Tavis Smiley - "Blacks Can't Follow the Rules"

This is a comment thread response in a forum in which I'm a member and today I noticed a posting about Tavis Smiley's comments of late.
"Are Blacks too emotional to obey the rules?"

The forum, RYZE BUSINESS NETWORKING is aplace where businesses and entrepreneurs go to network with other businesses and like minded people. (This topic was found in the Black Business Network section )
The link to the conversation:

MY COMMENT TO POST FOLLOWS:

I'd like to chime in here a moment if I may, since I'm usually very quiet here and political issue conversations are a bane to my existence... when we all should be out there trying to make a change in the system ourselves. All many do is just talk about how things should be changed and have no earthly idea what to do, or how to go about making any substantial change in themselves.

I agree with Ms. Baumgardner's statement, "we need to stop thinking of politically active blacks as OUR leaders. Tavis Smiley does not speak for me nor my level of behavior and intelligence. We do not have to embrace these political mouthpieces simply because of the color of their skin. Indeed that is a part of the problem we now face."

Indeed. Many of us are still treating Jesse Jackson's words as coming from the mouth of God. We have leaders blind to any actual plight of black people anymore because they came up during a period of lax attitudes and informal rearing. Young men growing up for the last thirty year without substantial male role models and latch-key mentalities have led to a political view of lazy affiliation with any political agenda other than the democratic view that every one has a right to everything, what's ours is ours and we should keep our noses out of everyone else's business.

When these remarks are made, however seemingly racist to some, to others they are merely an ignorant nuisance made by bigheaded celebrities who think that can say anything because of who they are.

Nappy-headed hoes did not offend me. Were he to have said, "them jiggaboos out there," or "that's some real jungle bunny shit" I would have. But to me what he said could have been construed for either black or white women. I though nothing of it other than that it was a real dumb comment, made by someone who should have known better. But then I liked Imus. I always thought he said stuff that people wanted to say but didn't have the balls to. And yes, he did go too far that day, but if you watch the tape, it was a stupid heat of the moment thing and that was that.

But we're talking black leaders here, not stupid comments by stupid people. Oh yeah, stupid comments by black people, that's the subject.
Cheryl Baumgardner makes another good point. (And thank you Cheryl, your comments caught me up in this comment thread and I just had to add my two cents)

"We are too quick to embrace black people even when the behavior they present is embarrassing or detrimental simply because they are black. When we should be taking them to task, we are apt to excuse their behavior because of the "Black" experience in this country."

A truer statement has not been made in the last thirty so years!

Black people want a leader. They need a leader. Someone to take up the task of dealing with white people in a determined and definite manner. Who will not be swayed by the sycophantic trend of catering to our passions and usurping our budding integrity with the trappings that keep us quiet and complacent.

It brings to home the statement made by Charles Grimmett up there,

"...a crisis approaching (or maybe its already here) black America. Educators have been writing about it for almost 30 years. The lack of a positively defined and valued definition of a black community. The sense that in order to be successful, you must give up being black. And the sense that we must embrace and identify with a raceless self-image in order to succeed."

"We are so engrained into White America's dream that we have forgotten to find one of our own." Bf

We have equality, we fought and died and suffered for it. We have now the ability to walk among our oppressors and meld into their community. We can be the head of a company or the janitor for one, but we have not found or achieved the one thing necessary to be a viable people(s).

We have not found our place.

We are an aimless bunch of black folks walking across the country searching for somewhere to go but not knowing who we want to be when we get there.

Sure we need a leader to take us to the next level of existence as a race, but what we need most is an awareness of who we are and where we came from. Yes, I am talking about our heritage before slavery. Before the brainwashing.

Right now, I think Obama is a leader to watch. He was not influenced by the negative and detrimental effect that our five hundred years of mistreatment had on us. His background is free of the negatives aspect of the slave mentality, so he can better bring a positive outlook on a people oppressed, even if now silently and covertly. He can look objectively at the entire picture of America and the United States as a whole nation combined, and not as a participant in its disparaging past.

But then, that's my opinion. Personally, I don't see us waking up any time too soon. We are making strides "as they say" and we have a heck of a lot more now than we've ever been able to achieve in the history of this country, but the words, "we have a long way to still go," still hold true. "We may be half way up the mountain, but we ain't reached the top yet."

All the stupid comments by celebrities just brings more light on their ignorance of the moment. Black people have to concern themselves with how we are going to make this world a place for us. Where we can achieve and be looked at as a human being who made his or her mark as a person... not a black person, but a person. A human being that set out to achieve and did so, because he or she knew they could.

Just another human who took a chance. Who made a difference... regardless of color.
I don't think you need a leader for that.

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