Beyond the Rhetoric: No, This Is Not a Black Thing

By Harry C. Alford

NNPA Columnist

Racial discrimination does exist in this world but certainly not at the level it did prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  It has been waning but sometimes it will lift its ugly head.  Whenever that happens it should be snuffed out quickly and firmly.  As one proud Jamaican member of the National Black Chamber of Commerce said to me, “Show me that I am late; my price is too high, my product is unsafe.  Don’t you ever say no because of the color of my skin, for I will fight you with every breath of my life.”

That is wise advice and we must be certain not to shrug off pressure or rebuke by saying, “It’s because I am Black.”  So when we hear people say that our president or attorney general is being criticized because they are Black, we should check them.  Heck, the fact of the matter they are where they are because of the timing and the fact that they are Black – at least considered Black.

The fact is, as a whole, our nation is in a very critical state of uneasiness.  It is pure chaos right now. We don’t look assuring to our allies and our enemies are smiling at our apparent weakness.  Yes, right now we are in a giant cesspool of deceit, timidity, corruption and cowardice.  Great nations don’t act like this and it has nothing to do with “Black.”  My people it is time to get a grip on the realities at hand.  “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”  Let me note some examples.

We have had a non-accountable State Department. I hope Secretary John Kerry can turn it around.  Can you believe that this major agency had been operating without an Inspector General for five years?  What does that mean?  The IG is responsible for oversight and accountability.  During the absence of an IG, the State Department cannot account for more than $6 billion in procurement.  Who got paid for what?  Did they actually do the work?  Was strict procurement laws followed?  They don’t know.  Many of the files are lost and some have been pilfered.  Where is the investigation and who is going to jail?  The five Mafia families of New York could not have been more corrupt.

Oh yes, the State department is still playing dumb about the Benghazi attack that is now a scandal.  Oh, how they lied on all of the Sunday news shows about it  like we weren’t going to find out. Four of our people were murdered by Al Qaida linked persons and we won’t even arrest them for trial.  They fear what will come out in court.  So they stall and stall and stall.  Justice is not served.

The same goes with Homeland Security.  The “Fast and Furious” disaster put hundreds of illegal weapons onto the streets.  We lost a border patrol officer and hundreds of Mexican citizens and they stall and stall and stall.  Justice is not served.

The National Security Agency (NSA) in its sweeping/wiring of telephone and email communications is an ongoing disaster.  Recently, we find that the USAID agency ran a covert operation in Cuba.  The mission of the USAID is: “Our Mission: We partner to end extreme poverty and to promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing our security and prosperity.”  Not anymore.  They took 500,000 cell phone numbers of Cuban citizens (from NSA) and began spamming them on a cooked up Twitter account covertly placed in Spain.   Money was funneled through the Cayman Islands.  The intent was to provoke discontent among Cuban citizens against their government.  Sounds a little bit like the Arab Spring affair that  backfired tremendously on us.  Syria, Egypt, Libya are probably lost to democracy because of our botched “intelligence” activity.  The world is seeing us as an evil entity.

Then there is the mother of all scandals – the IRS corruption.  Every day the plot seems to thicken.  There is more than a “smidgen of corruption.”  It appears to be a few truckloads of it.  In the end, when the truth will eventually come out, there will be IRS employees and people from the White House, Justice Department and recently it looks like Congress, too, will be indicted and carried off to jail.  A federal agency hated by most Americans has become a politicized organization working towards the detriment of our democracy.

The above are just a few examples.  Items like socializing our insurance industry along with mortgages, education; ignoring our debt; cutting our military; evading Congress and the Supreme Court are other items we can discuss later.  It isn’t a Black thing.  It is government overreach and a lack of respect for our Constitution.

Harry C. Alford is the Co-Founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®.  Website:  http://www.nationalbcc.org. Email: halford@nationalbcc.org.

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