Chapter 4 Part 2

To continue, here is the place that the white establishment should step forward and accept responsibility for its racist policies that laid the groundwork for our current situation. Whether those policies were intentionally designed to create the atmosphere that helped to destabilize the black family, they did in fact have that effect. Because they penalized the women that were married, the policies sent the message that it was more beneficial to the family not to have a man present. The black woman no longer needed the man for financial security. The purpose of the man became procreation only and many men gladly accepted that role. It removed the responsibility from the man of raising the children they had fathered. However, what the family gained in economic security they lost in family stability. These policies replaced the presence of the father with a monthly check. These policies undermined the family structure and created a dependency that has taken decades to remove. These same policies had the opposite effect of their stated purpose. Instead of lifting people out of poverty and into the mainstream of American economic life, they created generational poverty. Those on the government rolls would pass that dependency on to their children and their children’s children. It became a vicious cycle and created an entrenched underclass. These guidelines also and more importantly perverted the divine plan of God for the family. They forced people to make a choice between economic survival or family loyalty. No one should ever have to make such a choice, but many did.

The purpose of this book is not to explore the depths of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, but how we as a people must overcome the sin that we now practice with an attitude of indifference. The problem with placing blame for racism is that there is never anyone to accept the responsibility for it. In the white community, it has always been the previous generation that had the problem with racism. Have we been treated unjustly? Of course, we have! Am I trying to excuse the behavior of others towards us? Of course not! Nevertheless, we have to move forward and begin to take responsibility for our own destinies. The problem is that we think white people hate us and some do. The majority of whites are just indifferent towards our plight and us. The opposite of love is not hate it is indifference. Indifference means I do not care if you live or die, just do not bother me. I believe the term used is "NIMBY" or not in my backyard. Let me stay in the suburbs or in my gated community and leave me alone. Hate at least involves some emotion. How many of us now hate someone we once loved? However, how many of us are now indifferent towards someone we once loved?

Our future and our most precious resource depends on our taking responsibility for our own salvation. The salvation of our people and especially of our children depends on us and no one else. The time has come to stop waiting on others to do what we should do for ourselves. Rightly or wrongly, we are in the situation we are in, how we got here is moot. The real question is what are we going to do about it? Are we going to continue to look for help from outside sources, the very sources that enslaved us and counted us as less than a man in the first place? So far, our tactics and game plans have not proved profitable for correcting this gross inequity to the eventual benefit of all our children. It is high time that we take back our communities, one soul at a time. For too long we have had leaders that have enriched themselves at the expense of the rest of us. We have not treated our children as our most precious resource and we have begun to pay the price. What we have given our children as an inheritance is lies and empty promises. Instead of surrendering ourselves to God and getting under His authority, we have been waiting on the same people who enslaved us to rescue us. This is not only illogical and politically impractical, but an insult to our children period. Passing along an entitlement mentality is demeaning to us and to our children as if this world owes us because of our heritage, because of slavery and prejudice. Get over it! Right now, we need to accept the fact that we are our worse enemies. It is always easier to avoid responsibility for our own actions. Granted, someone brought the poison into our neighborhoods, but we did not have to take it. We will only get better results when we demand better from those in positions of responsibility and especially ourselves.

When God freed the Israelites He expected and demanded that they be responsible for themselves. With His guidance they would prosper without the help of their captors. However, when they submitted themselves to God, He would use their captors to prosper them.

“…who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all
That I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt.” And
Of the temple, “Let it’s foundation be laid.”’”
Isaiah 44:28