. I started with The Black Family, now we're on to The Black Soul.

2. The Black Soul.

"In God we trust."

That's what it says on the dollar bill. Remember Wu Tang's Cash Rules Everything Around Me joint?

Makes you wonder why God and Money are so close in our country. They shouldn't be. It's maybe the one flaw within a capitalistic society. Okay, there are more flaws, but I'm not going there.

But we have been conditioned to believe money is the end all, be all. When really, we need to open our bibles: "Love of money is the root of all evil," it reads.

We blacks have fallen hard for it, maybe more so than any other race. The problem: we've barter it with our souls.

We are quick to sell our souls, our dreams. The black man in this country comes from limiting circumstances, and has been taught that the American Dream is about money. You get as much of it as you can, however you can.

Hooping. Rapping. Singing. Drug dealing. These are the avenues our people have traveled and deemed the most prosperous. For whatever the reason. One of our wealthiest black men has literally built the majority of his empire on the degradation of black culture. Two others with prominent voices the world would listen to, will not speak up on any social issue (Tiger Woods and Mike Jordan).

Two of our "moral" leaders tend to crusade when dollar signs and opportunity align themselves along the same plain.

To right this wrong, we must do a few things.

A) We must instill the importance of education early and often. Our children need to know there are opportunities abound if they aspire to chase their dreams. Not just doctors and lawyers, but accountants, nurses, psychologists, teachers, authors, journalists, screenwriters ... these are all worthwhile professions where we need black people who don't value money more than their soul. Black people need to know they can do more than play ball or "slang rock" to improve their quality of life.

This connects to the first problem: the family. We need to raise a generation of children who are built of solid moral character: God, family, education, job, money. In that order of importance.

A man loses control of his soul when he puts money ahead of everything else in his life. It's the truth. We need to value what's truly important or else ...

B) We must find a true leader whose mission is to enhance the experience and education of the black man on social, political and moral grounds. This leader must have a voice that all races, classes, ages and both sexes in America acknowledge. I wish it were Woods or Jordan, but that doesn't make them more money. We need someone who is content with what he has, someon e who doesn't care about money so much that he or she would commit suicide the next day if they were broke. Maybe it's Barack Obama (he won't take money from PACs and lobbyists) on some level, although he could have an entire government to run.

If we don't get these two things soon, we'll go in the other direction. If you don't know which way that is, just look ahead. It's the same road we've been traveling.

It's deeper than this, but I want to keep it simple here.

To prep for the final answer, Black on black hate, here's a quote from Dr. King:

"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."