Agenda 2000 - Blacks must do more than remember their past - column

Agenda 2000

Is Black America being left behind? We are still reliving our ocean voyages to this continent on slave ships from Africa more than four centuries ago. In the meantime, others are orbiting the earth in spaceships. We are still begging for a piece of the stale American pie. But the United States is changing her recipe so that she can regain her world-leadership status. We are still crying about our second-class lifestyle, and progress is still eluding too many of us. Elsewhere, struggling peoples are longing for the "luxury" of even our most dilapidated ghettoes. We commit racial suicide with crack and Black-on-Black homicide. We die prematurely from preventable diseases. Meanwhile medical research is striving to make it possible in the near future for the average human life span to reach 120 years.

We listen annually to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. And the approaching twenty-first century would be the ideal time to cash in our deferred dreams for tangible payoffs.

The remembrance of our past is necessary and beautiful. But, Black America, we must learn from it and move on. This old planet is spinning faster and faster toward the next century, and knowledge, technology and international events are changing the world daily. The next century will be a challenging and exciting time for those who are prepared for its revolutionary events. Too many Black Americans have not weathered the storms of the twentieth well, so how will we fare in the twenty-first? To survive, we have to develop a future-oriented style of thinking, talking and being activists.

First, take a good look at a calendar--ten years is not a long time. Then imagine where you want to be in the year 2000. Write a detailed plan of how you want to get there, and start acting on it. Don't wait for a Supreme Court decision. Don't wait for a Black person to be elected president. And don't wait for instructions from the NAACP. No need to wait on the Lord, either. He's been waiting for each of us to figure out the right thing to do. Take control of your life! Get moving!

Next, take a good look at Black families. Too many of our children are growing up without positive male role models. Black men, you are no longer slaves, cruelly denied your rights and the dignity to head your households. Return to your moral roots and take care of your families. When you do, the world will no longer have an excuse to deny you respect.

Afterward, take a good look at our Black leaders, both renowned and obscure. What kind of talk are they talking? We no longer need tearful panhandlers repeating the same sad stories about how racism has kept us down. Twenty-first-century--style Black leaders will talk a new kind of talk. Their words will blast off with optimism and inspiration. They will be versatile and innovative men and women who will have the foresight to act before the fact, not react after the die is cast. They will neither be persuaded by treats nor dissuaded by threats. Our next-century leaders will have the savvy to communicate with the entire world community.

Finally, take a very good look at our Black communities. We are taxpaying citizens, so we deserve a return on our tax dollars. Let's also take control of our schools and demand tougher, not lower, standards for students and teachers. Let's insist that law enforcement protect and serve us, not oppress and harrass us. But let's stop making excuses for common criminals who prey on our own. Let's insist that medical clinics dispense preventive medicine and not just bottled placebos. Let's reverse the flight of educated and upwardly mobile Blacks from our inner cities by literally rebuilding our ghettoes.

If each of us would find just one activity to participate in for the betterment of Black America, we could form political, economic and social coalitions that would have to be reckoned with by society at large. All of this will require twenty-first-century-style strategy that is analytical, logical and creative. We have the resources to accomplish this. But we will have to uncap the wells of hidden talents that are already in our communities, since too many of us have become social dropouts or outcasts.

To keep up with the new world, and to preserve the memory of our past, we must possess power in the future. This Power will come with the ability to survive in the twenty-first century. Black America, it is time to put the slave ships in mothballs and to head for the launchpads!

Linda Anderson is a freelance writer and mother of three who is also a data-processing consultant. She lives in Houston, Texas.

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