POLITOPICS

Back from Hotlanta. Had a great time, stayed at The W and shopped at Dillards. You know, the usual. I've been there several times, so I've done all the cultural and tourism stuff. Back to business.

Found a new website for black centrist. The group, whose website is titled, LOW COUNTRY MOVEMENT, is a black independent forum/think tank based in Hartford, CT.

"The Low Country & Chesapeake Society is a union of dissidents openly challenging the African-American aristocracy's political dominion over Black America. We have abandoned the the two-party system and the civil rights establishment to excite the energy and passion required to create a new independent black movement."

Low Country Policy Conference Statements Include:
Rebuilding Black Communities
The 21st Century Black Church

We need more black independent thought out there to further the conversation. The back and forth between the Left and Right has gotten so stale and tired. Each side has their talking points they spit back and forth at each other with their main objective being to oppose the other instead of getting anything done. Check them out.

Exodus News: Tavis, We Challenge You: Produce the Covenant For Black America, Let's Debate It!
Business Journal: An Interview with Webster Brooks, Founder of the Low-Country and Chesapeake Society
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If you're a conservative, you might also want to check out HiMPACT, a grassroots, nonprofit organization with the purpose of urging black church leaders to help refocus the black community and return it to the morals that have gotten us through our hardest times.

These are the people behind The Black Contract with America we've all been hearing about. Founder, Bishop Harry R. Jackson, says black spiritual leaders, "must lead the way to protect America's moral compass and heal our nation."

I wonder how many will take him up on the offer? I think a lot of church leaders are afraid parishioners will stop coming if they "really" preach to them. If they stop saying, "no matter what you do, God loves you and you'll get into heaven" and start saying, "God will judge you on your acts, not how much you say his name in church on Sunday," people will get uncomfortable. If they start preaching, not just that God wants children to be born in wedlock, but also that it is selfish, damaging and harmful to bring children, who already have strikes against them from day one, into this world out-of-wedlock, how many will come back the next Sunday.

Jackson is Senior Pastor of Hope Christian Church here in Chocolate City. He's a business written several books, graduated from Williams College and has a Harvard MBA. I'm not sure how crazy I am about religious figures telling people who to vote for,Black America Today / BISHOP HARRY R. JACKSON Jr.: Blacks should vote for George W. Bush, but I am in favor of churches taking a bigger role in helping us find our way back to our families.

People want to live their lives as they please without guilt or fear of consequences when they make wrong choices. We have proven that by the way we currently live our lives. I hope Jackson and his organization can convince black preachers around America to step it up. Church is about more than singing and praying. It's about teaching, guiding and helping.

Tavis Smiley: Interview with Bishop Jackson

P.S. - Although I agree with a lot that this group is doing, I don't believe that our community should be concerning ourselves with the gay marriage issue. We have too much work to do on our own marriage problem. Preventing gays from getting married isn't going to do anything to make black heterosexual men and women get back to marrying each other.