Niggas

I am pleased to see so much dialogue occurring in national media about one aspect or another of the Black predicament. However, much of that dialogue is misdirected and marginal and a waste of the few moments that Black opinion is allowed to be showcased on national media. The hubub about Michael Richards' use of the word nigger, or as Blacks say, nigga, is just such a waste. It ranks up there with the Cosby diatribe about Black conduct within its community.

How high Blacks wear their pants, and how many books they carry home from school in their book bags, and how many children they father and fail to support and whether they do or do not use the N-wordhas no material bearing on the Black condition in America. That behavior, and the use of the word nigga is not the reason for the racial disparity that has Blacks in 2006 earning one-half what whites earn for the same work; that has average Blacks unemployed at twice, and in the under 25 year old males class five times the rate of their white counterpart; that has Blacks who are out of work taking 3 times as long to find another job; that has the average Black high school graduate reading at the 5th grade level and has Blacks being gunned down in the streets during an Execution in Blue. These are the important issues that Black leaders need to seriously address not whether nigga is a legitimate word; or is endearing or perjorative; or appropriate for use in a mixed audience. Or whether Blacks should let their underwear show.

Black leaders, Jesse Jackson principally among them have snow poles for backbones and seize on these marginal issues to appear to be concerned and doing something to improve the lot of Black people in this country and elsewhere. Snow poles? That's one of Jesse's favorite metaphors. He suggested, long ago, that Blacks have snow poles for backbones. When things are cool, those backbones have Blacks standing erect, proud and determined. But that when confronted with racist America and the heat is turned up, those backbones melt and whither and their owners stand stoop shouldered and submissive. I love that thought. As it turns out, however, and to the everlasting detriment of American Blacks, he and the current crop of Black leaders all suffer from that affliction.

None of the Black leaders are confronting the American institutions that account for the economic disparities attendant Blacks in America. This is a capitalist country. Money is everything. Either you got it or you don't. If you don't, you are powerless. It is even more fine tuned than that. If you simply have less than the next group, your group is less influential than that other group on a political and social level.

While Blacks do not have the wealth of whites in this country, they have enormous consuming power; enough to tip the economic health of any one company, in any one industry over and down near the bottom of his counterparts' listing should that consuming power be microdirected away from such companies on a scheduled and selectively targeted basis. What Blacks need is some serious warfare against these corporate institutions that perpetuate American racial, and more importantly economic disparity. If the numbers were leveled off, and Blacks earned the same as whites in this country, i.e., twice what they now earn, the Black Ghetto as we now know it would disappear and with it, Ghetto attitudes that the Cosbys and Waters of America seek to denigrate.

The Cosbys, Waters, Sharptons and Jacksons are overly concerned with the quality of life in the hole, when they should direct all of their attention to getting Blacks out of the American Black Hole.

Bottom line: Black leaders should spend those precious media minutes going after those institutions that cause the important problems in the "Quarter". They are shooting at the wrong targets and wasting precious resources in the process.