"A community is a group of people who have come together, and they work and they live to try and improve the standard of living and quality of life.”
-William Baldwin
The African American community is a community that is riddled with the constant struggles of our past, present, and unknown future. It is imperative that the African American community rebuilds itself. Rebuilding the community will unite our race as a whole to help us move foward as a progressive society. We have allowed petty things to come between us as a race: comparison of skin color, economic class, education, and the belittling of our own people. One of the first things we need to do is go through a grieving process. We need to embrace our history, accept, and forgive the ignorance of our fellow counterparts. Stop letting slavery hinder our every move towards success. It is critical that our present and future generations know the history of our wonderful race and culture.
A remedy to connect our broken fragmentations is for there to be a revival of the values and self pride in our culture which were divided by our struggles. Those with knowledge reaching back into the community and being willing to re-educate the people on the importance of life. Support our parents and communities in raising a new generation of self confident, self reliant, and progressive children who are eager to take control of their destiny, instead of waiting for life to come and get them. We also need to stop depending on the government to better ourselves and then and only then will the fragmentations we able to be connected.
A growing and thriving community is just that growing and thriving. African Americans need to support our black owned businesses instead of looking for a way to chasstise them. Have a stable foundation for the community provided with solid leadership. We need to have pride in our homes, keep areas clean, and well kept. Instead of having others thinking the only thing that we are good for is tearing up something. Get children and teens involved in postive community activites and excelling academically above the stae standards. Another important issue is community awareness to get the word out about being tested, respecting your bodies and your self.
With the recent **** of on-line networks such as facebook and myspace this is the perfect opportunity to educate people about the black community. To show there is more to our culture than what is depicted of us through the media. Use the programs to network as informational and educational forms instead of for entertainment. Although our forefathers have paved the way for us we must take that long journey down that road. The only question is ARE WE READY?
