Faith and Freedom Network

It is not our custom to have guest writers on this blog, however from time to time, we feel it is appropriate. Today, I would like you to read a recent article by Rev. Wayne Perryman. Perryman lives on Mercer Island, just outside of Seattle.

He is a former newspaper publisher and radio talk show host. He now works to bring knowledge to the African American community and as a fact-finding investigator in discrimination cases for the plaintiff.

I recommend you read his article.

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by Rev. Wayne Perryman

In his book: Audacity of Hope, Senator Barack Obama describes many conditions in Chicago that have not changed as a result of him being a State Senator.

Page 232 Obama talks about his black experience and criticize blacks:

“While my own upbringing hardly typifies the African American experience, and although, largely through luck and circumstances, I now occupy a position that insulates me from most of the bumps and bruises that the average black man must endure – I can recite the usual litany of petty slight that during my forty-five years have been directed my way….”

“…I have witnessed profound shift in race relations in my lifetime. I have felt it as surely as one feels a change in the temperature. When I hear some in the black community deny those changes, I think it not only dishonors those who struggled on our behalf but also robs us of our agency to complete the work they began…”

(Perryman’s Comments): If Obama confess that he did not experience what most blacks experienced, how can he criticize those who say things have not changed?

On Page 241 he says

“…Every black professional and business person in Chicago can tell you stories of the roadblocks they still experience on account of race.

(Perryman’s Comments): If black professionals are still experiencing this in Chicago, apparently he either ignored these conditions as State Senator, or his program of change did not work.

On Page 251 he says:

(Obama shares comments from a Chicago Police) “See, these kid out here, they just don’t care. Police don’t scare ‘em, jail doesn’t scare ‘em, - more than half of the young guys out here already got a record. If the police pick up ten guys standing on the corner, antoher ten’ll take their place in an hour. …Their mothers can’t telll them nothing – a lot of these women are still children themselves. Father’s in jail. Nobody around to guide the kids, keep them in school, teach them respect. So boys just raise themselves, basically on the streets. That’s all they know. The gang is their family…”

I hear a lot of such sentiments in the African American community these days, a frank acknowledgement that conditions in the heart of the inner city are spinning out of control. Sometimes the conversation will center on statistics – the infant mortality rate…or black male unemployment (estimated at more than a third in some Chicago neighborhoods….

(Perryman’s Comment): Obama never states that as a State Senator that his program of change solved these problems or conditions. Like they say about the rabbit. If his foot did not bring him luck, how could it [a rabbit foot] bring luck to someone else. If Obama’s programs of change did not solve the problems in Chicago, how can it change or solve the problems in America.

On Page 252 Obama says:

“A teacher will talk about what it’s like to have an eight-year old shout obscenities and threaten her with bodily harm. A public defender will describe a fifteen-year old harrowing rap sheet…

(Perryman’s comments): If these conditions still exist in Chicago after serving as State Senator, apparently Obama’s program of change did not work.

On Page 254 he says:

In most black neighborhoods, law-abiding, hardworking residents have been demanding more aggressive police protections for years, since they are far more likely to be victims of crime. In private – around kitchen tables, in barbershops, and after church – black folks can often be heard bemoaning the eroding work ethic, inadequate parenting, and declining sexual mores with a fervor that would make the Heritage Foundation proud.

(Perryman’s Comment): If these are still the conditions in Chicago after serving as Illinois’ State’s Senator, is this what he will do for America?

On Page 255 he says:

“We know that many in the inner city are trapped by their own self-destructive behaviors but that those behaviors are not innate…”

(Perryman’s Comments) How come he never mentions this in his speeches and what types of changes did he offer as a State Senator to resolve these conditions? Why didn’t his program work?

On Page 244 he says:

We should also agree that the responsibility to close the gap can’t come from the government alone; minorities, individually and collectively, have responsibilities as well. Many of the social or cultural factors that negative affect black people, for example, simply mirror in exaggerated form problems that afflict America as a whole: too much television ( the average black household has the television on more than eleven hours per day), too much consumption of poisons (blacks smoke more and eat more fast food) and a lack of emphasis on educational achievement.

Then there is a collapse of the two-parent black household, a phenomenon that is occurring at such an alarming rate when compared to the rest of American society…. A phenomenon that reflects a casualness toward sex and child rearing among black men that renders black children more vulnerable – and for which there is simply no excuse. …A transformation in attitudes has to being in the home, and in neighborhoods, and in places of worship. Community-based institutions, particularly the historically black church, have to help families reinvigorate in young people a reverence for educational achievement, encourage healthier lifestyles, and reenergized traditional social norms surrounding the joys and obligations of fatherhood…

(Perryman’s Comments): The statement above, Obama off the hook of not presenting programs to bring about changes in Chicago. While it places the responsibility on blacks it also suggest that there is very little the government can do to change the conditions of the inner-city and African Americans. If this is true, why is he running for President if the solution rest in the hands of the members of the community and not in the hands of the State Senators or the President of the United States?

Rev. Wayne Perryman
http://www.wayneperryman.com/

Author of: Unveiling the Whole Truth

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Gary Randall

President

Faith & Freedom