Get up, get out and do something

The passive attitudes that we have--"wasn't that something the way they did..."--must become what "we" will do.

"Isn't it a shame that they ...; They didn't have to do ...; I can't stand the way they ..." You hear it all the time.

"Why didn't they stop them from executing Gary Graham?" That question has been asked by many across the country. And, in fact, there were some very active and vocal voices calling for fairness in the case ... but not enough.

Demonstrators and activists on television interviews pleaded with Gov. Bush and the Texas Board of Pardons to consider that there was more than a reasonable doubt that Graham was innocent in this case. Certainly, a stay of execution and a new trial were warranted here. But Gov. Bush's hands, for what he thinks will be political gain, now are stained with Graham's blood, all because we didn't do enough.

Where was your voice? What did you do? You may say Graham got what he deserved because he was guilty of a crime spree. But, the punishment for those crimes under the American judicial system was not death.

When the gangbangers--our youth--shoot up a basketball court full of people, do you peek out from behind your window shade and say "isn't it awful what they did?" And when you pass one of our young brothers or sisters on the street who obviously need a word of direction you cross the street and pass by as if they don't exist. One day one of those bullets might come flying through your window.

"Why can't they give better service?" you complain about the local Black-owned store that you don't go back to after one bad experience, while you run back and forth to white-owned establishments regardless to how they treat you. You won't even tell the Black businessman what your complaint is so that he or she can look into it. You leave the businessperson scratching his head as to why he hasn't seen you again.

During the civil unrest of the 1960s when Black people reacted to oppression by sending many of our cities up in flames, storeowners put signs up in their windows that said "Black Power" or "Black-owned." In some cases that spared the store the wrath of the disenfranchised.

Some owners didn't have to put a sign on the window because everybody knew their store because the owner played an active role in the lives of the people in the community.

Today, Black America has become more passive than ever, caught up in a false dream that America belongs to all who live in it. We don't realize that despite our wealth, we're just a police stop on a dark road away from jail or death--wrongly convicted and set-up. We don't realize, as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad warned, that you can't rise above the condition of your people.

If we don't all get behind the wagon and push our community forward, it won't be too long before the misfortune of a wrongly executed Gary Graham, or wrongly imprisoned Black youth touches your life directly, if it already hasn't.

Let's get busy. Let's get active. Do something for yourself and your people before it's too late.