I was happy to see Joseph Phillips on the show because there are many black people who have the thoughts that he expressed… ALL black people are not looking with sympathy at trifling black people who want to blame their race on the state of their lives rather than discussing EVERY wrong decision that they have made in life based on a poorly developed value system…and no…I do not think that just being in an impoverished community is a sufficient reason for not having constructed a sound value system as an adult.

Thanks for this discussion and please feel welcome to stop by my blog and jump into some deep conversations!

Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa

As far as the prison issue raised above; I agree, once these men / boys get into the system it’s anywhere from difficult to impossible to get them turned around. I believe that it truly takes a change of the heart that only Christ can provide to do it.

What’s the answer? I think one of the ground floor answers is to have more fathers involved in their children’s lives, and to have these families teaching their children that that kind of behavior is unacceptable.

Give them goals to aspire to. Don’t let them settle for mediocrity. Why can’t they be a Supreme Court Justice, or Secretary of State, or a Congressman, or President? Don’t let certain factions get away with telling our children that they can’t because of this or that, and keep good influences in our kid’s lives. Keep the bad influences away from them. That means bad friends, bad TV, and yes, even bad family influences.

One of the most painful things my parents had to do was to keep an aunt away from us because she was simply a horrible influence. Looking back on it a decade and a half later, they were absolutely right in what they did.

Thanks,

Jim C

That being said, Black In America was awful. Not worth the weeks of e-mails or promos promoting it. What new was said? Soledad used to be a top flight journalist but her spiral downward is evident. This show was made for whites. Black In America-lite. Nothing profound at all. And for Mr. Phillips, each time I have seen him he bashes blacks. I hope he does not turn out to be another Armstrong Williams who was paid to demonize the poor blacks in this country. I will withold judgement on him until I hear him at length, something he did not get on that sorry CNN special.

It’s a country at enmity with Father Yahweh for all KINDS of reasons.

If the country and people get any “better” at what they do, it’s going to get worse.

It needs to do DIFFERENTLY.

No I didn’t watch “Black in America” on CNN and I was disgusted every time I had to see a commercial for it for two months prior to its showing while I was watching Lou Dobbs. Some of La Shawn……

This is a continued effort by the media to keep us divided. I don’t care if you are black, red, yellow or purple, we’re all Americans and are in this together.

The sooner some of you “but I can’t cuz I’m Black” people get that through your head the better off this whole country will be.

But back to the show. It showed more negativity than positivity: a single poverty stricken father of two gifted children having to move because his building was sold, Michael Eric Dyson’s imprisoned brother (the last bit showing of one of the shows at that, with his brother returning to his cell), so on and so forth.

There was some positivity in that there was one family that sent 5 kids off to college with a 6th hot on their trail. There was another which featured an interracial marriage where the family was successful (but depending on the viewer, that might not be entirely positive, I dunno).

Larry Elder wrote a column on a black conservative participating in “Black in America.” The column did not mention the conservative’s name, but I assume it was Joseph Phillips. The column was in part about CNN editing his responses. CNN kept the viewing audience from hearing Mr. Phillips’ complete views.