THERE ARE THOSE RARE VOICES OF REASON WITHIN THE BLACK COMMUNITY…

It’s a very rare occasion, indeed, when one hears from within the black community voices that possess the necessary courage to speak out againt government dependency and how it is that that dependency has come to so thoroughly decimate the black community.  It’s one of those voices that belongs to the Rev. Cecil Blye, senior pastor at More Grace Ministries in Louisville, Ky.  And it was at a press conference earlier this week, the purpose of which was to announce a new initiative to help youth in the nation’s troubled inner cities, that Rev. Blye said federal policies designed to fight poverty in the black community have instead “destroyed” black families.

“The paradigm of government as parent has destroyed the black family and made black fatherhood irrelevant,” Blye said at the Stay True to America’s National Destiny (STAND) event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.  And he then went on to say, “Our welfare policies have incentivized co-habitation, single motherhood, and unemployment.”  Blye, who is also the national vice president of STAND, said the destruction dates back to 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson ushered in what he called the “War on Poverty” designed to build a “Great Society.”  But one could very easily argue that destroying the black family is exactly what LBJ hoped to accomplish.

Rev. Blye said, “Fifty years ago President Johnson gave us the notion of the Great Society.”  He went on to say, “Fifty years later we see there can be no great society without great morality.”   He added, “Fifty years later we see there can be no Great Society when government involvement incentivizes family disintegration, making it more profitable to cohabit than to be married.”  Rev. Blye said, “We see fifty years later that there can be no Great Society when government involvement incentivizes joblessness making it impossible to make a judgment to take a low-skilled job when you’re making more money on the government dole.”

“We need to have an awakening,” Rev. Blye said. “We need an awakening that saves our cities by strengthening our families and incentivizing personal responsibility and enterprise.”  Blye said whether a child grows up to be healthy by avoiding drugs and criminal activities is much more likely when the father is the head of household, particularly for young black men who need positive role models.  And he’s right, but his assessment does come with a, ‘but’.  That ‘but’ being of course, that blacks essentially refuse to take control of their own destiny, choosing instead to relinquish that control to the political party with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Another one of those voices belongs to Rev. E.W. Jackson, who is founder and president of STAND, said the initiative, “Project Awakening: A Recovery Plan for American’s Inner Cities, will provide church-centered programs that address three issues affecting youth in American inner cities – culture, economics and education.” Rev. Jackson calls the initiative a “private-sector plan to rescue America’s inner cities” by teaching youth Christian values such as the importance of marriage in child-rearing, as well as educating and training young people for successful careers.  Rev. Jackson said he hopes the initiative will spread to include cities across the country.

These men prove that there are, in fact, voices of reason within the black community.  Sadly though, they are, more often than not, the voices that go ignored, or are simply drowned out, in favor of those more incendiary in nature and which are also the ones that preach nothing more than hate and victimization and who also work to further ingrain the sense of entitlement that has become so rampant within our minority communities.  Blacks in this country really are their own worst enemy.  Because when provided with a choice of listening to men like Rev. Blye or Rev. Jackson, or to ‘Rev’ Al Sharpton, ‘Rev’ ‘Jesse’ Jackson or ‘Minister’ Farrakhan, most blacks tend to choose the latter.

And yet why is it that most blacks would rather listen to the men like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson or ‘Calypso Louie’ Farrakhan than to men like Rev. Blye or Rev. E.W. Jackson?   It is at the end of the day that blacks must come to realize that by making  such a choice they do themselves no favors.  Because they, and they alone, are the ones able to clean up their communities and demand that their people stop their wasteful lives and work to make something of themselves.  Only they can do it.  And if those in the black community truly do wish to create a better life for themselves and their families, they will need to break what is the strange hold of government dependency.