Responsibility & Accountability - A New Standard

Last night I sat up waiting for the bewitching hour (1:00 am) when I would leave and go across town to my warehouse and monitor the Sunday truck unloading and my 24 trusty carrier/contractors prepare and leave with the Sunday newspaper. As I did so, I watched DL Hughley Breaks the News on CNN and one of the guests he had on was Rev. Al Sharpton, a man who has earned my ire many times over the years with his often over the top attacks against "White America". I was pleasantly surprised to hear both him and DL Hughley ask each other the question, "How will you feel if Obama wins this election?" They answered soberly and and calmly. Hughley said he had so much anger in the past and now he wondered what he would do with it. He also said, "we have no excuses now, we either make this work or we go home." Al Sharpton replied that Obama had spoken about his accountability, America's accountability and also the accountability of black families and fathers. He said that now it was very much an issue that all African Americans need to handle, both in looking at how they got here and what they were going to do now that they had arrived at this historic point. He said that Obama had raised the bar and each man and woman and child had something to look up to and be accountable for.

It was a good and insightful conversation but I would remind "White America" that in the past we have ignored our accountability in many areas and one is very much the same as Obama asked Black fathers to examine in themselves. We are not performing very well in this area either. We have a 50% plus divorce rate. Date rape is highest amongst young White men and is a growing problem today. Our attitudes towards family and women has seriously eroded. It is therefore just as important at this time that all Americans re-examine our accountability in all areas and make this election an opportunity to right wrongs, heal wounds and re-dedicate ourselves to doing what is right for family and country.

Sadly when I left home and arrived at my warehouse I was immediately reminded of the failings of many young men in the area of responsibility and accountability. A bar fronts the property on which my warehouse stands and I arrived to see offensive linemen size patrons spilling out its front door and bludgeoning each other with their fists. A drunken young black woman was ejected from the bar because she had removed her shirt. The police arrived, our parking lot was cleared so that the truck could enter and unload and the bars patrons flooded out to there cars as the police shut the bar down for the night. As they made there way to their cars a small drunken group of young black men started chanting, "Obama, Obama, Obama." Needless to say, many of my contractor/carries are neither fans of Obama or black people in general so it made me grimace as an Obama supporter and regular donor that these young men would be so lacking in responsibility and I wondered how accountable they would be after the election if Barack wins. How will the mood of hard core white racists be in response to this type of ugly celebration? How will this type of young black men handle the new standards that Barack expects of them? I am not without hope that these types of behavior will improve under an Obama administration but I do not look forward to the transitional period where it became obvious to me by this type of drunken behavior that the transition will not be without some violence and struggles to control and educate people to be responsible citizens regardless of the color of their skin.