It has been a pleasure sharing my views on the world around us for the last few years, and I hope that I said something in that time that may have helped you see things a little differently. My time is up here, and it’s time to move along and concentrate on becoming a full-time public speaker.
In the meantime, let me suggest a few things for you to consider with Black History Month just past and for the months to come.
•Black and white Americans are locked together at the hip by our nasty past, and what we do now will determine whether this nation has a future.
•We must come up with a method to close the book on slavery, and I believe reparations is the only method to do this.
•We are a nation that uses only 25 to 30 percent of our talent, and because of past racial practices, we are left with large, barely competent, white, mid-level “managers” who kills that talent before it has a chance to flower. America is suffering because of it.
•I still believe in America and now feel that it is clear that our current black and white leadership is insufficient for the challenge because we are a nation so afraid of an honest dialogue.
•Remember that no matter how nasty our battle gets to make this nation a better nation, it is ultimately a love story. My quest to find my roots, rediscover a lost culture and build a secure world for me and my people in the same nation that once enslaved us, has never been achieved in the annals of history. Love is the only thing strong enough to carry and sustain you through the dark nights of this journey.
Yet, regardless of the trials and tribulations suffered or that may be ahead, I am blessed to live at this time in history. It’s a time where I am in the last year of a highly successful two-year term of a black president and African Americans have more freedom to express ourselves than at any time in the history of America.
America will be defined by either a small, determined group of racists who cling to that nasty past or a multi-racial band of visionaries with the political and economical will to sell a different vision of America. Wealthy right-wing donors are far more active and willing to spend money on their vision than wealthy liberals who prefer to donate food and blankets than give money.
All part of a larger love story
Let us be clear: This is not only a battle for racial equality in America; it is a battle for the very survival of this planet. I am now a committed environmental activist who realizes that if Mother Earth is dying, our petty racial issues are of no consequences — we are all dead.
So if you see me in the forest hugging trees one day, fighting urban environmental issues the next or leading a rally on police or racial issues the following day, it’s all a part of the same love story.
You can write a chapter, as well, because the story of the nation is not my story — it is our story, and too many of us prefer to be passive observers than actively writing the scripts by the actions we take as activists.
I am blessed to live in Martin Luther King Jr. County, the 12th largest county in the nation and the third wealthiest. We have some of the most extraordinary business leaders in the nation, with one of the nation’s biggest foundations. We should accept the challenge of making our own history and build Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beloved Community in the county the bears his name.
Let’s write this next chapter of this love story from Martin Luther King Jr. County because we are the most racially diversed in the nation. Now if we can only put our money where our mouth is and get busy...
Take care — it’s been a joy writing for you, and that is “The Bottom Line.”
CHARLIE JAMES has been an African-American-community activist for more than 35 years. He is co-founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. County Institute (mlkci.org). To comment on this column, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.