"America's black community is now suspended in a moral vacuum. Life is cheap and meaningless, and murder, sex, abortion and robbery are viewed with the same gravity as ordering a Big Mac and fries. There is no accountability, only blame. And this mindset continues to be nourished in both the street language of [Al] Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and now the fancy Harvard prose of Sen. Barack Obama. In a recent speech of several thousand words about politics and religion, the Illinois Democrat never once mentioned personal responsibility, but did manage to talk about the importance of diversity programs and condom distribution. There is only one hope for pulling black America out of oblivion: Re-instilling a sense of absolutes, of right and wrong, and doing this from the grass roots up, one person at a time. Anyone who thinks there is an alternative is kidding himself. Blacks can continue to listen to the Sharptons, Obamas and the black intellectuals who have a thousand different ways to say 'it's not my fault.' The price will be a black community lost forever."

—Star Parker