By Billy “Hollywood” Groves
“Don’t just accept what life brings to you each day as your reality. Instead, decide what you want your life to look like and then go out and make that life a reality.” Anonymous
To be successful and have a brilliant life is something that most people would love to have. The “Reality of Life” is, that this is not something that is going to happen for many of our citizens.
Realistically, in African-American communities we have a growing number of people who have achieved success; however, we still have a problem with large numbers of people who are just barely making enough to survive.
I am not going to ask why, because if you live in America, I think most people already know the answer. Therefore, changing the dynamics and structure of how opportunities are made available and how people are given opportunities to be successful citizens in America is the goal we should seek to achieve.
The “Reality of Life” is that the majority of African Americans didn’t inherit property and money from their family members who preceded them. I have written many articles in the past about reparations for the descendants of America’s slavery era. In those articles I was trying to explain to the nation how our ancestors worked for hundreds of years for free and when they got old and died, they didn’t leave any of the materials, property or money (which they helped amass) to their off springs, because they weren’t given any.
As African Americans who are successful in life, we must still understand that we have to help our brothers and sisters, those who are struggling to survive who didn’t receive reparations or other financial gain.
We all have heard the “fake news” or misconception about Black people being lazy and dumb without the desire to do anything positive with their lives. The “Reality of Life” is that we have to solve our problems by using our successful people to help the needy.
We have to invest in the communities that we grew up in, if we want to change them. As we have entered into another “New Year” individually, we should look around at the communities of Color closest to us.
We must figure out what we can do, no matter how small it may be, to change the situation and make “That” Community GREAT! God Bless America!
