One of our newest members, cwhurd, recently asked, What is the solution to ills that plague us as a people? It's a question that has been asked around here since … well, knowing MBM, it was probably the first question that was asked around here. That question is not only years old, but decades old … in fact, I’ll bet it is even a couple of centuries old. No doubt many of our ancestors sat around in a circle -- not around the world as we do now -- and wondered how could they move themselves forward.

When looking for the solution to our problems in the Black community, I think it’s important to acknowledge first that there are many of them. It’s rare when there is a “one size fits all” method to fix something that’s wrong or broken or bad. In fact, there’s probably more solutions than there are problems. And I believe one of our stumbling blocks to successfully solving many of those problems is the overwhelming feeling of knowing that we, as individuals, can’t do it all. Well, we shouldn’t be expected to. In fact, we shouldn’t even try.

We can start, though, by appreciating and respecting someone else’s idea of a workable solution. There are those who are quick to dismiss valid ideas or suggestions, due to the fact that it’s not their own idea or is something they’ve just never heard or thought of before. It’s this kind of closed-minded mentality that usually stops fruitful discussion with argument, chastising, name-calling and blame. There is no wrong idea, suggestion or solution that moves us forward … whether it’s by one or 100 or 1000 persons at a time. Once we dislodge from the mindset that there is only one solution that may work, and communicate and consolidate and cooperate all possible successful ideas into one or more workable solutions, it will be a lot easier to incorporate them and move them forward. Inevitably, that will move us forward as well.

When I look around this board, I see so many different people with so many different talents and abilities, and I think to myself, if we were an organization dedicated to a single goal or mission, we have at least one of everybody we would need to make it happen. Although we are scattered around the country, and indeed, the world, we all bring something unique to the table. We have lawyers, doctors, teachers, students, secretaries, economists, mathematicians and financial and investment advisors … we have activists and organizers and artists and writers and promoters … we are represented by military and government personnel … we have the young and the old and the somewhere in the middle. We are diverse and varied in every possible way. And most importantly, most of us are very, very smart.

But also at the table is divisiveness, attitude, egotism, separatism, blaming, and in some, a healthy dose of a lack of respect. And all of these impede unity and cohesiveness in any kind of direction toward something positive, throwing up roadblocks of negativity where none need exist. And so we keep asking, What is the solution to our problems, and keep coming up with no answers. Not one person, myself included, even tried to respond to cwhurd’s post.

As it is on this board, so it is in communities all over the country. We have organizations everywhere who help as many in need as they can. In some of our larger cities, we may have 25 different organizations that feed and clothe the poor or the homeless … and none of them know or help each other. They don’t connect and pool their resources together to build a bigger, stronger organization capable of helping even more people. But they each do what they can, the best they can … and any help is better than no help at all. We have some organizations that provide tutoring, some provide mentoring, some concentrate on single moms, others concentrate on incarcerated fathers. Some are strictly there to help the children only, no matter what the circumstance is. And each and every one on of them is a solution. They are a help to somebody in some way. And every success story is a victory.

The fact is, almost every one of us who actively participate in discussions on this board have both identified a problem within our community and offered at least one solution to that problem. An example of that is: Our education system is broken. To that some have said that we need more and better teachers, others say we need to redirect the monies allocated to and by our school districts, and we need more oversight over those school districts. Almost all have agreed that we need to devote more energy into our children/students, both in and out of the classroom, and we need better or more inclusive curriculum.

ALL of these are the solutions to that one problem. And there are still more beyond that. One is not more important or better than another because they ALL need to happen in order for a better educational system for our children to work. We need to insist on governmental help from the Department of Education on down (because that is what they are supposed to do!) for this solution AND we need to take action and responsibility for our own children in our own way as a community in order to make the necessary changes work. It’s not an “either/or situation.” It’s a “plus” and “and” situation. And most importantly, we need to work together to work together.

It seems to me the biggest hurdle is not in identifying the problem nor the solution to it. It’s in the implementation. This is where we seem to get stuck. But, as I said in the beginning, it’s really not up to us to solve such massive problems single-handedly. But, we do have to do our parts individually. We have the option of doing that either as individuals or as part of a group. After all, a group is just a bunch of individuals who come together in a single effort.

But, individually, we can start by sharing what we know with others. We can support organizations that are doing what we believe to be helpful, if not with our time, then with something else, services, money, phone calls or sending a couple of emails, telling someone else who might have more time about it. We need to put our money where our mouths are. Seek out and support Black businesses, even when you have to drive the extra 10 miles to get there. Develop your own financial security base and then develop/help/make someone else’s. As individuals, we need to get more involved in the political process. As the elections showed, one voice alone might not get heard. But that one combined with a million others makes a little more noise.

There is no magic wand that will suddenly fix our education dilemma or our broken families or our disproportionate incarceration rates or our economic chaos or our underrepresentation in the political arena or any of the other misfortunes that flow through the Black community. And neither will in-fighting amongst ourselves. And neither will inaction. But, there is us. Individually and/or together, we are what will fix what is wrong. We are our solutions. And the sooner we involve ourselves, the sooner we will get the job done.

The more I talk to Black people, the more I keep hearing this word. Solutions. Seems everybody's looking for at least one ... looking for that something we can do to make things start to get better.

I get the feeling, though, that a lot of these people are looking for this solution to be some one-shot magic bullet, something that will fix the problem right away, and be the thing that suddenly sets us on the proper track. The problem with this is that some of our problems have been 400 years in the making ... others started their downfall with integration just 40+ ... but nothing is going to fix them overnight. Or in 3 nights. Or 45 nights. Or even in 365!

To my mind, we have both internal and external forces to deal with ... and a few of the things that need correcting are caused by a combination of both. There isn't going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to anything we have to deal with , and it's likely that whichever ones we chose to implement are going to take a lot of time and effort to establish.

I agree with the premise that we need to do what we need to do ourselves for our own. I do believe we need to be in charge of our own path forward .. especially as it relates to our children, our communities and economic empowerment. But, the way I see it, that would take a kind of unified effort that we don’t really have right now, and a commitment from those the money and the knowledge to return to the community to help in it’s uplift .. and quite frankly, I just don’t see that happening any time soon.

On the flipside, though, I see no problem with utilizing the political and legal processes that are at our disposal. They are tools, that by right, we are free to exercise and we need to learn to use them more to our advantage. We need to use these options and put certain legislation and resources into place that will help us help ourselves to build better and stronger social, educational and economic policies into our community.

So therefore, I see one “solution” to be that of much more intense political and judicial agitation. We do not hold our elected representatives responsible for their misrepresentation of our issues. We do not in any large numbers voice our concerns to legislation and laws and policies that effectively work against us and have them changed to things much more beneficial.

Most people would be surprised to know that it only takes a few thousand emails/faxes/phone calls to get the attention of a member of Congress. Some Reps and Senators don’t even average 100 a day. We also don’t properly utilize groups like the Congressional Black Caucus, who will stand up for us against harmful laws … but when they look back, they do not find us standing up behind them.

The whole political process is part of the *game* that is America, but, of course, they’d prefer that we don’t play. The sad part is we accommodate them. And then complain how it’s not working in our favor.

There are at least a million of us either in jail or without the right to vote in this country and we should be demanding that those number be reduced by at least half. Our public school system is a disgrace and there should be a demand for comprehensive and equitable change. Justice and equality for us needs to be seized at the federal level. It needs to be a nationwide affect that gives us the changes we need for our betterment.

Once we have laws and legislation working more in our favor, we will have more of the resources we need to implement other solutions that need to be made.

There's another thing that I find tends to hinder coming up with workable solutions is trying to keep those solutions within the realm of reality.

Just determining what might be the best course of action to take doesn't mean it's a "doable" course. While I wouldn't expect any thing of such magnitude to come *easy*, I wonder if there aren't some that may be almost too difficult to actually obtain.

One such solution was offered by Sister Rowe in the Calling All Educators ... thread and again in a story I recently posted in a thread in my Blog entitled The Covenant With Black America from the website of the same name written by Stephanie Robinson called "Putting Families First: A Non-Partisan Responsibility."

Both Ms. Rowe and Ms. Robinson opined the importance of bringing the Black family back together. Both pointed out the positive impact it would have on our children ... and I couldn't agree more with the both of them. It is my belief that the stability of a solid core family unit would be able to improve the qualities of not only children, but help us socially, economically, mentally and morally as a community in a variety of ways.

However ... looking at just how broken many of our homes tend to be ... how does one begin to put that back together?

For many children in single-parent households, *Daddy* is a different individual from the ones of their siblings! Whose *Dad* gets to be with Mom? And what of the other fathers who may or may not want to participate in the lives of their child or his/her mother? How do you ask the *Dad* of one child to actually be the father to 4 - three of whom have separate fathers of their own?

Ms. Rowe says young men and women need to be less promiscuous and stop having sex in order to decrease the number of unwed pregnancies that are happening today. Well, let's face it ... it is a premium idea ... but there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening with society as open as it is today!

Many fathers (and now more mothers) are in prison right now and slated to be there for very long periods of time. How does one bring that family unit back together, when they are separated by forces beyond anybody's control?

Of course education of our youth as to the value of the family unit would be the most outstanding idea. But, with half (or even close to that) dropping out of school before they graduate, where and how is this "education" supposed to take place? How successfully would trying to corral and enforce 20-something parents into a mandated "parenting" class work?

Or perhaps we should concentrate on the youngest generation by teaching family values to the kids. Although they may not be getting positive reinforcement of the lessons at home, they can still strive to break the cycle as they reach adulthood and give the generation they bring forth a fighting chance.

I think we all can understand the relevance of making the Black Family unit more the rule than the exception. But that is a lot easier said than done. As with many other of the "best" solutions, though, they have to be based in/on realistic ideals before we can even think about actually implementing them.

I am working on something to change the world. Gimme a minute though.

You're down to 30 seconds!

And I'm impatient ... so hurry up!