Good afternoon world! Usually I would hope this blog finds you in good health and even better spirits, but I’m pretty sure you can tell by the title that I’m looking to upset somebody. So why waste the time and energy hoping you’re happy if I plan on trying my hardest to change that? But enough about the introduction, let’s get right into why we’re here today…

This all started as a innocuous Facebook post, as most things do nowadays. The conversation was originally about Donald Sterling’s ignorant ass comments regarding Magic Johnson. If you aren’t familiar with the dumb shit that ignorant bastard let come out his mouth, check out the link..

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/12/us/donald-sterling-interview/

As the conversation on Facebook continued, one individual blamed Magic and other celebrities for not doing more to uplift and rebuild the black community. His stance was that they owed it to us as their adoring public to lead us back to the right path, as black leaders had done in the past. Anybody that knows me knows this did nothing but incite me. I hate, no wait DESPISE, the idea that the black race needs a single leader out front to show us the way. Other races don’t have an appointed or assumed leader, why do we need one? Admittedly, there was a period in time when we needed someone to speak for us as a whole. But that time has since come to an end. And frankly, we’ll never see two gentlemen come along like those in the picture below.

Now, I’m not here to try and make it sound like there aren’t problems in the black community. I would be as naive as the previously mentioned gentleman if I believed that. But we can’t look to one person or a group of people to fix the problems that we face. It’s up to us to do that. And until each and every black person in this country realizes that it is their responsibility, no it’s their duty, to make sure they do their part to improve their surrounding conditions, we’ll never see any progress.

I think the problem is that we want to see grand scale changes made in our neighborhoods. There’s nothing wrong with that, but even the smallest contribution helps. We have to start somewhere. And the best place to start is at home. We have to teach our children how to be respectable members of society. We have to teach our sons how to be gentlemen. We have to teach our daughters how to be ladies. I understand that’s not going to automatically undo all the crap that our elders endured in this country over the last 400+ years, but its a place to start.

I’m not saying we don’t have to affect wholesale changes in our communities in order to get them to where they should be. We need businesses (especially black-owned businesses) to invest in our neighborhoods to revitalize them. But we can’t expect any business owner to honestly open up a location in our neighborhoods if they look like war zones. That’s where the residents come in. We have to take pride in where we live if we want entrepreneurs and CEOs to see our communities as being viable options for their businesses.

But the change has to start from within. We can’t affect or expect change if we’re doing the same things. I’m gonna get off of my soapbox for now. So until next time, peace and love…