This is not America's problem if we want a good outcome.

America has shown what it will do - and that is why there is no more cotton to pick. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,

"America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds'."

America will harass, hang, and incarcerate Black men. America will bamboozle Black women into thinking that they can raise a family alone, with only food stamps and public housing. America will allow urban public schools to decline to the point where even those who graduate from high school only have the equivalence of a 7th grade education. America will replace Black workers with immigrants of every stripe. Just look at who the TSA agents, cab drivers, convention workers, and hotel porters and maids are today.

There was a time when sharecropper Black farmers pooled their resources to help one another to improve their lot. There was a time when those who migrated to the North made provisions to help their poor cousins to find a place to stay and to find a job. They didn't accept failure as an option. There was a time when families pooled all their finances to send the best and brightest in the family to college so that the chosen ones could help other family members. In short, there was a time when we took responsibility for doing all we could against tremendous odds to improve our lot.

Now, we speak about broken families, single parent households, 50% dropout rates in high school and high rates of crime as if these are the norm, or imposed upon us by some mysterious outside force. What is America going to do about 36 million Black people? The real question is "What are we going to do?" There is no end to programs, initiatives, organizations - and then there is the Black church which use to be the pillar of the Black community. The short answer is "We need to do more of what works."

We need to do more of what works, just as any other endeavor which looks for best practices to replicate. Sadly, the challenge has become greater as the current generation has declined from the last - less homeownership, higher unemployment, flat or fewer college graduates. How did we see the mountain top with Dr. King, and sink back into the valley with President Obama? Now, we can't even get a job picking cotton. What a slide!

My solution is to stop all the third person analysis, and deal with the challenges before us in the first person. The end of most analyses is a recommendation that someone else do something. This article is no exception.

My New Year's resolution is to only speak about solutions that I am personally engaged in or willing to support. When I see a problem, I won't ask "What is America doing about it?" I will say, "Here is what I am doing about it." No more analysis -- only a call to action beginning with me. I encourage everyone to do the same, since none of us can solve all problems. Then I will ask, "How can I help you? And here is what I need you to do to help me."

I will only participate in first and second person activities, and discontinue indulging in analysis "about them and what should be done about their problems." We are suffering from analysis paralysis.

Here is my final analysis. The conditions that impact Blacks more negatively than positively are not the result of a zero sum game (They win, we lose). Life isn't fair, but each of us can do something more about his or her personal situation. We live in a win-win society. Some win bigger than others. But the only losers are quitters. Those who accept their condition as intractable are losers. The rest of us need to focus on winning - first winning small, and then winning bigger.

There is a winning outcome scenario to every condition - education, employment, relationships. We can use adjectives like - poor, good, better, great - to define our position with every condition we face. Our actions determine which of these adjectives apply. Each of us can do something to overcome obstacles we face. The reality is that I have been dealt a bad hand, so I have to work - harder, longer, faster, better - to overcome my position of disadvantage. And when I do, I must help someone else.

This is not something that America must do. It is something that I must do. When I do, I influence change in America, because I am America.

Roger Madison, CEO

iZania, LLC