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Okay so Thursday night I attended a reception for Jesse Jackson with the Rainbow Push Coalition. It was a nice reception with affluent young and old African Americans from all walks of life. It was more of a mixer than anything else, but Mr. Jackson did give a speech toward the end. Although Jesse Jackson has been under scrutiny for some comments he made about Obama, we shouldn’t forget that he was a serious voice in the civil rights movement. During his speech he spoke about some things that have changed since segregation, but the need for more improvement. While I stood there and looked around the room at all these influential people, I was a little shocked to feel no sense of urgency among these people. There was the occasional head nod and smile…but Jesse Jackson was talking about change! Where did this complacency come from? Some forty years ago, the crowd would have been shouting and excited. He was talking about our poor education systems and the divide of the society between the rich and poor. What really bothered me about the crowds reaction during this speech, was that it made me realize that theres a serious divide between those who have and those who do not. Even among people of the same race, theres a divide which is making it difficult for us as a people to make any type of progress.
It makes me so sad to see African Americans that have reached a certain level of wealth and power, who forget where they came from. They then pass on the “every man for himself” mentality to their wealthy children who then only learn to relate to wealthy Europena children and are then completely disconnected from the African American community. I feel like this divide is slowly but surely becoming a serious problem, something like skin color and the brown paper bag test.
What good is your wealth and power if you’re not using it for any good? Money can come and go all within a few hours, but time is the one element we cannot somehow control. Taking time out to simply volunteer or somehow let peple know that you care about their well-being is the most precious gift anyone can give. Time is more valuable than money, it’s the only thing we don’t get back. This is just my little rant for the day, I really think theres a serious disconnect in society that’s divided by class and status. People let’s get out there and volunteer, it really doesn’t take a lot of effort to find an organization that’s trying to make a difference.
Would you rather have a lot of money if it means that someone else is broke and feeling helpless, or would you rather be comfortable and know that someone else was helped in the process?

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