Black America- Decaying From Within

Today too many Black American communities have transformed “hand-out/hand-up programs” into a pathologic syndrome intertwined with an Entitlement Mentality, often coupled with ignorance, laziness, and arrogance. “Entitlement” in today’s context is a government program guaranteeing access to benefits by members of a specific group and based on established legislation.  A "right" or entitlement associated with a moral or social principle provisioned in accordance with a legal framework of society based in concepts of social equality. In the United States, an entitlement program is a type of "government program that provides individuals with personal financial benefits, goods and services to which an indefinite number of potential beneficiaries meet eligibility conditions that are specified by the standing law that authorizes the program.

These programs include Social Security and Medicare and most Veterans’ Administration programs, federal employee and military retirement plans, unemployment compensation, food stamps and agricultural price support programs. A major debated difference is that the “food stamps and agricultural subsidy” programs are not programs in which the recipient contributed anything to receive. In recent years, benefits, like those of the food stamps program which people become eligible to receive without paying into a system are under “fire” and appear to be a contributing factor to Black American inertia.

I am aware of those who choose a low socio-economic existence as a lifestyle choice where the government takes care of them and tell them what to do and thereby submit willingly to an “enslaved” existence. To maintain a belief that you are owed something and entitled to things when you are doing nothing to help yourself is absurd.