But race is not a barrier for black achievement today.

The threat to the black present and the black future is the collapse of real values. The welfare state constituted and constitutes the mindset of materialism and the mindset that life is a social engineering problem. It's this mindset that stands today between blacks and their own freedom.

I see articles celebrating the new black middle class. And, in fact, it is true that three quarters of black America are doing fine economically.

But, regardless of today's incomes and the number of blacks owning their own homes and driving nice cars, what is the future of a community where family life is in such bad shape?

Only 29 percent of black households are headed by married couples. Seventy percent of black woman live with no spouse. Seventy percent of black children are born with no father present. Almost 300,000 black women each year destroy their own unborn children.

Many black women are doing well as professionals. I know many. And they live alone and have no children.

The collapse of black family life converges with the beginning of chapter three of black oppression: the widespread adoption of the idea that government plays a role in one's personal life.

It concerns me that blacks still aren't getting the message. The Democratic Party is celebrating its new power and interpreting their victory as a victory for old school liberal ideas about government power. And 90 percent of blacks vote for these folks.

Black history month is now just one celebration among many. Our calendars and our public spaces are increasingly filled with recognition of one group or another. Blacks, Hispanics, Women, Gays.

But time and space are limited. As we fill our time and places with these celebrations, pushed off the calendar and our public spaces are Christmas, in its true sense, and the Ten Commandments.

Maybe this Black History month we should be giving more thought to what really drives evil, what really makes us human and what really makes us free.