I had a thought hit me hard today.

There are terrible floods going on now in Central Texas. Property is being washed away. Numbers of people are dead. Yet you don't hear some so called rap star like Kanye West going around saying "President Bush hates black people." Texans are taking care of themselves. They are doing what they can to revive and rebuild their businesses and communities even in the face of more torrential rains.

Flash back to New Orleans two years ago. They still can't get their act together. In order to save face the politicians keep on deflecting criticism of their own lack of leadership by blasting and criticizing others. Last night the cadre of Democratic presidential candidates had another love-in where they took aim on the U.S. Supreme Court decision to end forced integration of schools through busing. These white boys decried (and of course Hillary went into her classic bad Southern accent) the old refrain how the road to total civil rights was still long, etc. Yes, the discrimination against black Americans is a pimple on the face of our great nation. But can't more black people be part of the effort to helping themselves? You don't hear about the water-logged Texans whimpering about their situation. Yet two years later blacks are still complaining how school buses in New Orleans were not utilized to rescue their citizens? And of course we don't DARE talk about the mayhem at the New Orleans Superdome....almost to the point of disrepair. And boy does the Democratic party like to exploit these situations to win a few votes.

Instead of coddling the black community, we need to give blacks who are below the socio-economic mainstream the impetus to get things done for themselves....like our Texas brethren. Instead of "giving fish" to the so-called disadvantaged blacks in our country, they need to be actively given the motivation to "fish for themselves." So many people of different cultures have come out of worse situations from around the world to the United States and have been stunning successes.

Black Americans who have made it....like Oprah, Gen. Powell, Ted Johnson, Jr., and others need to start looking at productively lifting their communities to defeat the growing "economic racism" the black community is now experiencing on an ever-increasing basis. Hillary, John, Richard...the problem is not the white community, the problem are the self-appointed Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons who love the glare of the media lights and have made millions through their position, yet do everything to keep impoverished blacks impoverished so they can maintain the status they have become accustomed to.