Leadership! (meh...)

Leadership.

A big fuzzy word.

One of those concepts that is nebulous, at best.

At its worst… it is just a job. Leading. Something at which someone may or may not be competent or effective. That ineffectiveness is subtle and can go undetected.

Leadership training can focus on business development, talent management, persuasion, influencing, and, interpersonal communication, to name a few.

Much of what I see as leadership training, is self- and personal-development. How to be... what to do... presentation... confidence….

An element of this training will also teach us how to obfuscate the truth, to make it palatable, and make YOU palatable, to the public. Polish and shine and smiling and deflection.

What I don't see, in leadership training, anywhere, is how to be honest with your audience, and promote change and improvement in the lives of your constituents (with regard to politics).

Many of us know, that you'll never solve a problem if you don't deal with it honestly. And to a great extent, this means that leaders are not likely to be solving any problems.

There are indeed laudable leaders out there. But that is because there are so many levels and approaches to leadership.

No leader is great, if they do not work, through honesty and inspiration.

Now, as much as no one likes it when I single out issues based on race, white people have a right to complain about their leaders.

But for black folks the problem is different. And bigger. And worse.

Leaders in the black community are not leading us properly.

Not-a one of them.

They are not telling us the truth about our selves, about life or society or accountability or self-sufficiency.

To a great extent, a leader must not be offensive. I'm here to tell you, that the true truth about why we are hated, is offensive to many many people.

So our leaders simply tow the line - oppression, discrimination, and injustice. They tell us we are all victims, because they believe (and know) it is what black people want to hear.

They are not able to cope with what it takes to confront us honestly. They do not have the guts to say to people who create violence, looting, destruction and pain, that they are in the wrong, and should change everything about themselves.

Instead they are firmly on the bandwagon, deflecting blame in every direction, except to where the blame actually belongs.

Therefore, our leaders will never be effective at leading us to a better place, instead leading us down the path of global deception, and never-ending dependency.

If our leaders were to be honest with us, we would be forced to face the truth. And eventually, to improve ourselves.

But black leaders are loath to break away from the post-slavery mentality that says that blacks are oppressed and must be provided for.

They don't even seem to know they're doing us any harm.

They seem to think they are doing the right thing by always asking for jobs, and money, and housing, and programs.

What we should be doing is telling each other that we need to be better.

Any leader that does not tell black people that they need to be better, is doing us a great disservice - weaning us to become accustomed to assistance from outside of our own capabilities and limitations.

Our leaders would have to stop blaming the systems and the organizations and the institutions and the racists.

NO LEADER ANYWHERE will tell us, that if we want to address racism, we need to look at ourselves. No leader will ever tell us to start within.

No leader will ever ask us, 'why are we hated?'

Is it possible that blacks around the world are hated for no reason?

I think not, and to make a very long arduous story shorter, I believe that, as a race, and a culture, and a state of mind, we are hated, because as a race and a culture and a state of mind, we do not strive for the highest levels of education, and we are much too inclined to take as many handouts as we can muster.

What's more, when we suffer from a lack of refinement, or we are outliers that refuse to assimilate, we don't evoke any sympathy.

If I may speak for the racists among us, there might BE an actual reason why haters hate. If I were the underclass, which I am, might my inadequacies be at the fulcrum of this perpetual, universal, vehement hatred?

'We are uneducated. We need more money. Deal with it.' Well the haters deal with it by hating. It cannot be more simple. It has never stopped. And it spans the globe.

Millions of blacks have an impressive education.

Hundreds of millions do not.

As a society we have chosen to raise our children improperly, and then blame law enforcement and the justice system, for what they have to do to cope with our badly behaved people.

Our educators and our leaders talk AROUND the issue.

They blame everyone and anything that they can, for African American under-achievement, and treat us as if crime and criminal behaviour is to be expected and accepted.

They never address our behaviors, our criminalities, our negligences.

They raise the money, and pay lip-service, to the beneficiaries and the benefactors. They keep a cut for themselves.

NOTHING EVER CHANGES.

And it won't, until our leaders make it clear that each of us needs to take responsibility for our own selves and our own families.

And by taking responsibility, I mean, as you might guess…. making sure that each one of our children goes to school every day, learns enthusiasm for learning, and becomes a fully self-sufficient adult.

Our leadership serves as window dressing. And we need to recognize this… perhaps even strive to correct it.

What fully educated African Americans are on the dole. What fully educated African Americans have been shot in the back running away from law enforcement.

What fully educated black people need government cheese, or a jobs program, or a welfare check.