What has happened to black people? What has happened to our level of personal responsibility? 

The point I have been trying to stress in this series is the many issues that we face as a people are not because of things that happen outside of the black community. 

However, the issues we face are things we have the control to change. 

Black people have become a people of unfulfilled ambitions. The day of blaming the white man for our problems is over! 

Everything we could possibly want is there for the taking. Yet sadly, too many of us fall short on reaching our potential as responsible human beings and this is why we face the issues we do today. 

We SAY we are doing everything we can. We SAY that we are standing up and fighting the battles our parents and grandparents could not finish. We SAY that the battle for equality and equity is being won. 

However, how dare we say such things when we still have thousands of black men dying and going to jail everyday? How dare we disrespect and discard the little kids who are starving in the streets everyday of the week? 

How dare we call ourselves “strong black men” when you can walk out into the community and pass five different houses and there not be a man in a single one of them? 

Since when do “strong educated women” sit back and allow weak-minded women like Nicki Minaj become the voice of female hip-hop? Her attraction goes deeper than music. Because to be the voice of hip-hop, is also to be the voice of a generation. 

And I am sure we have all seen the destruction of young black women over the past few years.

Sadly, the educated elite has lost its roles as leaders in the black community and we only have ourselves to blame.

Because as soon as you walk off this campus you are going to see the same people that we are saying we want to help and save. 

Yet instead of sticking around and putting time into the community, every chance we get, most of us simply get in our cars and drive on home. 

You wonder why black people are still seen as “thugs” and “niggas” in America? Well this is why:

Tupac Shakur once said, “In our attempts to be enlightened and educated, we have forgotten about all of our brothers and sisters in the streets.” 

Our educated elite, have dropped the ball on issues that impact us all and have somehow forgot that regardless if we are educated or not, we are all the same. 

Our ancestors would turn over in their caskets if they could see the current conditions of black America. 

AIDS is running wild, black “families” are basically non-existent, we struggle to stay academically competitive, we argue over skin complexion, and we rarely vote. Yet we have the nerve and audacity to say we are doing all we can in order to better our race. 

If you believe that we have done all we can then please think again. 

We have become a race of people who are trapped in our own nonsense. 

We have basically given up and cut our own heads off. We destroy ourselves by dreaming too much and never reaching reality. 

In the words of Nasir Jones, “we begged, prayed, petitioned, and demonstrated, just to make another generation of black zombies.” 

We are now a group of people who are walking and talking, yet are still dead in the minds. We simply go along with the flow of the world and follow the things we see and are told. We are a race of zombies ladies and gentlemen. 

We have grown to take pride in being known as the people who procrastinate until it’s time to worry. We have become a group of people who love to hear ourselves talk, but never follow our words with actions. 

And sadly I say we because I know I have been guilty of it too. A lack of self-knowledge has put us in the conditions we are in. 

Yes, we are college educated. But what does that even mean at the end of the day? 

Does your college degree automatically make you better than the man who dropped out of school just to support his family? 

Our degrees and knowledge mean absolutely nothing if at the end of the day we have applied none of our knowledge towards bettering the lives of someone less fortunate than ourselves. 

For if you believe that your struggle is worse than any other on the planet then can you PERSONALLY say you have suffered more than a 13-year-old white Bosnian boy who promised to uphold his dead mother’s last request to protect his 10-year-old sister, just so he could later be tied up with wire and forced to watch soldiers rape his sister and leave him to feel like nothing more than a liar?

In the society we live in we must always remember that the next person’s struggle maybe much worse than our own. The world does not owe me an apology no more than it owes you one. 

Our standards of living is better than perhaps 9 out of 10 people on this planet and we have still managed to completely mentally self-destruct. And the only thing we can ask ourselves is why? 

There is no white man holding us back now ladies and gentleman. There have been no bombings of any dorms since any of us have been here. None of you have been turned away from an education because of the color of our skin. 

The choice to be remembered as a generation who did absolutely nothing, or as the generation who changed the world, is completely up to us. There is no roof over our heads. 

The struggles of the slaves led to the struggles of the civil rights movement. Today we have everything in the world in front of our face and all we have to do is reach out and grab it. 

But the million-dollar question is what will you do with it? 

Because what makes things worse, and what continues to keep us trapped, is that as soon as you finish reading this, too many of you are going to place this paper down, and your life will go on unchanged. 

Take this as a call to action. A motivation booster if you will. Realize that the only thing holding black America back is black America itself. 

Dare to do what’s right and go out and change the world that you live in!

• TRUMAINE MCCASKILL