It’s popular and easy to trot out the same old tired slogans: it takes a village to raise a child, or, if not not, when, or blah blah blah.

First and foremost, realize that the current generation is lost. Energies must be redirected to the up-and-coming.

What energies? More education might be a rallying cry. And that would be wrong, in the traditional sense. The education and guidance we need to teach is 1) life skills and 2) financial acumen. Those core elements are the missing links, the gaps in the I-don’t-know-how-others-are-so-successful-and-I’m-not mentality.

Now, zip back to the ghosts of slavery. Yes, it’s a major blockage. A huge amount of people, violently uprooted, transported under incredibly horrendous conditions, separated forever from family and friends, beaten and abused, made to work for white people… and then, abandoned. Until the 40′s and 50′s, when ahem, white people starting coming to the islands, buying land from the disadvantaged locals… and today, we scratch our heads and wonder why we have problems? That politicians are just wind-bags? The best of our young ones shoot each other? That many get their education from TV? That the highest ideals are cel phones, heavy neck bling and a car with huge speakers?

So let’s drill it way past the interference most of us get caught up with, the day-to-day bright flashes that blind us from the root causes of todays problems.
We need to go way back to know and understand what we must do today.

And that means supplying the basics. Right now. Basic training, as it were. In money. Finances. Life skills. Self-control. It starts there. Money is not the root of all evil. Lack of money is. No money = poor education, no travel , poor nutrition… the list is endless.

The faster Virgin Islanders can really and truly get well-rounded in these and other important skills, the faster we can assume a professional and fair and balanced position of control of our destiny. Until then, life will continue to be slow and agonizing chaos.

The clock is ticking.

Imagine if the USVI was to become an independent nation. It would probably end up being like Haiti. This country has a predominantly black population and it is the poorest,most corrupted nation in the Caribbean. The politicians use religion to oppress their people. The poor & ignorant are deprived of ascending to the first-class category ( This is what I’ve been told by a Haitian who is part of the bourgeoisie class). The country has a cast system resembling that of Pakistan.

What cause black people to oppress their own people? My theory is that we have not fully recovered from the effects of slavery. Some are still in mental slavery & it will take a while to emancipate them. Let’s not give up hope, though. Remember the message of our beloved President Barack Obama: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

What leaders do we have that can bring us together?
Who is to be trusted?
Who really cares about the children and the future when they are grabbing all they can get today?

If the politicians could be greedy and still deliver services to the people, all would look like leaders. Unfortunately money can not go into their pockets and fund the needed services and projects for the people.
The answer for them is clear, be greedy and borrow to meet the gov’t obligations.