I recently read a New York Times article describing how ashamed Jews were world wide of the Madoff $50 billion dollar financial scandal. I immediately thought how most eithnic groups go out of their way to support their own spiritually and financially.
Bernard Madoff
As you will read in an excerpt from this article below, Jews world wide feel a common bond and it is through this sense of one that they have been able to uplift all.
We as Black people in America today tend not to see this bond with one another, let alone with people of African decent in other countries. Yet it is this bond that brought us through slavery and the Civil Rights Movement with the help of sympathic whites and Jews.
As American Blacks, we wonder why we remain at the bottom of the economic, social and educational ladder in the richest country in the world, while other foreigners come here and seem to thrive, while looking down at us.
At times, many of us avoid identifying and doing business with one another to our collective detriment. Other groups make no apology for looking out for one another first because they understand that united we stand and divided we fall.
New York Times article in full: In Madoff Scandal Jews Feel A Sense Of Betrayal.
"But Jews all over the country are already sending up something of a communal cry over a cost they say goes beyond the financial to the theological and the personal.
Here is a Jew accused of cheating Jewish organizations trying to help other Jews, they say, and of betraying the trust of Jews and violating the basic tenets of Jewish law.
A Jew, they say, who seemed to exemplify the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes of the thieving Jewish banker.
So in synagogues and community centers, on blogs and in countless conversations, many Jews are beating their chests — not out of contrition, as they do on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, but because they say Mr. Madoff has brought shame on their people in addition to financial ruin and shaken the bonds of trust that bind Jewish communities.
“Jews have these familial ties,” Rabbi Wolpe said. “It’s not solely a shared belief; it’s a sense of close communal bonds, and in the same way that your family can embarrass you as no one else can, when a Jew does this, Jews feel ashamed by proxy.
I’d like to believe someone raised in our community, imbued with Jewish values, would be better than this.”
Listen and watch below the principles and beliefs of Kwanzaa.
President George Bush today sent out a public acknowledgement of the Kwanzaa Holiday. Its the first time I've heard the national media acknowledge his affirmation of the importance of this celebration.
I wonder if it has anything to do with Obama's pending presidency:) Regardless, we must not wait for others to validate the importance of Kwanzaa before we, as people of African decent, realize that we share a common bond. Unless we start to love and respect ourselves more, and support one another financially and emotionally, unless we define our own beauty and sense of self worth, unless we put our children, our women and our family first, then the rest of the world will continue treat us with disrespect.
Below are the 7 Principals of Kwanzaa. A Celebration Of Family,Community and Culture.
Read them to yourself, your child , your family and by all means do what ever you can to pratice them. Our future depends on it.
NGUZO SABA (The Seven Principles) --------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Umoja (Unity) To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
4. Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
5. Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
6. Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
7. Imani (Faith) To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. Maulana Karenga
Obama's election has taught us a major positive lesson "Yes We Can!"
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