(NNPA)—President Obama thinks big and acts big. It has surprised many, and there was confusion as to just where he was going and why. I have reached a conclusion. The health care bill, cap and trade, stimulus bill, card check, auto takeover, student loans, etc., have been great leaps into the future which resemble, in fact, emulate, President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society. It is the Great Society on steroids. Similar modus operandi, but it is certainly a different time and that is where the comparison causes conflict. Let’s take a look at the two presidential agendas.

While listening to music on my I-phone, I began to contemplate the upcoming mid-term elections. The rock band, The Who sang: “I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution/Take a bow for the new revolution/Smile and grin at the change all around me/Pick up my guitar and play/Just like yesterday/And I’ll get on my knees and pray/We don’t get fooled again.”

It struck me that the words could be an anthem for a new political generation. Of course, they might also be a prescient warning for voters casting ballots on November second.

Once again historically Black post-secondary institutions find themselves the target of an unwarranted and deceitful attack. This rhetoric marginalizes and mischaracterizes the vital role these public and private schools play to spur the growth and development of individual Black students, their communities and the nation at large.

A Wall Street Journal editorial written by Jason L. Riley states that historically Black institutions are failing so miserably, they should either be reconstituted as community colleges, taken over by for-profit colleges or shuttered. Worse, WSJ argues President Obama should withhold the $850 million investment, pledged over 10 years, to help fund the unique mission of 105 Historically Black Universities and Colleges.

(NNPA)—In a 1990 article written for Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP, I offered the following suggestions on how to be a positive Black person in a society that too often rewards those who are negative. They, with a few small changes, are as follows:

1. Do reject the prevailing myth that we are a weak group of problem-burdened people who basically have nothing to offer the world. If that were so, then we wouldn’t still be around. No people who have survived the physical and psychological oppression we have, have been confronted with in this country can possibly be weak. Instead of holding conferences and meetings, which too often provide opportunities for weeping, wailing, moaning, groaning, and telling individual can-you-top-this horror stories, we should get together to document and analyze our strengths and to develop ways to build on them.