Lazone Grays Jr wrote the following comment on my Facebook Page: “It is hard to teach self-empowerment to our youth if the parents have yet to figure out how to do it themselves? I find too many parents want to support 'their' children for sports or to entertain, but not encourage or get them involved in entrepreneurship or in learning to earn an 'income'. Until America finds a way to create jobs, we will always be at a deficit in income-earning. As I promote youth enterprise development to financially empower our youth through practical learning, technology & application, I mostly get blank stares and excuses. Years later I see their now grown kids out in society unemployed, unemployable and moving towards delinquency to satisfy their financial needs. How can we move forward with thinking like this?”
Great. My answer to Lazone Grays Jr’s excellent comment and question (“How can we move forward with thinking like this?”) is “We can’t and we never will until we decide to make better decisions.”
This blog is written as an open letter to all Black people who believe the government will overcome their inferior social and economic status in the United States. The empowerment of African Americans is not the responsibility of White Americans; it is the responsibility of African Americans, and until we accept that responsibility, we will never have freedom in our own land or the control of our own future.
I don’t know what White people owe us, if anything, but I know one thing. They are not going to pay us. Neither is work a 4-letter word. It is our salvation if we would just learn to work for ourselves and spend more of what we already produce in our own communities. There is no need for more prayer; they have already been answered because you possess everything you need to be equal. What too many Blacks lack is the courage to empower themselves with what they already have.
With $1 trillion in our pocket, we are begging others to feed us, educate our children and take care of our own basic needs. Make self-empowerment our mantra and success will follow us everywhere we go. Buy and sell and save our money and spend it in our community. If we refuse to do that, then accept the status as an inferior because we refuse to do for ourselves what we do for others. Your choice!
In my newly-completed and revised catalog magazine (“Tony Brown’s Journal Video and Film Collection”) I have devoted an entire chapter on self-empowerment called “Learn and Earn.” In addition to downloading a FREE copy of the catalog magazine, you can also subscribe to nearly 1,000 historic and iconic videos from the Tony Brown’s Journal series which has been described by a leading archivist as “the most complete and thoughtful record of African-American opinion.”
