WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- The Philadelphia church chosen for Saturday's congregation of black leaders was appropriate for what turned out to be a part "Come-to-Jesus" meeting -- in the sense of judgment day but not religion -- and part teach-in, where firebrands and lawyers, preachers and businessmen, all looked at African-Americans and their issues in a post-Sept. 11 light. Though they didn't see all good, they were upfront about mistakes and looked forward for solutions.
I listened to the forums, off and on, Saturday afternoon and e-mailed pithy quotes to friends, including an officer of the National Association of Black Journalists. But what I wondered: Isn't this preaching to the choir? Both me, and the panelists?
Al Sharpton, Cornel West, Johnny Cochran, Stanley Crouch, Maxine Waters, and Gardner Taylor and my friend know the messages and have been preaching them for years, even decades. They may not be professional athletes, but they can give the brain -- and the soul -- a real workout. It was on C-SPAN (and in D.C. for the political junkies, C-SPAN radio), but who watches C-SPAN on Saturday?
Polls done last fall by both Gallup and Zogby showed blacks more willing to allow profiling --- Arabic names and appearance -- for terror suspects than other groups, and speakers took the challenge and blasted the concept as hypocritical and wrong for blacks to accept.
New York's Rev. Al Sharpton, a member of one of two panels Saturday at the all-day forum arranged by black radio hosts Travis Smiley of NPR and syndicated morning talker Tom Joyner, came off as less brash than most New Yorkers, and more inward looking and conciliatory than I have heard him in the past. Sharpton took aim at the racial profiling since Sept. 11 that took an Arab-American Secret Service Agent from President George W. Bush's detail off a plane, calling it just as bad as racial profiling in the black community.
It was a positive approach from the black leaders.
But if I see three or four 16- or 17-year-old black (I'm trying not to say "boys" but that's what they are), my radar goes up. But then, my nephew is a white teenager and he looks surly too. It's a teen-age thing. The teens in my neighborhood just happen to be black.
And how long ago was it that some Secret Service agents from former President Clinton's presidential detail couldn't get served --- and they were black?
Rev. Barbara King of Atlanta, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., called for parents to make a difference and said: "We have to focus on more than Sunday School lessons ... our PTAs are empty. We're waiting for someone else to take care of our children. Parents used to go to school to see about their children. We need to return to this."
Rev. Gardner Taylor, pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn and a long and close associate of Martin Luther King, decried vouchers as a way to help blacks do well in school.
"America is 'Balkanized' enough. There is a need for more endowment funds to enrich our own community," Taylor said. "We need more after-school programs, and churches can help ..."
Stanley Crouch, a social critic who writes a column for the New York Daily News, bore in on education.
"There are people who have dealt successfully with this problem and we need to seek their advice," Crouch said. He closed his speech with resignation -- to the facts as they are -- and called for legalizing some drugs as a way to cut the population of young black men in prison.
More positive approaches from the black leaders -- well, maybe. And one proposal sure to draw fire. But it was an idea thrown out for consideration.
I've had a police captain in D.C. tell me the same thing about drugs. Maybe there's something to it.
Others focused on economics. Yes, they said, blacks have more money, but they don't have wealth. Money that comes from a job can be gone tomorrow, but wealth that comes from land or several generations of work and investment will be there longer. Blacks need to own the companies, not just work there -- where they can be laid off or fired any time.
A positive criticism and a proposal from the black leaders.
As I listened on and off, I thought to myself, these people are saying some important things. Is anyone listening? The day was far more than sound bites. They bit, chewed, and swallowed a buffet of ideas, problems, and solutions.
Was anyone listening beyond the confines of that Philadelphia church? I hope so.
I got an e-mail from someone who worked to get the forums together: "And if you have any ideas on how to put some of the suggestions into action, please let me know ..."
Listening is a start.
