By LUCIUS GANTT

African Americans complain a lot. So-called leaders are quick to blame the President, the Congress, the police, the bank, the judicial system or a variety of other institutions for personal or collective conditions in our communities.

There is no doubt that many, or all, of the entities listed about have contributed to the current status of African Americans living in the United States but I think there is a culprit that we are reluctant to talk about.

Black people are hurt most by the ones they love!

Most of the bad things and most of the good things that happen to us are results of our interactions with our families, friends and neighbors.

Sometimes it seems like every ethnic group, every economic group, every religious group, every gender group, every cultural group, every geographic group and every other group of people in the United States and in the world have a greater sense of unity and a greater desire to work together and help each other than African Americans do.

Black power imperatives, white tribe dreaming, gang warfare and other catch phrases have been used to describe why black people can’t, or won’t, put black people, black families, black culture, black business, black spirituality or black progress first!

We are stronger when we are together. We are smarter when we value our own philosophies, ideologies, educational systems and our own histories.

We are employed more when we support our businesses in our own communities and become financially strong enough to hire our own children and our neighbor’s children.

We are safer when we look out for each other, watch our neighbors homes and their children, protect our women and defend our communities from violent, racist and oppressive outside agitators and modern day carpetbaggers by any legal and honorable means necessary!

The days and times when we feel a need to act like crabs in a barrel must be ended. When we see black men and women rising up academically, financially, professionally and in other ways we should not hate, we should be proud.

We should help our brothers and sisters rise and allow ourselves to rise up with them.

Oftentimes, the stone that the builders refuse just might become the cornerstone in the rebuilding of African American communities.

Instead of putting our hopes in a government that oppresses us, in a banking and financial system that robs us and exploits us, in a court system that jails us or in false prophets and fake African American leaders that fail us we should support the institutions and the people that support us!

We need to believe in, rally around and support people that look like us, live where we live and have a history of success.

We need to put our money, our support, our patronage and our prayers behind the black men and women that can start at the bottom and rise to the top, go from zero to a million and take nothing and turn it into something!

Depend on your kind, believe in your kind and fight to defend and protect your kind and you will surely do better than you’re doing right now by begging government and constantly asking for handouts!

Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net.