Young black men in this country have to understand that they have a responsibility. They cannot be the enemy in their own neighborhoods and usurp the effort of good people that are trying to make things work.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think the black community is no different from any other community. We need to take responsibility for how we live together. We need to be personally responsible for keeping our streets clean, our schools safe, and our houses peaceful.
You have little representation of young black men in the business sector, so you have children growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods who don't hear discussions at the dinner table about what goes on in business. It's almost as if we have two nations.
Those of us in law enforcement must redouble our efforts to resist bias and prejudice. We must better understand the people we serve and protect - by trying to know, deep in our gut, what it feels like to be a law-abiding young black man walking on the street and encountering law enforcement. We must understand how that young man may see us.
It is hard for a black man to just be himself. We spend so much time in defense of something that is indefensible because there is nothing to defend.
We look at the African-American community, for a long time those of us who be considered strong - black men - for whatever reason, haven't done a good job of taking care of the weak. And we were doing things that render taking care of our youth and taking care of our women and our families impossible, when our lives are taken.
Black men struggle with masculinity so much. The idea that we must always be strong really presses us all down - it keeps us from growing.
We as men, in particular black men, are constantly supported, nurtured, forgiven, apologized for, led, followed and coddled by black women, and they get very little in return.
A Black man should be more independent and depend on himself for his freedom and not to take it for granted that someone would lead him to it. The blacks are tired of standing at the touchlines to witness a game that they should be playing. They want to do things for themselves and all by themselves.
I think African Americans are resilient and hustlers by nature. I think they need to understand that you can take that hustle to the boardroom, but it has to be an education process.
There are so many stereotypes of how you have to be as a black man, growing up in the community as a man.
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