A Message From The Publisher
Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Proverbs 4:7 Jubilee Bible 2000
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr., Publisher, Westside Gazette
For me, this is more than a matter of education — it’s a matter of spirit. Too many have taken knowledge without understanding and turned it into pride when God calls us to serve with humility. I write this because true leadership must be guided by the Holy Spirit, not by degrees or titles.
We stand at a dangerous crossroads in our community — where education, instead of being the great equalizer, has become a wedge. Too often, degrees and titles are being used not to uplift but to separate us, to judge who is “worthy” of leadership, and to hold others back.
I have seen it in how we question whether someone without a Ph.D. can be president of a college, or how we dismiss the wisdom of a man or woman who has not sat in ivory towers but has sat at the feet of life itself. This is not progress. This is division.
Carter G. Woodson warned us of this very thing in The Mis-Education of the Negro. He showed how knowledge, stripped of understanding, becomes a tool of destruction. Some of our so-called “learned” have taken what they interpret as knowledge but missed the understanding that comes with humility, service, and love for our people. They act as if they know everything. And in doing so, they separate, they cut down, and they destroy.
But let me be clear: there is a degree that no university can grant — the degree of life’s common sense, shaped in the classroom of survival, dignity, and faith. It is every bit as vital as a diploma. If we fail to honor that, we dishonor ourselves.
We cannot allow academic elitism to turn into what I call “acadeamons” — demons of pride and arrogance that weaken the unity we need to move forward. True wisdom does not puff up; it builds up. And our strength as a people has always been in bringing every voice to the table, whether educated in the halls of Harvard or in the hard knocks of real life.
We must reclaim the spirit of a think tank — a clearinghouse for ideas, innovation, and solutions — but one guided not by ego or credentials, rather by the Holy Spirit and by the willingness to sacrifice. As the great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When God bids a man to come and serve, He bids him to die.” In other words, if we are not willing to give up self, then we have no business leading.
In the end, knowledge without understanding divides — and being scholarly is no excuse for being scornful.
So, I say to my brothers and sisters: let us stop measuring one another by degrees and start measuring one another by commitment, character, and courage. If we are not willing to die to self for the sake of our people’s future, then we must get out of the way.
Because the work ahead is too great. And the cost of division is too high.
