Looking back at the state of Black America today we can't help but draw contrasts between where we once were and where we are today.
It is almost as if we have taken a step back in time. When we were "colored" and "Negro"; we owned businesses in Black neighborhoods, and supported each other.
In those days our neighbors were positive role models such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, ministers, policemen, barbers, etc.,etc. Then comes so-called integration, and we carried our money downtown and willingly handed it over to white entrepreneurs because we now could socialize with them.
We moved out of "all Black" neighborhoods and into what was formerly "all white" ones, thus starting the "white flight" to the suburbs. There is inherent belief in some whites that when a Black moves next to them the quality of life for the whites will inevitably go down. But we still wanted to be next to them nevertheless. Now what once were viable neighborhoods have degenerated into drug havens, dotted by crack houses with rampant prostitution, and Black on Black crime. No one can feel safe in these neighborhoods anymore. What once were thriving businesses in the Black communities are now boarded up, occupied by drifters and drug addicts or torn down.
Now that we have become Black and African-American, look how far backwards we have moved. Our Black neighborhoods are worse now than they were thirty years ago. We don't even own a grocery store in some of these neighborhoods, which is the lifeblood of any community.
We have become slaves on the corporate plantation in every sense of the word. When we attend college, our goal is to finish up, come out and "find a good" job, when instead we should be creating jobs. Colleges and Universities today are preparing us for the plantation. You do not learn to grasp independent wealth there. You are taught to be a slave to a corporation. Since whites own nearly 100% of the corporations the odds are that you will go to college to become a corporate slave to serve on the plantation (corporation) to make an already rich white man even richer.
Then there is the penal system. Laws have been geared to swell the prisons. This means more hands for free labor. Inmates get paid pennies a day for doing some of the same work that would require a decent wage on the outside...more slaves.
We are slaves to Visa, Master Charge, Versace, Armani, and Tommy Hilfiger, among others. We drive expensive cars, spend hundreds on our hair, nails and anything else that gives the impression that we are successful.
When asked about investments,savings, or retirement plans, most often all you get is a blank stare. This goes right into my next issue, which is economics.
Unless a people is economically strong, then they have no power, especially in a capitalistic society. We need to become educated to the benefits of developing economic strategies within our communities. No Black leader in recent history (40 years), with the exception of Elijah Muhammad, has stressed economic empowerment to the Black masses.
We are still "conspicuous consumers," even as late as 1999. The New Millennium must be a time of economic change for Black people. Billions of dollars pass through Black hands annually, without being returned to the community. We must invest, and reinvest within our communities. We need to believe that we can do this. The developing of a new consciousness must be at the top of our agenda in the new century.
Our children must be taught to be entrepreneurs rather than consumers. All we need to do is redirect our energies, and refocus our efforts, in order to do this.
Opportunities exist all around us daily, but unless we are ready to take advantage of them they will pass us by. To quote Jim Clingman, in his book, Economic Empowerment or Economic Enslavement - We Have a Choice, in his reference to a statement made by Harriet Tubman, "I freed a thousand slaves, and could have freed a thousand more if only they had known they were slaves".
It is this kind of awareness we need to strive for in the next century. We need to start developing a new consciousness about who we are, and where we fit in the grand scheme of things today!
By Charles H. Pennie
Copyright (c) 1999. All rights reserved