To tell the truth was an American television game show created by Bob -Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has been aired intermittently in different formats since 1956. I have borrowed the title of this article from that show. My question and basic premise for this article is Why don’t successful Blacks tell unsuccessful Blacks the truth? 

Why didn’t I walk up to the Black lady in Brunos on the east side of Montgomery, Alabama and tell her the truth when she, dressed in a house coat, bugs bunny house shoes and hair rollers yelled across the store: “Mary, do we need some lard? Why do we not pull Black homeowners to the side and say: “you should take better care of your property?” Why do we not serve as mentors to Black underprivileged kids and tell them the truth? 

Every day I see successful Blacks, but we never talk about the truth and how we can save our people if we simply broke down and told them the truth. We all saw the absence of the Black elite during the Katrina disaster. Generous White folks donated time and money to the recovery while the majority of successful Blacks looked down on the victims saying: “Can you believe how those people were living?” Successful Blacks do not fool with unsuccessful Blacks, because of the fear that unsuccessful Blacks will pull successful Blacks down. 

In his book, Our Kind of People, Lawrence Otis Graham describes two worlds for blacks: 

 “There were children who belonged to “Jack and Jill” and summered in Sag Harbor, Highland Beach, or Oaks Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard; and there were those who didn’t. There were mothers who graduated from Spelman or Fisk, and joined AKA, the Deltas, the Links and the Girl Friends, and there were those who didn’t. There were those fathers who were dentists, lawyers, and physicians from Morehouse and Howard and who were Alphas, Kappas, or Omegas and members of the Comus, the Boule, or the Guardsmen, and there were those who didn’t. There were those who could look back two or three generations and point to relatives who owned insurance companies, newspapers, funeral homes, local banks, trucking companies, restaurants and catering firms, or farmland, and there were those who couldn’t.”

Some believe that many successful blacks are propped up by whites and refuse to reach back and help poor blacks for fear of losing their status. Why don’t successful Blacks just come on out and tell unsuccessful Blacks the truth? I don’t talk about it to other successful Blacks, but I sometimes try to muster up the courage to ask why they as an individual refuse to tell unsuccessful Blacks the truth. I really don’t know why I can’t break down and tell them the truth. Is it fear? I just don’t know. Why do Blacks have so little to show for 452 years of slavery? 

Do successful Blacks have an obligation to work toward the equality of their race? Do successful Blacks buy into the theory that they are superior to the less fortunate Blacks? Will successful Blacks eventually begin to look down on unsuccessful Blacks as “Black Trash”? 

Will we ever tell them the truth?

In the words of my dad: “Stay away from the pig ears and fried pork chops.  Eat more fruits and vegetables.”