"You are expendable!!!!" is the not so subtle message every Black man and boy had better heed as he makes his way through this life.

As I joked to a sister who founded a non-profit to assist single mothers, all society wants a Black man in trouble to do is curl up by the roadside and die!!!

My inner city neighborhood bears stark witness to legions of disposable Black men, ignored and dismissed because they can no longer be of value to others.

Being of value to others is the essential Black male dilemma. We were brought here to be the strong backbone of someone else economic and social order. Accompanying this beast of burden status came numerous presumptions against which we labor to this very moment.

Imagine how long your current female love interest sticks around when your income shrinks while debt and depression rises?

When we cease to being seen as productive or put another way, useful, Black men are discarded like wet food stamps.

Our challenge is to shatter anyone's assumption of our expendability. No one has the right nor authority to count a Black man out- only God and that man himself have that power!!

We have to tell Black women, White men and the rest of the world we encounter that our first level of value is the good we do for ourselves and then for those we choose.

Notice I wrote, "... those we choose." A lot of folks labor under the mistaken view that Black man exist only to enrich their lives, wallets and pocketbooks.

According to them, our worth is narrowly measured by how much of our motivational and monetary capital we blindly invest to further someone else's agenda.

One of the 21st Century's great Black community debates will occur five seconds after millions of Black men take control of their value and start dictating to those who benefit from it, what our terms will be.

Until Black men tell the rest of America we don't exist to make only you better, we will continue being seen as expendable, by Black women, by White men, by everyone... including ourselves.