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By Christine Longmore

Are we are brothers keepers? Many of us respond to that question with a resounding "yes" . In a discussion though, it usually becomes a debate. Because of different ideas about to what extent we are our brother’s keepers, we all have our own interpretation of what it means.

Is it wrong for us to celebrate our individual successes, political accomplishments and statistics that point to a drop in crime when at the same time many of us still suffer from poverty, unequal education opportunities, and gross civil liberties violations?

We are a nation within a nation. We are the descendants of people who were kidnapped and forced into slavery. There is no getting around that fact or the bearing that our history has on us today.

The need for some semblance of unity has always been part of our existence as is true of any group of people with common roots. In fact, we have personified the saying, "I am my brother’s keeper". Euro-Americans in this country have historically done an extremely efficient job of maintaining their unity through the control of wealth , social status and power. Our, unity albeit fragmented at best, has been a necessity around basic rights we are all entitled to as human beings.

The unity between groups of freed slaves and captive ones was an essential part of our eventual escape out of physical slavery. That kind of unity for the survival and betterment of the group and all it’s members is still essential for our complete emancipation. Our nation with in a nation with its historically unprecedented dollar power of today could feed, clothe and educate everyone who is in need - Black and non-Blacks as well if we functioned as a unified group

With all this in mind it is still wrong for me or anyone else to say that people who are financially or socially emancipated shouldn’t celebrate their success. It probably didn’t come at a small price. Many successful Africans and Africans in America give back to the community. Some even do it quietly so they don’t appear to be doing it for the notoriety. That shows a sense of personal commitment to contributing to the uplifting of the group’s less fortunate members.

We should all most certainly be jumping for joy and dancing in the streets if the drop in crime is reflective of people turning from lives of crime to the straight and narrow and not simply a reaction to the new and improved, kinder, gentler fascist tendencies of the police in America. Maybe the crime rate has dropped because we have killed so many of our own. It would be terrible if the numbers simply illustrate our ability to aid the genocide upon ourselves.

There’s a Nigerian proverb that says " the one eyed man thanks God only when he sees a man who is totally blind " . I just hope we aren’t a one eyed nation.

If you have comments about this commentary, Send E-mail to : cwrites@mindspring.com .