Misguided and Uninformed criticisms of Black Leadership!

See a need, fill a need. These are the words of wisdom offered in the recent animated movie Robots by one of the Characters named Bigweld. This simple wisdom should be a mantra we adopt in our response to the many problems we have to deal with in our community. There have been an increasing number of attacks on Black leadership by progressive Black men and women for no other reason than in their eyes there seem to be problems ignored by Black leadership and or Black leadership is doing something they do not like, or feel is necessary although it is in no way detrimental to our rise and is definitely more positive than negative.

I was recently listening to a radio program over the internet and this Brother was speaking on the importance of educating and protecting Black men and women from HIV/AIDS. He believed that HIV/AIDS is one of the most important issues facing Black men and women in America and I am in agreement with him. I was with the brother all the way until he decided he wanted to use his speaking about the importance of HIV/AIDS education to take pop shots at Black Leadership. Brother said he believe this issue was being ignored by Black leadership, specifically Rev. Jessie Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton. I could not help but wonder if brother actually did his homework before making these statements or was he speaking from ignorance about Jessie and Al organizations. I have personally heard both men speak on the HIV/AIDS epidemic we are facing here in America and abroad and Al Sharpton raised the subject several times during his Presidential campaign. I visited Jessie Jackson Rainbow Push website and on the front page, there is a link to the HIV/AIDS section of the site that has tons of information including audio and video streams about HIV/AIDS, thus I go back to brother and wonder why would he as one who works on behalf of Black people make statements that are not true or make statements without doing his own research. Brother is not the only one engaging in this kind of behavior, there is another kind of self righteousness among progressive Black men and women trying to one up other progressive Black folk.

The other kind of one upsmenship was the recent barrage of articles that spoke about Tavis Smiley town hall meeting. Several articles were written, not detailing what was said or who said what, they were written with one aim and one purpose, to make it appear as those who gathered at Tavis Smiley event were there to engage in something other than Black brainstorming and responding to questions about our people and problems that Plague our community. What really bothers me about the criticism thrown at the men and women that sat on the panel at this event was that these same Progressive folk who found it necessary to criticize this event do not see the relationship between this yearly event and the weekly events held on CSPAN by white think tanks, that produce information conjured up in their caucuses with the sole purpose of changing and shaping opinions and political thought in this country.

Black intellectuals do not gather enough or as often as they should to produce information and papers that speak to us as a people and the one time they do gather the criticism thrown at them would have you think they do this all the time and not once a year. We need an uncompromising Black answer to the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institute, The Cato Institute, Judicial Watch, the Manhattan Institute and the number of other mostly white think tanks that produce information meant to shape thought in this country. These so-called non-profit organizations continue to put out papers in defense of everything in this country that we oppose and that is detrimental to Black upward mobility. Tavis Smiley yearly event is one of many ways that we can respond to these white think tanks.

Black folk that write about and speak about Black leadership and what they are not doing can use the wisdom offered in the animated movie Robots. If you believe that an issue is not being raised like it should be raised and you are the host of a radio show, have a weekly article that run in several publications and sit at the head of an organization, it is your duty to put the light on that which you believe is in the dark, See a need, fill a need. Misguided criticism of Black leadership does not help you or bring to light that which you believe is being ignored, it only says to us, that you would rather write an article critical of Black leadership and use your air time on the radio and online to criticize Black leadership about something you have the exposure and means to bring light to. Lastly any criticism of Black folk gathering for a good cause can only be one thing, misguided, the only thing that we should hear after a meeting of Black minds about issues that matter to us is how and when is the information covered at this event going to be disseminated to the masses of our people and when will we be able to get such great Black minds back together to focus on things there was not enough time to cover at this event and pray to God it is not a year from the date of the last event as is the case with Tavis Smiley think tanks.