By Hazel Trice Edney

Senior Chief Joseph Jones, a Navy SEAL, says he aims to inspire; not recruit.

Senior Chief Joseph Jones speaks to a group during a SEAL Fitness Challenge in Washington D.C.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Americans have heard about them on TV news and seen them featured in movies. Yet most people don’t even know whether they’ve ever met one in real life.

They are portrayed in the media as secretive, rugged, and brave. In recent history, they are credited as the stealth fighting force that took out al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, the master mind of 9-11.

Now, in 2012, members of the U. S. Navy SEALs, are on another special assignment. Their new mission? It is to save the lives of young Black men in cities across America.

“I volunteered to assist the scout team in this endeavor because I personally enjoy empowering young men and bettering their lives through leadership, teamwork and mental toughness,” says Senior Chief Joseph Jones, 43, a Navy SEAL. “I consider their background and I tell them right up front, I’m going to talk to you about mental toughness, but believe it or not a lot of you already have been dealing with mental toughness as I had dealt with coming up.”

Jones, a St. Louis native who has spent 24 years in the Navy and the past 10 as a SEAL, which is an acronym for Sea, Air, and Land, was raised mostly by his grandparents and spent only a few years with his father.

“It was kind of a broken home. I meet a lot of kids who have similar backgrounds, which helps me to identify with them,” he said in an interview.

The statistics are all too familiar. Each year, thousands of young Black men across the nation are killed or wounded by gun fire in the streets. They are disparately incarcerated and high school drop outs.

When not ducking and dodging trouble, many must duck and dodge the police as Black males are often racially profiled and unfairly targeted for brutality. In school systems, they are met with disparate suspension and expulsion rates, labeled with emotional problems, learning disabilities or met with just plain low expectations.

It is a minefield of sorts that many are born into. Some excel despite the odds. Others become casualties of the social warfare.

Jones and about seven other SEALS make up a team of predominately African-Americans who, for nearly two years, have tried to put a dent in the statistics. They have spent time in the crime-ridden neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Houston and Atlanta conducting “fitness challenges” and giving inspirational talks to middle and high school students and young adults who they hope will redirect hardened perspectives and change the directions of their lives.

“Bringing to light and giving them the tools that they already have and showing them that the same thing that they use to make it through those tough times are the same things they can apply to being successful in life if they funnel that energy in the right direction,” Jones says.

Females are also encouraged to participate in the fitness challenges, but are not allowed to be SEALS because of U. S. military policies against women in direct combat. A description of the “SEAL Brotherhood”, found on their website, www.sealbrotherhood.com, portrays Navy SEALS as follows:

“We are the ultimate combat brotherhood. In the sea, air and land, we gather intelligence where others fear to tread. We find and conquer our enemies anywhere in the world. As the SEAL Brotherhood, we’re trained to be confident, determined, and able to operate seamlessly as a team. We dedicate our lives to make every mission a success by ensuring every SEAL is well trained and successful. Confident, successful young men are important to the morale and well-being of all communities.”

According to a news release, the SEALS Brotherhood program does the following:

• Empowers youth with SEAL tools and mental toughness techniques to face and overcome the challenges they confront in today’s fast-paced world.
• Provides young men and their communities memorable experiences.
• Taps into the competitive spirit of individuals and encourages the “never quit” attitude
• Invites ALL to challenge their own limits!

Despite the positive work clearly being done by Jones and others, the U. S. Navy SEAL organization has internal issues of its own. Jones is one of only 50 African-Americans out of 2,500 Navy SEALS.

“People ask, ‘Well, why is that?’” Jones recounts.

He points to the study-based fact that many African-American children shy away from water and swimming and take those inhibitions into adulthood. But, he concedes it’s also a shortcoming in outreach and awareness.

“You can’t aspire to be something that you have no idea what it is,” Jones says.

Navy Public Affairs Specialist Scott Williams agrees. He says the racial makeup of the Navy SEALS is around 85 percent Caucasian and the rest are racial minorities.

“For African-Americans, it’s pretty low, only about 2 percent enlisted and 1 percent officers,” he says. “This is one of the things we look at. We look at our force and we realize we really need more diversity if we’re going to be a strong force. And we haven’t done a good job in the past of reaching out to minority communities and letting them know about the opportunity to have a career in the Navy SEALS, so that’s part of our objective.”

As is the case historically, when ever given an opportunity, African-Americans meet the challenge and soar. Williams describes an event last month with the Montgomery County Sports Academy in Maryland:

“We had a SEAL fitness challenge there that the participating kids from four different high schools in the area, they were training for several weeks under the auspices of the sports academy specifically for that event,” he recalled. “Some of them had never even swam before, didn’t know how to swim. And by the time we had that SEAL fitness challenge, they were able to make laps in the pool. We thought that was a pretty cool thing.”

The mission of the new SEAL Brotherhood program, which officially launched May 30, is not to recruit, but simply to inform, Jones says. “Our mission is really just about awareness, information, assistance…We don’t bring anybody into the Navy, literally.”

Jones is not a recruiter and shuns implications that his sole mission is focused on bringing more Blacks into the SEALS. But, describing the SEAL training as “the toughest military training in the United States Military, perhaps the world,” he expresses hopes that the time he spends will erase at least some of the mystique and impart some of the positive attributes for whatever the students ultimately decide to do.

“I think the most impactful thing is when they hear my story and they see that, hey, I was no superman before I went out for SEAL training,” he said. “I was a regular person just like them and they see that a regular person with a complex background like they have can make it. They understand what mental toughness is. I think that is impactful in terms of them applying this to other things they are trying to do or accomplish in their lives.”

By Dr. Barbara Reynolds

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - If there is a way to miraculously part the Red Sea without Black Christians drowning over the same- sex marriage debacle, I think civil rights icon and theologian Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. and his son Otis Moss III, pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, might have found it.

Recently father and son laid out a scenario which offers a way for African-American Christians to have opposing views about President Obama’s embrace of homosexual marriage hopefully without the split resulting in dissenters abandoning him in the upcoming election.  As the elder Moss, a close confidante of Obama, said, “Our ancestors prayed for 389 years to place a person of color in the White House.” So the question becomes if Obama is indeed an answered prayer can one single issue, no matter how deeply felt, break that special bond?

The $15 million recently lavished on the president by his Hollywood pals and media heavies gushing in praise, even to the point of crowning him with a halo for his same-sex views have angered numerous Blacks. They see their Bible as the primary source of their lifestyle and resent Scripture that define marriage between male and female being changed by politicians and championed by political Christians, whose views are governed by polls and popularity. A recent poll by Pew Research Center found that about half of all African-Americans oppose legalized same-sex marriage, as compared to 43 percent of Whites.

Since the issue blew up, I have received numerous angry calls. One exchange went like this:

“Barbara, what the hell is going on with Obama? I thought he was a Christian.”

Me. “He is a Christian. Reverends Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and NAACP’s Julian Bond all agree with the president.”

Caller:  I don’t give a darn if the Pope said men could marry each other, until my Bible says that I'm not voting for Obama.”

Me: “You don’t have any choice, you certainly couldn’t vote for Romney.  Robbing the poor and the widows is also a sin which the Romney crowd does well."

Caller:  “I have a choice; I can stay home and vote for Jesus.”

In an effort to temper this mindset, Pastor Moss, in a prepared statement, urged fellow clergy not only to make a distinction between Obama as president and as pastor but also between rights and rites.

Pastor Moss said,” We should never misconstrue rights designed to protect diverse individuals in a pluralistic society versus religious rites designed by faith communities to communicate a theological or doctrinal perspective. One is answered in the arena of civic debate where the constitution is the document of authority.  The other is answered in the realm of ecclesiastical councils where theology, conscience and biblical mandates are the guiding mandates.’’

Pastor Moss, making a plea for separation of church and state, said “ecclesiastical councils are not equipped to shape civil legislation nor are civic legislation nor or civic representatives equipped to shape religious rituals and doctrine.”  In other words if the politicians and the clergy could just stay in their perspective lanes, maybe they won’t crash into Obama.

If marriage is being attacked, he argued, it is not by the president's words but men viewing women as property, low wages, unfair tax policy and “by clergy who proclaim monogamy yet think nothing of stepping outside the bonds of marriage to have multiple affairs with “preaching groupies.’’ That last statement might have frozen the arms of some stone throwers in mid-air.

Pastor Moss reminded ministers that the president is not the president of the Sanctified or Holiness Church. ‘Gay people have never been the enemy and when we use rhetoric to suggest they are the source of our problems we lie on God and cause tears to flow from the eyes of Christ.”

Most African-American Christians agree with Moss and contest hate speech or discrimination against homosexuals. They just don’t want the Word of God defining marriage tampered with.  That point was forcefully made by Rev. Anthony Evans, president of The National Black Church Initiative, a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African Americans. “We love our gay brothers and sisters, but the black church will never support gay marriage which is and it always will be against the ethics and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. Obama’s position will cost him a substantial amount of the black Christian vote.”

In addition, in their May 29-June 1 meeting in Washington, Dr. Franklyn Richardson, chairman of the Board of the Conference of Black Churches, composed of nine denominations said, “All of the denominations have their positions on same-sex marriage and none have approved of it.” Leading scholars, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Dr. Obrey Hendricks and civil rights spokesman Hilary Shelton, NAACP Washington Bureau director vigorously defended rights of homosexuals to marry. In fact, Dyson attacked a female minister who tried to defend the Scriptures that deal with creation between male and female as 'having an  undeveloped adolescent understanding. By the way, the panel was all male.

Dr. Martin Luther King called on all to disagree without being disagreeable.  As people wrestle with that, hopefully there will be more unity on the long road ahead to November. As African-Americans weigh the urgent issues of jobs, health care, foreclosures, the demise of the middle class, Black clergy leaders are counting on Obama’s stance on same-sex marriage losing its punch. If that happens, the Moss model for protecting the political rights of gays as well as the religious rites of churches might work a miracle one more time.

By A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Back in 1980, after Ronald Reagan’s election as President of The United States, a cynical colleague told me that I should join her in becoming a member of the Republican Party.

“That’s where the money is going to be,” she explained, “I know it will be crumbs distributed to Black Republican but they will go further because there are so few Black Republicans. There are just too many Black Democrats so the crumbs distributed by that party have to be spread too thinly.” Within a year after making the switch, my colleague had a six-figure position as a thank you gift from her new Republican pals.

That scenario came to mind when reading about the defection of former Democratic Alabama Congressman Artur Davis to the Republican Party. This is a man who helped put then Sen. Obama’s name in nomination for the presidency in 2008. Now, according to the Washington Post, he is considering running for elective office in Virginia as a Republican. Davis, who was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus who voted against the Democratic health-care bill, reportedly “decried what he described as the Democratic embrace of identity politics….”

Actually, what Davis is doing is exactly what other ambitious, self-centered, hustling African-Americans did in the 1960s and 1970s. Only they joined the Democratic Party since during those years that was the quickest way to hustle up some money. Today, the biggest hustle in town is to call oneself a Black Republican or even more lucrative, a Black Conservative.

For Malcolmites and others who strongly believe in the necessity for our people to organize an independent political, economic and cultural movement in this country, Artur Davis and his cohorts in the Republicans and Democratic parties are, to paraphrase a colorful statement made by Herman Cain about one of his White supporters, Brothers (and sisters) from another mother. They are one of the biggest distractions to the serious mission of empowering our people so we can effectively promote our individual and group interests in a society where such interests are, more often than not, ignored or marginalized or dismissed by the two major political parties.

We should all pay close attention to a slogan of Black postal workers which declares “United We Stand. Divided We Beg.”

Journalist/Lecturer A. Peter Bailey, a former associate editor of Ebony, is currently editor of Vital Issues: The Journal of African American Speeches. He can be reached at 202-716-4560.

By James Clingman

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Often we hear that most small businesses fail because of a lack of capital.  We hear the tails of woe, and some are quite true, of entrepreneurs who did not make it because they simply did not have enough money to fund their business.  They failed because they could not get a loan from the bank.  They failed because of cash flow problems.

While all of those reasons are legitimate and valid, in many cases small businesses fail because of improper planning and marketing, as well as a lack of adequate research.  Too many business owners are unwilling to invest some of their limited resources in the very things that will make them successful.  Further, sad to say, too many of us are unwilling to hire other Black professionals to advise us on things such as accounting, legal, marketing, and other very necessary functions to any successful business.

That’s too bad, but I suppose that is why less than 2 percent of the African Americans are entrepreneurs.  According to the last economic census in 2007, Blacks owned 1.9 million nonfarm U.S. businesses. These Black-owned firms accounted for 7.1 percent of all nonfarm businesses in the United States, employed 921,032 persons (0.8  percent of total employment) and generated $137.5 billion in receipts (0.5  percent of all receipts).

In 2007, there were 106,824 Black-owned employer firms; these firms employed 921,032 persons and had a total payroll of $23.9 billion, generated $98.9 billion in receipts, but accounted for just 5.6 percent of the total number of Black-owned firms and 71.9 percent of Black-owned firms’ gross receipts. Average receipts for Black-owned employer firms in 2007 were $925,427.

In contrast, 1.8 million Black-owned firms had no paid employees.  These nonemployer firms generated $38.6 billion in receipts and accounted for 94.4 percent of the total number of Black-owned firms and 28.1 percent of gross receipts. Average receipts for these Black-owned nonemployer firms in 2007 were $21,263.

This scenario, coupled with the rate of failure among Black-owned businesses, strongly suggests a need for better management of those businesses.  Just as importantly, the data indicate a tremendous need for growth and job creation among Black businesses.

The value of proper marketing and advertising cannot be overstated when it comes to the success of a business, especially a small business.  For some reason we seem to shy away from spending money on advertising, marketing, and research.  In many cases we even fail to allocate money for these services in our initial budgets.  That’s a prescription for failure -- or, at a minimum, a business that will not likely reach its full potential.

The handwriting is on the wall for the workers of this country.  Downsizing, rightsizing, re-engineering, or whatever you want to call it, are the orders of the day.  Business ownership and mutual support are keys to the success of Black people in this country.  We must be willing to support one another’s businesses, and we must be smart when starting new businesses.

Place high priority on getting the proper assistance with your business plan.  Hire a Black professional to guide you through the maze of research, management, and marketing needs.  Yes, we know how to do those things too.

Advertise your business in the proper medium, and please use Black-owned media to do so, as well as other means of getting the word out about your business.  In other words, do something that will benefit some other Black businessperson.  Marketing -- don’t be afraid of it, and please don’t deny the opportunity for a Black marketing professional to write your marketing plan and to execute a portion of that plan, if the need arises.

Research! Research! Research! before you jump into business.  Just because you are a great cook does not mean you can run a restaurant.  Spend some of your money researching your market to determine the need for your product or service, as well as what your competition is doing.

You know the saying: “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”  This is a case of many people wanting to be entrepreneurs, but few are willing to do what it takes to be successful.

Let’s create and maintain strong and thriving Black businesses.  Let’s use one another’s strengths and expertise to make our businesses grow.  Let’s work together, cooperatively, to make a better future for our children, teaching them how to make jobs rather than take jobs.  We can only do that through business development -- and we can only develop viable businesses by learning more about entrepreneurship.

Recognize and understand the rules of the entrepreneurial game, and learn to play them well.  Money follows good planning and good management  --  no matter what color you are.