Where is personal responsibility?

Dave Newton, Las Vegas

Sunday, July 28, 2013 | 2 a.m.

Life is not fair. Some of us are born wealthy. Some of us are born poor. Some of us are smart, some are not. Some of us are athletic and some are clumsy.

Life is not easy. We all have personal challenges, fears and limiting beliefs. We all meet people who treat us badly. There is no shortage of reasons that people look down on other people. Some are just miserable human beings.

But we all have the choice to blame others or to take responsibility for our lives.

We can all agree that racism exists. But there seems to be far less attention on taking personal responsibility and changing behavior that is both self-destructive and that perpetuates the stereotypes that result in profiling.

The Trayvon Martin case is tragic, but there are other tragedies for the black community: the high dropout rate, the high crime rate (often black on black) and the fact that many black children are born out of wedlock, which vastly increases their chances of problems. The fact that racism exists is not an excuse to drop out of high school, to shoot someone or to abandon your responsibilities to your children.

Black leaders, including President Barack Obama, seem fearful of saying “we need to look at ourselves and take responsibility for our own lives more and blame others for our problems less.”

The only road to success is to take responsibility for your life and overcome the challenges you face along the way.