Last week we were lamenting where we went wrong, especially with our young black males. We have problems and I think I know why. I’m gonna go deep so brace yourselves, but you will not get it until after the Top 20.Up to #1 it’s What’s My Name? by Rihanna featuring Drake. Tumbling to #2 is Like A G6 by Far*East Movement featuring Cataracs & Dev.Shifting gears to dance music. Climbing to #3 is Firework by Katy Perry. Falling to #4 is Bottoms Up by Trey Songz featuring Nicki Minaj. Falling to #5 is Can’t Be Friends by Trey Songz.Improving to #6 is Grenade by Bruno Mars. On the way up to #7 is Hold It Against Me by Brittney Spears. Slipping to #8 is Raise Your Glass by Pink. Down to #9 is Rihanna’s dance anthem, Only Girl In The World.Improving to #10 is Aston Martin Music by Rick Ross featuring Drake and Chrisette Michelle. Soaring to #11 is Memories, by David Guetta featuring Kid Cudi. Up to #12 is Who’s that Chick by David Guetta featuring Rihanna. Ke$ha’s huge and wicked dance hit We R Who We R falls into the #13 spot. I even heard the Captain on Mix 106 playing this the other day. Speaking of the Captain, I appreciate how he has reinvented himself and is now playing a more diverse musical selection since coming out of retirement and joining Mix 106.Up to #14 is Moment For Life by Nicki Minaj, a former essential new tune. Improving to #15 is Higher by Taio Cruz featuring Kylie Minogue and Travie McCoy, last week’s essential new hit. Y’all should check out Taio Cruz’s CD. I am currently pumping it in the car and it has several hits. You tend to know and listen to only those that you hear through the electronic media but toward the end of the CD are some poppin’ tracks. Do check them out.Climbing into the #16 spot is Fall For Your Type by Jamie Fox featuring Drake. Slipping to #17 is Louder (Put Your Hands Up) by Chris Willis, a sensational dance track that has had a good run in the charts.Making big strides to #18 is Rihanna’s next hit, S&M. This is yet another dance hit by the current Queen of Pop. Anybody care to challenge me on that? She currently has four tracks dominating international pop, hip hop, R&B and dance music charts. Plus, her star has been shining like this for a few years now. That’s enough for me to give her the title. Lady Gaga would like to have the title but she’s not there yet. Rihanna is the Queen of Pop. Lady Gaga is the Queen of Eccentricity! I think I just made up a new title!Falling to #19 is DJ Got Us Falling In Love by Usher (who won best Contemporary R&B Album) featuring Pitbull.And now, this week’s essential new hit. In at #20 is Better Than Today by Kylie Minogue. I have to say that this woman all the way from Down Under, looks fabulous. She has to be 40 by now and she is still looking better than women half her age. See the picture above! It’s good to have her back in the mix, this week with two hits in the charts bearing her name.Now back to this week’s word: Where did we go wrong. Part 2. A few things come to mind:1. Families stopped taking their children to church and Sunday school, or Sabbath school. So some two to three generations of kids have received no formal training in organised religion. Any form of organised religion teaches the basic tenets of living in a manner which creates a functional, healthy and sustainable society. So we basically have too many people who don’t know how to live in a manner that will create such a society. More importantly, these people don’t understand that if they don’t live in a sustainable way, they will ruin the society.2. Then we told our people not to work in the hospitality industry anything but hospitality. We are too good for that. We became snobby, facety, bourgey, and have forgotten where we came from, to our detriment. As a result we now cannot understand many of the people who work in the hospitality industry. WE didn’t want to be waiters and pot washers so guest workers took those jobs. We snobbed the industry for so long and now we are begging for jobs in it. Eight hundred and fifty people turned up for 150 jobs in hotels two weeks ago. This would never have happened two years ago.3. There used to be a safety net for anybody who didn’t do well in high school. That safety net was that this person could just get a job doing construction, in a hotel, in a retail store, etc. That safety net is no longer available due to many factors, most recent of which is the recession which is shutting down retail stores, restaurants, hotels, and construction firms faster than the thugs on the Island are gunning down each other!4. Somewhere along the way we lost the passion for the trades and told our kids to go to university and become doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc. Anything but a tradesman. Wrong. Big mistake. Everybody cannot be an executive, accountant, white collar worker; and most of our wealth was generated by tradesmen. The John Swans of our history are few and far between.5. But now the clincher. Closing down of the Technical Institute was bad, bad, bad for black people. So many young men work well with their hands and the Technical Institute was the institution where those who were good with their hands were embraced and celebrated, not meant to feel like second class citizens. Technical Institute produced many competent proficient professional technical people, many of whom owned their own businesses later in life. These men became very wealthy and successful. In addition to them there were other tradesmen who by sheer will and strength of character became millionaires, through the trades. Some of these dudes can’t read or write but they can build you a house with perfect structural integrity, to withstand category four and five mid-Atlantic storms. It is said that someone didn’t like all these black folks becoming too rich and too powerful and the Technical Institute was shut down, so that Bermuda stopped producing these type of successful, self-made, wealthy and independent black men. So now we have to bring in our technicians because we aren’t producing any of our own. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.6. The last topic, and it is perhaps more controversial, is related to the assertion that all the brightest black people back in the day went to THE BERKELEY INSTITUTE! Don’t hate me for being a proud Berkeleyite who put it in capital letters. But a wise man told me that the powers of the day took all the best and brightest black Bermudian Berkeleyites, and put them all in Government, so that they could be controlled. I have never heard anything so interesting, profound, and possibly true, in my 47 years! Think about it. Over the years, so many of the best and brightest black Bermudians have worked in Government. Sure, there’s a handful of others making big money in the private sector, but nobody is gonna successfully argue against me that there are not more in Government! The list is endless.7. So we’ve taken the best and brightest technical and professional blacks and either cut off their entrepreneurship and wealth creation or we have made them civil servants who are too afraid to rock the boat and can’t do so because of the conditions of employment of the Civil Service. Wow, this is good! I’m loving it!So what are we gonna do about it? I say we reverse all of it. This is not about pitting blacks against whites. We all MUST by now accept that we need to get past that. But you cannot deny what has happened and we must fix it. Soon! There is a way that we can create success, wealth and happiness for all of us. Let’s do that. But I’ve said too much and now run out of space. Peace..….....……DJLT.