January 16th was the federally declared holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luthor King. Unfortunately, it should also be recognized as a time to mark one of the greatest failures of the American social / economic system.

For despite Dr. King's valiant effort that tragically resulted in his death, only a part of his dream came true: we now have a solid, upstanding, upwardly mobile Black Middle Class - approximately 67-70 percent of the Black population. What we don't have, however, is a solid upstanding upwardly mobile Black Lower Economic Class.

There is any number of valid reasons one could easily cite as cause or contributing factors for this internal social anomaly, but none of them offer any immediate solution for the very real and critical racial problem they represent.

One of the key factors in the plight of the Black Lower Economic Class is that as a group, from the entertainment world to politics, they consistently choose the absolute worst possible leaders and role models to champion their cause.

I seriously doubt that in either the Hispanic, Jewish, Polish, American Indian or any other minority community in America one can name, is there in evidence leaders of the inferior caliber and exploitive character of the radically explosive Louis Farrakhan , the physically abusive Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, or the socially disruptive nature of the likes the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

As entertainer Bill Cosby has rightly pointed out, when Black youth choose to wear clothes reflective of prison garb, generate and listen to music with lyrics that denigrate the dignity of their women, refer to themselves, playfully, as 'Niggers', and openly engage in drug trafficking in proportions double to triple that of other minority groups, the black culture has a serious problem. This sector of the Black Community is now more reflective of a cult than a culture.

Poor Blacks were for so long vocally critical of the stereo typed image of Blacks as portrayed by the "Amos & Andy" radio and television shows, and film comics such as Stepin Fetchit and Mantan Mooreland ("Feets, do your stuff and get me outta' here!").

Now they seem quite content to have themselves portrayed in countless television sitcoms and self produced films, as either mentally insipid or emotionally violent. And to mimic this image to reality every day on the streets of America's largest cities, they act out this violence upon themselves in ever increasing numbers.

By personal preference I would, hands down, choose Amos & Andy as a far better racial image. After all, these were the people I and many other Middle Class Black Americans developed from, and I harbor no disgrace at what they had to do to allow us the opportunity to achieve the proud status of Black Middle Americans we occupy today.

Though I cannot offer any real resolution to this long simmering social problem, I can offer some first-hand insight as to it's genesis; for I was there when it developed and began to metastasize throughout the Black community of New York City.

After World War ll. during the decade spanning 1945 to 1955, many Black Americans, along with their White wartime compatriots, took full advantage of the G.I Bill and entered colleges, universities and trade schools in large numbers. They were the great hope of Black America.

While in the south of the country, despite the hardships imposed by a racially suppressive southern 'Jim Crow' system, hordes of young Black Americans managed to gain the higher education they sought in various arts, manufacturing and science and technology disciplines.

This push toward higher education, no matter what the cost, had been the plan of their parents and families for years previous. For they honestly believed that a trade or college educated Black American could compete on equal employment terms with his or her White counterparts.

Upon graduation from their respective institutions of higher learning in the late 1940's to early 1950's, legions of proud Black American youth, degrees and trade school certificates in hand, marched toward the nation's workplace, only to be rejected and locked out in force.

For the most part, both industry and their empowered unions rejected the inclusion into their ranks of more than a handful of Black workers, regardless of their educational skills or trade school qualifications.

In the end, these soldiers of Black social advancement were forced to come home to their communities with their tails between their legs. And slowly, because they were shamed in the eyes of the neighborhood youth, there evolved a deadly reversal of the long heralded community standard: educate to move upward.

Down began to slide the push for higher education, and the local thug populace began their ominous rise to fill the vacuum. In the end, Black policy makers, bookies, pimps and drug dealers were held in higher esteem by an unhealthy portion of Black city youth. After all, they made more money than all of those with degrees who were now stacking shelves of grocery stores.

So it came to past that if you wanted to meet a college, university or trade school educated Black man or woman in the mid to late 1950's, your best bet to find one was in the guise of a supermarket, local grocery store, municipal or post office clerk. The lucky ones were able to garner positions in nursing at local hospitals or as school teachers.

If that outcome alone was was not social shock enough for the hopes and aspirations of the Black community, in the mid to late 1960's Left Wing social elements then came into play and contributed to the social chaos. And it is my sincere opinion that they inflicted more long term damage on Black culture, than the Ku Klux Klan or Jim Crow politics ever managed to accomplish.

Using the Integration Movement as a cover for their hidden agendas, they convinced Black youth that the country, America, owed them something for years of slavery.  For ghetto bred Black youth of the lower economic class this was, in more ways than can be imagined, the beginning of the end.   They stopped trying and began to rely heavily upon the Welfare System: education and self respect in the eyes of the outside world became less and less of a priority for them.

It was about this time that American Black social activism (fueled by the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luthor King) , almost abruptly transformed from 'we shall overcome' to - 'in your face White man.' Needless to say, nothing good has come from this political stance of diminishing returns, either then or now.

What has come about since that time has been a long succession of lackluster political leaders who, for the most part, were more interested in their political power and newsworthy prestige, than they were in the communities and people they supposedly represented. For Lower Economic Black America, they have become the leaders of the new 'home grown' Jim Crow.

About this time there also evolved the ever increasing movement of families (survivors within the Black community who refused to give up the dream) who had managed to rebuild platforms to social and financial achievement. And in large numbers they were moving away from the inner-city areas to the suburbs like many White families did in the 1950's. In time they would form the core group of the present Black Middle Class America.

Overall, there is no justifiable reason for the Black community of any area or region in America, to have such shameless pockets of poverty and welfare dependency as was exposed during the Katrina disaster. In short, these people should not have been there in the condition they were, and in such embarrassing overwhelming numbers.

Their status, for the most part, was not caused by the White race. They and they alone, led irresponsibly by their inept chosen leaders, are responsible for their own social stagnation. The Welfare buck stops there!

Middle Class White America, as well as Middle Class Black America, has rightfully become tired of footing the bill for your cultural and economic intrangience. They are tired of you claiming 'racial prejudice' every time something happens to you - like being arrested at the scene of a crime with a smoking gun in hand, or in a stolen car after a wild car chase by police. They are tired of you wildly kicking and screaming when being arrested for a crime you know you have committed, then claiming police brutality. They are tired of endless Affirmative Action plans.  They are fed up with special legal ploys to camouflage  violent social behavior - such as claims of "Black Rage". They are tired of Black high school students calling for separate graduation proms so that they can - celebrate their blackness. They are tired of calls for reparations for Slavery.  In short, what they are saying is - enough already!

The Lower Economic Black Class must come to terms with the fact that a good portion of their community has been usurped by a "thug element", whose unwritten credo is "stick it to the man."   This is a 'go nowhere' philosophy that destroys Black youth by robbing them of a future. 

For the sake of their younger generation, so that the killing will stop and all will not be lost, they must endeavor to drive this element from their ranks. They must reach up to the established  Middle Class Black Community as role models, and not expect them to reach down to legitimize the existence of the destructive 'hip-hop' culture that has engulfed and is slowly destroying them.

As was evident in the outpouring of the Black Community during the "Million Man March" of October 16, 1995 (in which Middle Black America was notably absent), until the attitude of the Lower Economic Black Community changes, radically, for the foreseeable future there will be two Black Americas.