Black Unity - A Start

It seems that every ethnic group in America seems to stick together, except for the African American. We need to get rid of that hate one another slave mentality and band together. That means buy black, support black, recreate our communities, educate our children, and love ourselves. We have endured a lot, and still are suffering. Though we built this country in a wham bam no thank you man sense, we still bear the brunt - are left picking up the scraps. Well its time for us to say to hell with the scraps and reclaim our destinies as a nation - a Black Nation. A Black President of the United States of America cannot deliver us from the brink of extinction – as should we not expect him to.  We must fight the norm and strengthen ourselves.  No one individual can do it for us.  So if it means spending more money to patronize black owned businesses in our community, giving it that extra effort to support black goods and services, so be it.  Doing other than what comes so easy can speak volumes.  Supporting our own, when it is cheaper and more convenient to spend our hard earned money elsewhere would be a start.  Step around the temptations that have been conveniently laid at our doorstep and we will move toward the empowerment of the black race in America.  We would become an economic force, as well as a social one.  Our issues no longer will be ignored, but addressed.  We are our second worse enemy, second only to the system designed to keep us in the lower tier of society.  Stop trying to emulate what we think we would be accepted as and return to our roots.  A tree with strong roots will eventually yield sweeter and more plentiful fruits, as a tree with its roots not embedded deeply in the soil will eventually fall.  You cannot expect to grow and cultivate a banana tree as you would an apple tree, as they have different requirements to reach their full potential.  We, Black America, must dig deep inside and sew our own seeds of success, and spread those seeds until we have a self sustaining community as does every other ethnic group in America.  We need lenders, property owners, goods and services.  Then the buck would stop here.

The time for talk is over, we have come a long way - Slavery, Slave Resistance, Freedom, Segregation, Integration, Back to Africa Campaign, Civil Rights Movement, Black Panther Party, Black Power Movement, Voting Rights, and a Black President.  We must end our regression.  When we were slaves, segregated, entered into a second class once we left our homes with the Jim Crow laws, being beat in the streets by the so called authority figures, etcetera, we united as one.  It is us that allowed that progress to be thwarted by being pitted against one another.  The Black Panthers splintered into the Bloods and Crips, who were provided with drugs to sell in the community.  When the crime associated with drug infested areas started spilling into well-affluent neighborhoods, it became a problem.  Instead of cutting the head off – the suppliers of these drugs, our government targeted the body – the small scale dealers and users, who were predominately black.  Liquor stores that sell crack pipes, needles, chemicals known to cut drugs, and other drug paraphernalia dot the black community.  You do not find that stuff elsewhere.  Targeted were those who cried out and acted to provide a platform of progression.  Our government effectively provided a stiff opposition to those wanting progress in the black community.  Our neighborhoods stand testament to what became of that stiff opposition. 

In the urban areas Blacks found work and formed communities, while Whites left – creating the term White Flight.  They sold their properties at a huge profit, purchased cheap farmland and settled that land in what was to be the suburbs.  Now, with it no longer makings economic sense to live in these suburban communities, they are selling to us again at large profits and buying up cheap urban land – land made available due to the exploitation and encouragement of the decline of our community.  We need not fall back into this trap and redevelop our existing community, supporting all who encourage positive change.  We need to get rid of the multitudes of liquor stores, the drug paraphernalia being sold in these areas, and put in place a system to heal the sick, industry to employ the impoverished, and centers of recreation and learning for our children.

Before we were consolidated in urban areas, we were robbed of lands we owned.  The single farmer was pushed out as a concept of mega farms took root.  They formed coalitions.  The whites refused to work with the black farmers and got better treatment from banks and the government, thus taking us out of our rural existence.  When the red tape did not suffice, sometimes the threat of violence and lack of knowledge of the laws of this nation, our land was taken from under us.  My grandfather owned land in a rural area in Missouri and we were shot at when we visited it and the cabin was burned down.  Eventually that land went into foreclosure and we lost it.  Another of my ancestors owned a farm in southern Missouri.  They were not too far from the times of slavery and had forged an existence with a family farm.  Not knowing the laws of the land, they were forced to sign over the deed to the property to a white man.  These and other obstacles were put up to deter now free Black farmers and entrepreneurs from owning land in rural areas, directing them toward the inner-city.

Now, we as a people are lost, but not out of it.  The steps that we have taken toward the advancement of our people have been negated by a mentality that we must eradicate.  Some accept mediocrity and applaud complacency and ignorance.  While others are making gains in education, we accept having the highest dropout rate in the nation with a sense that it’s cool.  While others are organizing and sticking together, solidifying a sense of community, we kill one another, degrade our women, ignore our elders, and poison our own community, with a mentality that it’s cool.  The free black man is an endangered species.  When these things that tear our community apart threaten white society, it is met with opposition from the government.  We use our tax dollars and military might to bail out their relatives in Europe, and share our information and technology with them, while we use those same resources to oppress Africans and any nation that questions white supremacy.  Whites have settled and stolen land in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, in addition to America, exploiting their resources, and subjecting the original inhabitants of those lands to a second class citizenship. 

We, Black America need a wake up call, and our near extinction doesn’t seem to be the rock bottom that will make us take a look in the mirror at ourselves.  Maybe our re-slavery will.  A slaves worth is the economic gains he or she can cause.  Considering the fact that we are unproportionately leading the nation in convicted felons due to a direct targeting by the authorities, we are effectively being led back into slavery.  To stay out of prison, one may be considered for probation and parole.  A stipulation to probation and parole is to pay court costs and intervention fees.  This is economic gain obtained off the labor of an individual that is of no benefit to the individual, thus a form of slavery.  This is not buying a juice that can quench ones thirst, or a new car that can be driven, but fees meant to pay the salaries of ones oppressors.  The labor of slaves went toward empowering their oppressors, not to the benefit of the slaves, thus my argument that we are being led back into a form of “civilized” slavery.  By any means necessary we need to turn the tide and re-establish a sense of community and an advanced standing in this nation, taking notes from Europeans, Arabs, Asians, Hispanics, and almost every other ethnic group that has migrated to America.