Let’s put an end to the blaming; let’s unite and start aiming
In today’s society, the Black community wants to blame everyone else for the problems it faces, instead of simply looking in the mirror.
We want to blame the police for the very thing we do to each other on a much larger scale, any given day. We want to blame the school teachers when our children do not learn. We want to blame the white man for holding us down. We want to blame the government for failing to take care of us. We want to blame the system. We want to blame the devil. But what we do not want to do is face up to the reality of personal responsibility. Those things that were once valid reasons for our oppression have now become one-sided excuses—redundant and monotonous to the max. Believe it or not! Black African Americans are the only group on earth who do not think in terms of group survival.
Firstly, let us talk about “slave programming”. If you have never read the infamous plan allegedly outlined by Willie Lynch in his letter (or speech), I suggest you do. Whether he existed or not, the dangerous and damaging ideology of “making a slave” clearly did– and still does. Slave programming keeps Blacks divided, distracted and in denial. If we are unable to unify, we have no strength in numbers, no unified economic power and the divide and conquer strategy works well against us. Note when Black groups do come together, they are always overly concerned about who will be in charge, who will get the credit and who will get the money. The fruitless efforts to unify when we have been programmed to be divided are a distraction.
We become further distracted by waiting on someone else to help us when we should be helping ourselves. We wait on the government, we wait on food banks, we even say we are waiting on God – anything to avoid stepping up and handling our own business. Distraction then leads our people into a state of denial. Our women buy hair like they buy tissue, and our men bounce from woman to woman because they are afraid of real commitment; in fact, you could say they have been programmed right out of it. A lack of knowledge of our history is a lack of knowledge of “self”.
Next we have to concentrate our dollars into a unified collaborative. This will give us leverage to negotiate products and services, while owning the businesses in our own communities. When will that happen? Hopefully before the rapture. Money does talk, but our money is suffering from mutism, and has said nothing, when others come into our community and get it. Blacks should at least own the gas stations, hair stores, franchises and grocery stores where we shop. But we are too busy making every other ethnic group rich and foolishly fighting for our right to do it. We must support our own businesses and our businesses must do good business.
There is another “N” word that Blacks need to start thinking about and using…Nationalism. The Black community, or African Diaspora in North America, has cultural artifacts, religion, traditions, art, music, style, and shared values that all form a bond of cohesion. If this is properly nourished, it could become nationalism; but it has to be nourished and has to be by us, as a group. This can be achieved through family, church, school, organizations and institutions that do not depend on white funding. Once Blacks, as a group, become nationalistic, we then become strong enough to collectively create an economy in which people can strive to make a living. In other words, we must become producers and not continue to be just…consumers. Other groups come together because of their strong common culture, separatism and not integration—it saves them from being victims of capitalism.
Our people have been programmed NOT to work together. Jealousy, envy, suspicion, backstabbing and treachery have to be dealt with by our people and erased from our communities. We must care because we are connected, even if many of us do not realize that we are. What one does ultimately affects the community a whole. This is not the time for self-seeking agendas; you and I can never be as successful alone as we could be with our people, dedicated, and behind us.
As for education, everybody should be held accountable – teachers, students, administrators, parents, and more. We can start by being parents again; knowing where our kids are and what they are actually doing, instead of just trying to be our kid’s best friend. Too many parents in our communities want the schools to raise their children. We must participate in the schools that our children attend and check homework.
We must educate ourselves on the law, and learn to use them in our favor– including in dealing with police and traffic stops. We can run for local office or hold our local leaders accountable… if we work together.
Lastly, we must reclaim the right to define ourselves. We have to feed our intellect, not the entertainment craving portion of our brains, because whatever we feed becomes stronger. Once we gain momentum in the right direction, the habits, trends, thinking and behavior in our communities will change from self-sabotaging to productive. But if we don’t wake up and realize these things, no other group, agency or ethnicity will believe that Black Lives matter.
Aleuta continua— The struggle continues.
