I WILL PASS THIS ON...¿WILL YOU?

We all send
thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought. We share stories
about the ills of society. We allow the media to promote addictive substances,
material things that don't support our communities and even degrade the people
that are trying spread messages that are in the opposite direction of our
oppression/personal suppression. We even strive to separate us from us by
promoting products that do not support our people or uplift them. Is this
shame? Is this our way of trying to have a brighter shine? Is this personal
envy, jealously or hatred? Let's begin promoting things that we create from our
substance, things that bring material to create/support the structure in our
community and recognize the positive messages that we want to share without
condemning each other for things that we do not agree upon. Let's really begin
to spread the word.

Sometimes our actions remind me of the
infamous "Willie Lynch Letter" and the "Thank You Letter From
The KKK". There is argument about the validity of the letters, but the
messages are "keep Black People separate to control them - Willie
Lynch", "continue destroying each other so no one else has to - the
KKK" and also "hide keys to success in books because Black People do
not read". The point that I am focusing on is not the two letters that I
just mentioned. The subject is more about the ways that we segregate ourselves
from each other, destroy each other and support others before we support each
other. It has been said that both of these documents might have been written by
a Black Person as a way to open our eyes to our surroundings, to promote
common-unity and to serve as a call to action. Maybe we should worry less about
who wrote these documents and prove that these documents are wrong by coming
together for positive things whenever we can.

When it comes to sharing messages regarding
life choices and progress, we think twice about sharing. If we share it all. I
passed this on... Will you?

We find ways to contradict each other without
contradicting the crude, vulgar, obscene and counter-productive things that are
destroying our communities. We do not seem to find enough ways to agree to
disagree, instead we seem to overlook the positive things that our people do
and fight to keep the negative things that are done in the open. We have a way
of holding our own people accountable for their faults, but we do not hold them
as accountable for the things that they are doing right. Why do we go out of
our way to say or prove that things are wrong instead of WHAT WE CAN DO to stand behind the THINGS THAT WE KNOW ARE RIGHT?

There are many talents that are available for
the development of our communities and our communities need to spend more time
making sure that these talents are recognized to be duplicated throughout our
neighborhoods. Our rite of passage has to be one that in includes an effect of
productivity, support, unity, and the audacity of hope.

We need to be more productive in supporting
our educational, economical, political, social, creative, spiritual and
organizational power bases. Although we do not agree with or understand
everything that everyone does; we should be much more aware of who the Black
Colleges and HBCU's, Black Newspapers and News Web Sites, Black Organizations
and Non-Profits, Black Magazines, Black Churches, Black Business Owners and
Black Political Bases are. We also need to understand the productive things
they do, how we can help them succeed, and help promote their mission because
their success is our success.

When we fail to support the productive parts
of our communities, we succeed in allowing negative self expressions to build a
powerful foundation and structure in our communities. Our problems are not
simply financial ones, they are when some of use the term "your
problems". They are also the areas of self-worth that cause
self-destruction that we allow to hold power in the minds of those in our
communities. We have to use and feed more of the power that builds our
communities to shift the balance to the productive things that exist in our
neighborhoods.

Our neighborhoods have progressed from being
the home of "Menaces to Society, to Persons of Interest, to Urban
Terrorists". This is not progression that we should be proud of or allow
to continue to thrive, and we must replace these labels with the labels of:
Business People, Spiritual Leaders, Educators, Political Leaders and people who
are productive. None of our people are holding up their end of the deal if they
are pointing fingers, turning their head, or directly contributing to negative
progression. We are sometimes our own worst enemy because we refuse to look in
our own mirrors. It seems that we would rather point out the flaws in the
mirrors of others, blame others for our abandoned struggles, and do nothing
with the people that we should be doing everything with.

I challenge every reader to direct someone to
these words, re-post this on your blog, email these words to your friends, ask
everyone to share these words and leave comments that show that we are doing
positive things.

I passed this on... Will you?