Al Sharpton is Right

While my main focus for this blog is community organizations and especially how they impact education here in Delaware County, an AP national story caught my eye over the weekend. Reverend Al Sharpton had taken some heat for defending the President during the annual conference organized by his National Action Network. Mr. Obama had received some criticism from television host Tavis Smiley, who said "black folk are catching hell" and has pushed for Obama to do more to help the black community. Sharpton responded that black Americans "need to solve our own problems", and he told the AP that he is working to expand his Harlem-based organization to 100 cities from the current 42, with about 200,000 members. Philly Mayor Michael Nutter added that Reverend Sharpton’s efforts to help black Americans will measure its success by individual goal-setting "every day, every week, every month".

I agree. I whole-heartedly agree, and am glad to see that his efforts will stress that achieving success starts with having individual goals. Each and every one of us should understand what direction we’re heading in. Parents, children, students, the unemployed or underemployed… we all need GOALS, accomplishments we can achieve through our own effort. It is an important concept, but not necessarily a black or white issue. It’s a life issue.

For those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, it’s purely an economic one. A goal serves as a plan to get out of poverty, a way to move up the ladder, one rung at a time. To my immigrant grandmother, who was widowed while pregnant with her fourth child, her goal was to get her children educated. She pursued that goal for her entire life, and shared that goal with millions of immigrant families then and now. To the young dependent parent, the goal could be to become self-sufficient. To the underemployed, the goal could be to get additional skills to better compete for the available jobs. We all need goals to achieve, but more importantly we need to understand that achieving goals which we ourselves set is critical to success. My parents taught me that anything I wanted to achieve was possible, though I had to earn it myself. It was up to me.

I’m glad to see that Reverend Sharpton is focusing on the basics. Getting young folks to set goals is a powerful achievement and potentially empowering for life, but it’s very difficult to do on a community scale. It’s a skill better learned at home.

Friday: Second Annual Brad Schoener Music Marathon