Beyond our economic woes, theaters of war throes, and our failed foreign policy that shows we cannot see past our nose; ironically America’s biggest challenge is cultivating manhood, manners, and morality at home.
The hip-hop culture, gangster, and ghetto craze sweeping American media and the entertainment industry is dumbing down our children, depleting our vocabulary, and devouring our manners. Our citizens curse incessantly nonstop and are so selfishly impatient with one another that they often fail to be polite and show common decency in daily interactions.
These challenges we as a nation face are beyond race, as there are educated and outstanding individuals among every ethnicity leading and serving us wonderfully. Therefore we must be careful not to stereotype and label people, but rather give every individual the opportunity to arise and attain their potential.
Yet to neglect the diminishing and dwarfing of our own children’s intellectual capacity by reason of their demographic surroundings is foolish on our part. When we dwell peaceably and carry on ignorantly with the adversary, our children suffer the most as we all lose ground tremendously.
The result is our children are becoming equally profane and vile, disrespecting their teachers, cursing in class, and often are incapable of properly addressing an educator or employer. Hence wise employers and companies go afar beyond our own borders to find employees for customer service jobs, knowing full well our own people are too often incapable of manifesting any social graces or patience over a telephone conversation with a disgruntled customer.
Immigration in America is also part of the problem, as we have opened our borders allowing uneducated people to flood in. While I love and embrace everybody as a world traveler and worldwide speaker, from a national perspective I must acknowledge and recognize that unless immigrants respectfully integrate they will cause a further brain drain on the national overall intelligence and social demeanor. Moreover when immigrants infiltrate and milk the system for economic assistance, it further reduces what tax paying citizens are able to access to sustain their own neighborhoods and families. We therefore need reformation to care for our own people first before seeking to show compassion to those who disregard our own needs and society at large.
Thankfully many immigrants from India, Pakistan, China and throughout Asia are extremely intelligent and actually enhance America’s overall intelligence and competitive standing in the world. Mexicans are extremely respectful and hardworking people, who I highly admire and deeply appreciate. From Puerto Rico through Cuba all the way to Argentina, Latinos who have immigrated from these countries are thriving and becoming community and business leaders in America.
As parents and community leaders however we are often failing. When I as an educator walk through American schools and hear cursing throughout the hallways; when I see mug shots of criminals in corrections facilities wearing President Obama t-shirts: I immediately realize something is desperately missing from the national equation and is devastatingly wrong in our country. Undoubtedly, the economic downturn is reason for some of the increases in crime. Yet the far deeper problem is lack of education, fathering, and proper motivation for the institutionally disenfranchized.
Our auto industry has already been outdone by the Japanese and Germans. Now our customer service jobs are being shipped abroad. Manufacturing in China is beating us in price competitiveness and WalMart is thriving by selling China’s cheap manufactured goods to us.
The new world order is upon us economically. Multi-national companies no longer need us when they seek to hire new employees. If we remain merely consumers, eventually more sectors of our economy will go bankrupt.
Yet what concerns me the most is the lack of manhood among men who shun their responsibilities at home with their families. The depletion of social graces and basic manners, when people fail to address and interact with one another respectfully and disregard human dignity altogether, is great cause for concern.
Lastly, the decaying of morality when corporate CEOs and crooks on Wall Street and in Washington betray the public trust and prefer profitability over personal integrity.
America’s biggest challenge is not Iraq, nor al-Qaeda, but cultivating manhood, manners, and morality.
It has been said, “Yes, we can!” Yet unless our President, politicians, principals, and priests step up and speak up America shall further decline and be a new third-world country in the globe.
www.PaulFDavis.com – worldwide speaker and life-changing author of 17 books including “Healthy Relationships”
Invite Paul to speak in your city! – RevivingNations@yahoo.com
