E. Franklin Frasier in his book Black Bourgeois often made reference to the fantasy mind-set that many moderately wealthy Black middle class people and families bragged about and showcased publicly through mainstream mediums, and much of the same mind-set and people still exist today.

Extreme competition among Blacks - families and individuals - regarding who has what or the most has created a tension in the Black community that fuels jealousy, envy, and spitefulness. In fact, people caught up in this game waste much energy fighting the war of social status instead of focusing on how to increase wealth for the whole as opposed to them alone.

Because we live in a self-centered society based on individual gain and prosperity, Blacks who claim success squander their so-called wealth on pretentious material goods for the sake of winning the status war instead of investing in the future of the race.

It is disheartening to hear upper-class Black people deride the lifestyles of the low-income when their own actions and character are in question. Tagging others as criminal, unmotivated or worthless from a mind-set based on selfishness, arrogance, and pretentiousness makes neither one any better than the other.

If so-called Black high-achievers desire to see no one underachieve, there are hundreds of thousands of young Black children waiting for them to open their doors to a better future.

In 2005 there were 513,000 children in foster care; 32% were Black children, or roughly 166,482 children. That is an average of 3329 per state, further reduced to at least 1664 per major city in that state. Whatever state or city a person lives, the numbers could be more or less.

Taking action to reduce negative lifestyles of the low-income Black community does not depend wholly on government policy, but on individual effort. If this is an individual-based society - where one should take personal responsibility of ones own actions - then putting forth an effort to better that society takes the effort of one person alone.

Fostering a Black child increases the chances of that child having a better life and growing as a productive and respectable citizen in addition to helping the some bourgeois Black family or person shed the negative stigma of selfishness and develop the character of giving-back. But as long as there are foster children in the system, it testifies to the inaction of so-called successful Blacks.

Of all the children, 236,775 were placed in a foster family home (non-relative), yet 311,000 more entered; a 74,225 increase in foster care cases. As the numbers increase, so-does the testimony against Blacks who live to showcase their possessions. The hypocrisy stinks to high hell while Black children suffer the loneliness of this society.

Furthermore, Black mothers and fathers who lose their children to the system also need assistance. If a successful Black family choose not to take responsibility for someone else's children, then maybe they can assist the family who lost the children by giving advice, coaching them, or developing classes, programs or clubs that help young Blacks learn the responsibility of parenting.

There is no excuse for anyone to neglect their children to the point of the system assuming custody of that child. There is no excuse for a society to take children from parents undeservingly. But it is a sad day when there are people in that society that can help reduce the problem, yet do nothing.

Source from: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report13.htm

© May 2007 by CR Hamilton