The Ramey Commentaries: Welcome to the Sixties

With the recent deaths and wounding of police officers in Dallas, Texas still fresh in the minds of many, one of the talking heads on the video tube brought up a reference to the sixties. Of course, in the midst of any tragedy, columnists and commentators spout a host of words without reflecting upon history.

Face it folks; we ARE literally ‘Back in the sixties’.

Oh, I know that it is ‘physically’ different today than it was some fifty years ago. However, there are a lot of things that have been sliding back in that direction for a number of decades…to bring us back to where many of today’s Black youth–and their parents–are blissfully ignorant of some of the factors that led to many of the inner cities bursting into flames. Let me provide some of the factors I saw then–and see now:

*Fewer Black male/female police officers IN urban neighborhoods.

*Fewer Black male/female teachers in schools–including colleges.

*Black churches and pastors more interested in ‘the green’ than ‘the gospel’.

*Fewer Black media outlets to tell our stories ‘beyond’ the bad news.

*Fewer Black reporter/anchors–male or female–on the local TV news sets of America. Couple this with fewer Black reporters/editors at the nations newspapers.

*Fewer Blacks in management levels of Tech companies, including a ‘Black out’ in the high tech plains of Silicon Valley. Little support of Black-owned companies.

*Fewer Black community leaders of any substance–including Black political leaders. Fewer services to Black neighborhoods (including small businesses).

*Lastly, mistreatment of the Black community by law enforcement through a variety of covert (COINTELPRO) and overt (police action shootings) means.

Without Jesus Christ in the mix, and an ability to get ourselves together as a country, Dallas may only be the beginning of a tragic soap opera we’ve all seen before.