Burgess Owens: Time to Step Up

As we near the November election, the political yammering is almost unbearable. Except for former NFL Star Burgess Owens who realistically takes on the problems facing the black community, and he does not sugar coat it. Owens has never been shy about it, “Today’s generation came from BET group—the BET has been talking down our country for the longest time.” Black Entertainment Television is the top cable channel focused on the African-American community.

Today’s young African-Americans have been twisted up by BET, he said.

“They tend to be more racist. They tend to be more un-American,” he said.

“I was the third black American to be recruited by the University of Miami and I remember going down there—my goal was not to fail,” he said.

“That was really what allowed our community to think,” he said. “We didn’t want to leave our families down. We didn’t want to let our race down. We would work as hard as we could, so we would not fail.”

Owens said that when he was coming of age in the late 1960s, there was always a racial consciousness that was trying to break through and disrupt the traditional ways of life.

In those times in his hometown of Tallahassee, Florida, the black community was stronger than most other communities, black or white, he said.

“The community at that time was totally committed to the family,” he said. “We had the highest percentage of men committed to marriage. We had the fastest-growing middle-class in the country.”

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Wayne Creed

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