Time to move from Civil Rights to Community Rights.

This is in response to the Race in America 'conversation'

By: Jesse Weeks

The ‘conversation’ on Race in America is misdirected.

Many people across the nation are in trouble. Indeed many of these are black. However, that they are in trouble is not because they are black. It is because they – along with folks of other races – are in communities that have been dis-empowered and destroyed by government programs and corruptions. They are left struggling with under-performing schools without school choice, joblessness, crime, gangs and widespread breakdown of family and faith. I am not speaking of faith in God. I am speaking of faith in those that say they will help but don’t.

Said another way, rallying the debate on Race in America because of the Zimmerman trial will not prevent young black men from getting shot. Indeed this weekend alone, dozens were shot in Chicago. It will not prevent a woman (white or black) from clutching her purse a bit tighter when in the elevator with young black men, or motley looking white ones equally eager to get her bag.

What will help is to recognize that the Civil Rights movement was a success, but it is over. In its wake, a new battle emerges. To win this new battle, we must stop fighting an old battle already won so that we can understand the new battle and know how to win that one too.

Reverends Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the many others who risked all to fight against racial inequality, hate and oppression must be celebrated, not vilified. They helped to win the fight. Now racism is unlawful. Segregation and discrimination based on skin color is unlawful in housing, the workplace and every single area of American life. The Civil Rights fight is done and being monitored by watchdog groups for any real crimes of hate based upon race or gender.

Today, Dr. Martin Luther King would likely be humbled that his dream paved the way for so many people of different races and religions living, working, praying and indeed dreaming their own dreams side by side in neighborhoods everywhere. Today even inter-racial marriage and multi-ethnic families co-exist with traditional families in communities across the nation. One can only imagine his joy to see a young man of mixed race as President of the United States of America.

Yet as his eyes fall upon many inner-city communities and the masses of young men and women oppressed not by skin color but by the disempowered communities in which they must live, he would likely tell us our work is not yet done. He might remind us about love. About love not hate. About building community not division. About community empowerment not community oppression.

I suggest that a Community Rights movement is the new good fight. A Community Rights movement is Civil Rights part II. Community Rights are simply the right of a community to self-governance and self-determination without federal and state interference, coercion or corruption of the will and needs of the community as a whole, and the natural rights of the people within the community.

In the conversation on Race in America, a Community Rights movement would restore respect to impoverished communities and their leaders. It would empower them to stand against federal and state programs that oppress them, that lock them into poverty and indignity. And it would allow the proven generosity and experience of the American people to contribute to the community directly. That is our American tradition.

 That is also our Constitution in action. Community empowerment is an intent of our US Constitution.



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