In my last post I discussed issues tied to the Black community and want to expound a little more before I move into the success solutions. Each time I hit a letter on my keyboard, I have to think about how really touchy it is to discuss anything relative to the Black community because most issues are emotional and are truly considerate private. Each line may "ruffle feathers" but when it is all said and done, I truly will lay out a competent plan of correction which will effect change for Black people and improve life for all Americans. There are many underserved groups, so my desire is to START with Black America before I address other groups. My thoughts are we must come out of "hiding" and address our social issues in a forthright manner or else nothing will ever get done. Not the traditional bickering and arguing along with the desire to "jockey for position" to allow for personal gain and exploitation of the Black community. As a race of people, we must move forward from handling things in an emotional manner and shift to a more intellectually sophisticated and strategic manner.
I had a friend tell me one time that Black people simply cannot or will not work together to really get things done. My response was to advise that it is currently a realistic perception but we do have to look at cause and effect before stay with that type of comment. First of all, the Black community has not had generations to develop wealth and its own positive, independent financial culture. I have noted before that we have only been able to legally vote since 1967 and have had to battle racism and true hate along the way. While there has been some opportunity, the social strata keeps Black people divided. We have to be realistic by understanding we are centuries behind and if we stay with the same operational models, we will get no further over the next 50 years!
We have to learn to embrace technology understanding united we stand and divided we fall and simply learn how to work together. We no longer have truly relevant leaders in the Black community. Unless it is an emotionally charged issue, we simply have not shown that we will unite and sustain anything but our individualism. Without the emotion, there is simply depraved indifference to social concerns in our own communities. When we take a look at our prominent community leaders, they are still the same leaders from the 60's and there has been no torch passing with any passion. Martin Luther King led during a toxic time and his individual passion gave us a sense of purpose. His non-violent approach is completely the opposite of how we handle negative situations today in the Black community. The younger people have aligned themselves with celebrities and do not even know the relevance of men like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Both individuals are relevant, but they are pursuing the goals of the Black community with antiquated social models which lead to the same results....minimal success. This is a technological and informational age and we are still "yelling" to try to get what we want! Who is here now to lead a mobilization effort from a financial and asset based perspective in the new millennium??
The Black community is just being pulled in so many directions. The only solution is to create a financial base which can force unity & pride in the community while limiting our reliance on the government to take care of our community troubles. There truly are quantifiable ways to fix our ills which will be discussed a little later in future posts. When you are muddling day to day, there simply is no focus or regard for learning how to work together to fix our problems. We have no understanding of where we fit nationally or globally. In addition, we do not understand our Black history and have nothing to embrace but the streets of survival. My perspective is that we "drive looking through the rear view mirror" in the Black community. That is to say we are not forward looking and are always running from our past. We have not socially policed our own neighborhoods and this has led to moral decay and a feeling of indifference. This disenfranchisement has led to a lack of respect for law and authority.
Unfortunately, Black people have always glorified parts of the criminal element because it went against the establishment or rule makers which did not include us. Why is it that Black people truly love the movie, Scarface?? I remember growing up and a lot of the Black movies glorified the street hustlers. The true dysfunction of it all is when the O.G.'s used to say in the hood, "respect the game and the game will respect you" instead of saying "eliminate the game". The mindset is the criminals of today do not have the same rules as the criminals of our day??? What????
We have some exciting topics to discuss and my goal is to educate the readers before we transition to actually effecting change. I am looking forward to it...are you??
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