We are at the halfway point in looking to the 12 Steps to heal the divide in this nation. In summary, we have admitted we are powerless over our government, and that our lives have become unmanageable (honesty). We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity (hope). We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him (faith). We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and our country (courage). We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, our country’s wrongs (integrity).
Step Six: We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
The spiritual principle of Step Six is willingness. It could certainly be argued that willingness is a necessary ingredient in working all of the steps. Without the willingness to honestly look at the situations we find ourselves personally and as a nation, how could we produce valid solutions to heal? It will take a leader who is honest, speaks of his hope for our nation, has faith that together we can make a difference for the average American, who has the courage to stand with the people of this country to make substantive changes, and who has the integrity to be honest and explain in detail what we are dealing with and how we can begin to recover. The someone who has not just the knowledge of these principles but has practiced them in his lifelong work is RFK, Jr.
Step Six is a logical continuation of Steps Four and Five where we took a moral inventory of our mistakes, where our country finds itself in conflict, and what was the exact nature of these wrongs. Step Six asks us to be willing to deepen our self-awareness and look for aspects of our behavior that hinder our growth and well-being. As well, we must be willing to be open-minded to the problems that face our nation and to the solutions that could make a difference in the lives of millions of people.
This is where the skill in drilling down the exact nature of our nation’s wrongs is so critical. We need an experienced, intelligent, principled individual that can listen fully to the issues and produce practical solutions. Kennedy is the remedy!
As February has been Black History Month, Bobby Kennedy, Jr. has taken the opportunity to meet with Black leaders in our country to have meaningful discussions of the issues facing their communities. He gathered with an audience of several hundred people and distinguished panelists such as Dr. Eddie Long, Quawntay “Bosco” Adams, Skipp Townsend, and Angela Stanton-King.
Several health concerns were addressed. Radio personality, Dr. Eddie Long, noted the disparity among Black women forced to have caesarean births. Kennedy added his research that a college-educated Black woman is three times more likely to die in childbirth as a high-school drop-out white woman.
Kennedy’s research into Covid deaths among African Americans revealed that in America there were 3,000 deaths per million, where as in nations like Nigeria and Haiti there were only fourteen per million. He helped explain this disparity by noting that in 2008 there was a targeted closure of Black community hospitals. So, during Covid, Black Americans ended up in the hospitals owned by hedge funds. Not only were you isolated from your family and previous medical care providers who were familiar with your medical history but there was no one to advocate for you. These hospitals were given financial incentives to place people on respirators/ventilators and Remdesivir (which was toxic and a likely death sentence). He stated that virtually every death took place in hospitals, not in their homes. He also exclaimed that America had 16% of total deaths from Covid, but we have only 4.2% of the world population. Why is no one addressing this?
Bobby also discussed the chronic disease burden placed on Black Americans, with increasing diagnoses of asthma (especially in youth), diabetes, and obesity. He explained that we are being poisoned by a processed food industry with Black communities hit especially hard due to the lack of fresh food stores in their neighborhoods. One solution would be to bring back local community hospitals and medical facilities and disincentivize large corporations from Big Pharma/Hedge Fund Healthcare. He would also increase opportunities for community farming and access to local produce.
The panelists spoke on the economic struggles facing Black America. Bobby validated their concerns indicating that during Covid, thousands of small businesses were closed with “no due process; no just compensation.” Forty-one percent of Black owned businesses with three generations of equity will likely never reopen. But Mr. Kennedy did offer a known, working solution to economic disparities to which his father had introduced before he died. He described the Brooklyn Bedford-Stuyvesant community model as a program for housing, with simultaneous programs for jobs, education, welfare reform, health, and economic development. After his father died, RFK, Jr. had taken his place on the Restoration Corporation board for the next 35 years. As president, he would expand the idea nationally.
Addressing other issues such as Black communities being subject to environmental waste dumps, the school-to-prison pipeline, proliferation of laws for non-violent drug crimes which disproportionately targeted Black Americans, and mental health issues, such as addiction, Bobby offered thoughtful and meaningful solutions encouraging the Black Leaders and everyone listening to have hope. Angela Stanton-King, moderator for the event, ended the evening with a heartfelt comment: Let this be a moment of unity to heal the divide.
To watch this video in its entirety, here is the link:
I ask you to take this Sixth Step with me and become entirely ready to have God (or Good Orderly Direction, if you prefer) to remove all our defects of character personally and as a nation. A willingness to vote for Bobby Kennedy, Jr. shows your commitment to meaningful change.
