What do you stand for?

Dec 12, 2007 at 1:45 PM
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What do you stand for?
by James Guitard
Baltimore Times
Originally posted 12/10/2007

What type of community stands disproportionately in long holiday sales lines in the wee hours of the morning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on consumer products that depreciate in value, while overwhelmingly having millions of excuses for why they won't stand in line to vote or stand up and address the pressing political, educational and socio-economic issues affecting the today and future generations? I'll tell you who—the same community that had a projected buying power of $847 billion in 2007 but during the last five years has spent on average less than $300 million on books.

The African-American community, through misguided spending priorities and lack of attention to safeguarding and advancing the hard fought civil rights gains paid for by previous generations with blood and sacrifice, has created the first generation of African-American children knowing less Black history than their predecessors since slavery despite having more buying power than ever since the Middle Passage.

No single segment of the African-American community is totally culpable for its ills nor immune from its ramifications. According to a recent Brookings Institute report, "Economic Mobility of Black and White Families," an intergenerational analysis concluded that 69% of African-American children born to middle income parents are for the first time growing up with less income than their parents.

What is undisputable during this holiday season is that the African-American community faces an array of daunting challenges socio-economically, morally, educationally and politically that require for it to have a greater knowledge of its history, responsibility and opportunities than ever before. Supporting African-American institutions, organizations and businesses with a track record of making a difference should be on everyone's gift list.

My holiday shopping tip is this—in this highly competitive global economy, instead of just buying children toys and games and playing games with their future, it would be wise if we as a community spent more money buying for ourselves and our children some books, so we can all grow and learn and have less of a chance of seeing our children get booked on the evening news. © S. James Guitard

S. James Guitard is the national bestselling author of four books and a guest columnist. His latest novel, Delilah's Revenge, is a Black Expressions and ESSENCE Magazine Bestseller.
Author@JamesGuitard.com

Article published at Baltimore Times Online:
http://www.btimes.com/News/article/article.asp?NewsID=84587&sID=4