AMERICA SOON TO BE A HAS BEEN NATION

I have, on this blog and forums I have visited over the last couple of years, warned of the impending decline of the American economy. Of course, my theories and warnings were met with dissent from those who practice the belief in American cultural and economic supremacy. Others simply have a hard time digesting negative reality and stick their heads in the sand in the hope that if they can’t see reality, reality can’t see them.


The most common dissent from detractors, to my proposition on economics, is that it is invalid to assume a “Zero sum” in economics. For those who may not know, zero sums in the context of economics, is when one or more entities cannot experience a gain unless one or more entities experience a correlated loss. The opposite of "zero sum" in economics is the theory or belief of infinite wealth for all, meaning that simultaneously, it is possible for everyone to hold tremendous wealth.

I have never argued that an absolute zero sum exists in economics. What I have argued is that the economics of a planet of over 6 billion people is much closer to the extreme of absolute zero sum, than it is the opposite extreme of infinite wealth and opportunity. One thing that discredits the infinite wealth theory, in practice, is our dependence on finite resources to generate real wealth. There is finite supply of “prime” real estate or productive land and there is a finite and depleting supply of oil reserves, which fuels all modern economies. Meanwhile, the earth’s human population continues to grow, increasing demand for finite wealth producing assets and resources, while supplies remain stagnant or decrease. It does not take a mathematician to figure out the consequence of supply not keeping pace with demand.

On another note, there are many people, primarily black conservatives, who talk about the decline of “black America” as if black America is a vessel that sails in the global sea independent of white America. The fact that black people decks are flooded more than others is not an indication of black failures, because we are not navigating the running the ship. The water flooding the lower deck is not an indication of the navigational failures or faulty construction of black people, but rather, white America. You see, black people are aboard the vessel America and as the vessel sinks, the groups disproportionately on the lower deck will get the most water. This is what is happening in America and hence what appears to be black failures is really an indication of much greater failure of the navigation and structural integrity of the vessel America, run by white America.

The truth of the matter is that while America is feeling good about itself by juxtaposing itself with other Americans and the relative problems they have, many other nations are starting to surpass America in future economic indicators like educational attainment and so forth. Asia is experiencing a renaissance that is promoting its rise and Americas fall. The rise of China and India and its resultant effect on America should be a glaring indicator that yes….economics is much closer to zero sum than people want to believe. If it was not true, the rise of China, India or any other previously undeveloped nation should have no negative consequence upon any other countries, but it does.

I won’t go on further, but will provide this link to a FORTUNE magazine recent article concerning America’s economic future.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,1081269,00.html

We’re not building human capital the way we used to. Our primary and secondary schools are falling behind the rest of the world’s. Our universities are still excellent, but the foreign students who come to them are increasingly taking their educations back home. As other nations multiply their science and engineering graduates—building the foundation for economic progress—ours are declining, in part because those fields are seen as nerdish and simply uncool. And our culture prizes cool.

Many iconic U.S. firms—Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Texas Instruments—already do most of their business and employ most of their workers outside the U.S. Conversely, some of the most American brands you can think of—Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Jeeps, BV California wines—are owned by non-U.S. companies (Unilever, DaimlerChrysler, and Diageo, respectively). To complicate matters further, many products of U.S. companies are made outside the U.S.—Maytag refrigerators are no longer made in Galesburg, Ill., but in Mexico—while many non-U.S. companies make products here—your new Toyota may have come from Kentucky. Now add a few more twists: Your Dell laptop may have been assembled in Malaysia from parts made by American companies in Thailand.

All those university graduates in China and India threaten U.S. living standards in another way. Paradoxically, it’s not because they’ll end up working for U.S. employers, but because some of them won’t, finding jobs instead with domestic companies in their own countries. That’s a problem for America if many of those graduates are top students in science and engineering.

For the U.S. the loss of technology leadership could be historic. Without that advantage, there would be little to prevent living standards in the world’s interconnected economies from equilibrating. The rest of the world’s living standards would rise, and—at least in the near term—America’s would decline.

The more things change...

...The more they remain the same.

More examples of how black folks, in 2005, still are affected by white bigotry of the old fashioned type, back in my old stomping grounds. It is worth noting that one of the primary vehicles to wealth in this nation is home ownership. The history of housing discrimination and residential intimidation is one of the external factors that have created the wealth gap between blacks and whites. Also, schools are linked to communities and when blacks are intimidated or steered away from certain communities, they are also denied access to quality schools, fermenting the underclass status of African Americans.

The Taylor case is one of a string of recent incidents in which black people are being greeted with racial violence after they move into neighborhoods with no or few African Americans. With Detroit's black population increasingly leaving the
city for the suburbs, it's a problem some fear may continue. And it comes at a time when the issue of minorities moving in next door has become widely debated.

On June 29, ABC-TV canceled a series it had been hyping called "Welcome to the Neighborhood," a reality show that featured white evangelical Christians choosing from a diverse group of families to move into a home on their block. Some of the episodes ABC had planned to air showed white neighbors making bigoted statements toward minorities. After pressure from fair-housing groups, the network pulled the series.

•In Trenton two weeks ago, police reported that two crosses were burned on consecutive nights on the lawn of a home owned by an African-American man who moved in the week before with his white wife and their two children.

•In Warren last month, an African-American family came home to discover someone had trashed their house and scrawled its walls with white-power slogans.

The harassment took a psychological toll. Reginald Doster had trouble sleeping. The couple's daughter, who was 9 at the time of the arson attack, was afraid to sleep in her bedroom, which faced the back of the house. And their 14-year-old son, who had been an honor student, saw his grades slip.

http://www.freep.com/news/metro/minority18e_20050718.htm

I am sure that incidents like this will just go away if black leaders simply stop talking about racism and focus exclusively on black pathologies as the Negro Con would like.

If you try you might fail...

...But if you do not try you are guaranteed to fail! -Jesse Jackson


If you try you might fail, but if you do not try you are guaranteed to fail. That was a popular motivational phrase uttered often by Jesse Jackson to black youth and adults. Jesse also popularized the phrases; “I am somebody” and “keep hope alive”. Although this essay is not about Jesse Jackson, he is the icon that conservatives use most to exemplify what is wrong with black leadership.

How did these positive messages get contorted and framed as the promotion of hopelessness and failure in the black community? Of course, that’s a rhetorical question as I know full well the how and why. It is because of the conservative movement that defines itself antithetical to liberal ideology and hence must twist words of and agendas to make others ideology look bad, while juxtaposing theirs as what is good.

I am not attempting to defend liberalism, but rather, black leadership who has fought for black uplift. I had a long conversation with a good friend of mine who interpreted and concluded that I was promoting hopelessness because I said that there is a reason why black people under perform is society. He said that based upon what I lamented, that people would not even have a reason to try, once they hear the negatives about external obstacles against them. However, I never alluded anything of the sort.

What I want to know is since when does noting obstacles and opposition to success mean that one should give up and not try? It’s a false corollary to suggest that talk of racism and environmental impediments decreases effort and motivation. Indeed, it is better to overestimate your opposition rather than under estimate it. For the overestimation is likely to produce over preparation while underestimation is likely to produce under preparation. As long as people have dreams and hope, they will try regardless of obstacles. It is the people without dreams and hope that end up not tying. In order for me to make such an assumption, I would first have to conclude that blacks are weak and cowardly who simply give up in the face of opposition. However, I see black people not as cowards, but brave fighters against injustice.

Many conservatives want people to believe that talking about and fighting against racisms legacy upon black folks is mutually exclusive to internal focusing on efforts to improve the black condition. Conservative black folk are not interested in augmenting black leaders who have an external focus on fighting institutional and systematic racism and oppressions legacy, with new leaders who will have an internal focus. Rather, they seek the all or nothing route with the all being a total internal focus, with the elimination of leaders with external focus. Thus, nearly every time you hear a black conservative, he or she does not suffice with internal talk; they must criticize, ostracize and condemn black leaders with external focus as outdated dinosaurs whose ideology and methods need to be scraped.

The truth of the matter is that white folks have lost their patients, assuming they ever had any, with dealing with the black condition. Consequently, the voice and political conduit of angry white folks, the Republican Party, is sending the message loud and clear that enough time has passed for black folks to pull themselves up. Therefore, black folks coveting favor and promotion in the conservative ideology thus propagates the message to the black masses so that conservative whites are spared the discomfort of being seen as racist, despite its validity in many cases.

How long is normative human healing in regards to recovery from slavery and racism? Conjecture and false analogies and comparison abound. However, the consequence of premature expectations are not unlike the consequences of prematurely trying to take the caste off a broken leg that has not had the proper time and care to heal. What could happen is that the leg will be re-broken or heal improperly, resulting in a permanent limp. White folks want and expect black folk to be free of the caste because the caste is a reminder of their and this nations inhumanity, which they do not want to assume responsibility for. In steps the black conservative to do their dirty work by their attempt to characterize the lack of healing as being self inflicted. Thus, no longer the cause of white America.


Who is to say how long is should take for a people to recover from over 300 years of legalized racial oppression that manifested a physical, psychological, geographical, economical and social reaction upon a people? Where are the examples from history were an oppressed group of people who remained in the land of their oppression, amongst the oppressing group, who rose to equality as a minority in that land? Most oppressed groups of people in history immigrated and subjugated their way out of the legacy of their own oppression by doing to others what had been done to them, in degree or kind.


In light of that, it is obvious that those who want to ignore those external forces are propagating the belief that black humanity is “abnormal” and hence what needs to be targeted is black abnormality. They want people to believe that the black condition of inequality is the resultant of pathologies endemic to a genetic racial pattern, which manifest as blackness. Hence, working on these abnormal human behavior characteristics and traits is what they believe is needed for blacks to move forward and not attempting to fight vestiges of institutional and systematic racism.

Most people do not have a problem noting individual variation. We all know that some individual achieve less than others because some individuals have greater inherent capacities than others. Although most people are around the same, there are those few who separate from the average for the better and worse. Thus, among individuals, there will always be variations in performance. However, when you talk about races of people, you have to assume equality in requisite genetic attributes, lest you are forwarding the doctrine of racial inferiority. That is what conservatives do in their arguments. They forward the notion of black abnormality or inferiority, by seeing inequality the resultant of these traits endemic to black peoples more than others.

In conclusion, I think that the words by Jesse Jackson, which states that if you try you might fail, but if you do not try, you are guaranteed to fail totally refutes the supposition that traditional black leaders are retarding the effort of blacks by their focus on external obstacles. Black leaders are indeed encouraging black to be all that they can be and to try, regardless of the odds and obstacle against them relative to others.

The Elders

Over the July 4th Holiday, my family and I, plus two nieces of my extended family, squeezed into my Mazda Protégé and headed to see family and friends in my home state of Michigan. We drove from Minneapolis, where I now reside, to Milwaukee, where we took a brand new state of the art high speed ferry across Lake Michigan, saving us the headache of driving through the congested and always under construction highways of ChicagoLand.

I try to get back to Michigan as much as possible as my parents are not getting any younger and I want my children to be exposed as much as possible to them. This trip was really no different from the rest, aside from taking the Ferry, which I recommend for anyone who is heading to Michigan or Ontario Canada from the upper West. It’s fast, convenient and scenic. Aside from that, my father’s brother (my uncle of course) stopped by while I was visiting and we had about an hour long conversation. He will be 80 years old on his coming birthday.

I had done a little research a few years back, when I was visiting my parent’s state of birth, which is Mississippi. While there I looked through state archives and went back through records to find my lineage on my fathers side. The farthest back I could get was 1860 and the name of a slave that I am a descendant of. As I was sharing this information with my uncle and mentioned the name of the slave, he lamented “Oh yeah…I can remember talking with him many times in my youth. He lived to be about 93”. I was immediately stunned because I had never heard mention of his name by my father. My father was obviously not the family historian.

My uncle told me that my great grand father was a very dark and no nonsense type of guy. The most fascinating thing he told me, however, was the fact that my great grandfather had been sold to another plantation right before emancipation and that is how we got our surname. Before, he and his family were the slaves of the "Hohandle" plantation, spelling I am not sure of. Of course I found all of this mesmerizing and wanted to record it on CD so that it can and will be passed down.

Here we are in 2005 with slavery seeming and being framed as an event long, long ago, with no relevance to today, yet, I sat on my parents porch talking with a living individual who talked with a slave. It’s kind of like meeting someone who was friends with Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey, in that it makes them nearer to you and connects you with their spirits. The revelation gave me the greatest joy and inspiration to honor these spirits of my ancestors. Although slavery is portrayed as something long, long ago, it is really a lot closer to us than this country makes out to be the case. There are children and grand children of slaves still living in this day and time.

My uncle also shared with me other stories about living in the Mississippi Delta and how when he retuned from duty in the Navy having lived in a non segregated California, he went back to Mississippi and sat in the front of the Bus out of his newly formed habit. He told me that bus drivers used to carry guns back then. He said when he sat in the front of the bus, the bus did not move. He said he then remember that he was back in Mississippi and not California, but did not want to get up because he wanted to save face, so he just sat their quietly. Then the bus driver clutched his gun and said “Boy….do you want to live and do good….then you best get back there with the rest of the Niggras”. To this proposition my uncle then complied to move back. The next day, he moved to Michigan and later came back to get my father and some other siblings. This was in the late 50's.

There is a wealth of wisdom and experience stored in the memories and minds of elders. Its too bad that much of this information and wisdom is not being transferred down generations, along with DNA.

The Interrupting of the African evolutionary process! What was not discussed at the G8 Summit!

“Africa has the talent, but highly qualified scientist and technologist quit the continent in droves for a better life overseas. More than two out of every three medical officers trained in Ghana in the 1990’s work abroad, while more African scientist and engineers work in the U.S. than in the whole of Africa.”

In our continued quest to provide understanding if not redefine how the African in America, and in the Diaspora view our homeland, our condition and how we have progressed as a people over the past centuries we must take a look at the evolutionary process that is universal and is the natural process by which all societies progress. Every Society dating back to time immemorial have progressed from small social aggregates to large social aggregates i.e. Family, to Clan to Tribe to Nation to Continent. This is witnessed in the way the founding thugs established the U.S. They came as settlers, formed groups that led to the forming of states that led to the forming of the thirteen colonies that over time led to the establishment of the United States of America.

Many things happen during the evolutionary process that societies take; laws are established, political systems are formed, Educational institutions are set up, families are defined; culture is born by way of the interaction and activities of the people and their history but most of all the people within that society move forward as a group and benefit from all that their society do and accomplish.

I do not think there is anyone who will deny that most African Nations are behind the curve when it comes to being part of the developed world. The lack of running water, medical facilities, food supply paints a picture of Africa that would have one believe that these things are so because the African is inferior to all other people. However, intellectually honest students of history know this not to be true. Africa and African people has had our evolutionary process interrupted and the skill, intelligence and labor that was meant to help us along as we traversed the evolutionary ladder was co-opted and used to forward the evolutionary process of the European. The fallout from the interruption of our evolutionary process has led to most if not all African societies trailing far behind most developed nations.

The African is not the only people to have their evolutionary process interrupted, but what other people can claim to have their evolutionary process interrupted to the degree the African has and to the extent that the African has. People continue to make the mistake in thinking that America today is still America today without the enslaving of the African and murdering of the Native man and woman but what is even worse is the African in America who make the mistake in thinking that Africa today is Africa today without the removal of a hundred million plus of her people, without colonialism, imperialism and the spread of white Supremacy throughout the continent. The history and evolutionary process of the African has been so thoroughly interrupted that it is impossible to see what Africa today would look like without Colonialism, Imperialism and Slavery by the European and the Arab.

The African brain drain today is the continued manifestation of how far the interrupting of our evolutionary process has gone, when a people possess all the intelligence, and skill and know how to rebuild their homelands but prefer to take their skill elsewhere, what else can we say except they have forgotten the importance of building their own and growing with it rather than seeking individual wealth. The old saying that a big wave lift all ships is a lie when applied to Africa and African people, the resources that have been stolen, taken and simply extracted from Africa has been used to enrich other nations and other people as those who live in the country from which those natural resources originated live in poverty without electricity, without running water etc.

Today we are questioned and asked for proof that we “African People” can do for self and build our own lands up, but yet there is no offer to return that which has been taken in wealth and used for purposes other than to enrich the African. The whole of Africa has yet to be from under the grip of imperialism and colonialism for a century and yet progress in African nations are being judged or juxtaposed against nations that has had a three hundred year head start, not to mention access and usage of the very things that should have been used to make Africa the greatest and richest continent on the earth! These are the things that were not discussed at the recent G8 meeting as they wrestled over how to help Africa, nor were these things mentioned at the various concerts around the world.

Infant prejudice

Early on, I noticed a propensity in my young daughter to manifest a racial preference for whites. When my daughter, who is now two, was just learning to speak and say hi, in public she reserved the greeting for white folks only. Today, she demonstrates a clear preference for white strangers over black strangers, even allowing her self to be picked up and held by white females that she does not know, while rejecting being held by black females.

The other day I attended the wedding of my sister-in-law and at the reception I meet a friend of a friend both of whom are from Africa. As we sat at the table during the reception, one of her little boys got up and went and sat at the table of some white guest. The mother then stated that the she lives in a area that is nearly all white and that her child, who is three, prefers the company of whites. I asked her why she thinks that is and she said that aside from living around whites, whites have been friendlier and more playful with her children than blacks. She stated that whites know how to connect with kids better.

My daughter is around mostly blacks as she is always in the care of family members. She also does not watch TV, so I am rather perplexed as to why she demonstrates this preference. I do not dismiss the experience of the lady from Africa and in fact will say that it has been my experience also in the city that we live. But even before such environmental experience could manifest a preference, my daughter was displaying one. So even though I have also noticed that whites will initiate conversation with my daughter more in public, I do not believe that is the root of the color preference.

Our daughter was born severely premature and spent almost two months in newborn intensive care. The only thing that I can rationalize is that all the nurses in the county hospital were white and they provide her 24-hour care, although my wife there as well. Maybe this imprinted something positive in her mind about white people as they were strangers giving her care and comfort and she did not have the benefit of the care and comfort of strangers coming from a hospital staff dominated by blacks.

One of the consequences of history, I believe, is that whites are now in a better position where they can often offer more than can blacks, in may respects. People are attracted to status and success and whites have more of both relative to blacks, as well as different kinds, if not less, stresses. Couple that with the fact that whites are by far numerically dominant resulting in a Euro centric socialization, it is highly probable that many non-whites will gravitate toward whites. Those most likely to do so are those most divorced from history and how the negativity of whites in the past, against non-whites, is what has put them in their current position of status.

As an example, take the rationale for the growing numbers of black males (and black females too) who are dating whites. The reason that many black men seek out white women is simply because they find white women more attractive behaviorally, if not physically (result of Euro-Centrism). Obviously the black women, behaviorally, is the way she is due to her treatment or rather, mistreatment, in this nation to the degree that the white woman was not mistreated in degree or kind. In short, white women have not been damaged psychologically as have black women by the double blow of racism and sexism. Even though white women suffered sexism, the family unit did not suffer because the white male rule brought the benefits back to the family.

Also as an example, when one uses the phrase nice neighborhood and good schools, the subconscious or conscious connotation is white. In light of this, many blacks rationalize that to move ahead and provide their children the best opportunity and safest environs, they must surround themselves with whites, because whites have the safest communities and best schools on average. Even in Africa and the Caribbean there is propensity to see opportunity in white and hence immigration to white run nations for a better way of life. Even aid and missionary work primarily has a white face on the continent of Africa.

What has transpired is that contemporary white society has inherited the accrued benefits of status and wealth born from centuries of mistreatment and conquest of non-whites land, labor and lives. This does not mean that contemporary whites have not worked hard, but that the foundation in which they now flourish was built off the disentrancement of Native peoples land and lives and African peoples slave labor and lives. Now, whites of today can have the fruits of racism past without having to be racist and they are much friendlier and live in communities free from many of the problems of descendants of slaves and Native Americans.

Whites of today appear very helpful and attractive relative to blacks because they are in a much better position to be helpful and attractive. However, there was once a time despite how little we had, that black folks were the best friends of blacks folks and there is no reason that we cannot return to such a state. When whites were more overtly anti-black and antagonistic, that unified black people and when overt racism waned, black unity waned and individualism and intra-black competition increased to negative degrees, resulting in blacks often feeling more threatened by blacks than whites.

In conclusion, I do not want my daughter socialized to find whites to be more appealing than blacks, for in doing so, she will subconsciously put herself down, as well as, her parentage and ancestry. Ultimately, I desire to see all groups equally, but to recognize she has a commitment to help uplift her people from years of oppression. However, As black unity has waned and individualism has run rampant, competition with each other is doing to us what a racist society used to do overtly. While we war and compete with one and other, white folks come out looking good and many of our folks thus desire to connect themselves with “whiteness” in order to improve their lives and happiness, while seeing "blackness" in a negative light.

I am a firm believer in the individual and collective goal of “success and happiness while black”. Something is still terribly wrong when black people believe that they cannot find or maximize their success and happiness while being and choosing black. We cannot achieve equality or parity if we do not actually start treating and looking at each other in a more positive and supporting way. We must return to smiling at and greeting one and other. We must return to treating the children of others as if they are our own. We must return to valuing and respecting our elders and their wisdom. We must return to the ways when the safest haven for black people was amongst black people. We must return to the days that we could find or maximize our happiness and success while being and choosing black.

The Culture of African Americans.

Regardless of what environment humans find themselves in, there is the inevitable jockeying for rank which offers status and rewards relative to the environment. Whether humans find themselves in a prison, in a house of worship, in the inner city or the suburb, there is a culture specific to that environment which offers rank and status to competing members within those circles. Often times these subcultures are the offspring or reaction to actions from the larger culture that encompasses it, yet, different from.

What one must understand about human behavior is that it is guided by biological predispositions known as the prime directives of survival and mating. It is these two biological directives that result in competition to achieve such objectives in whatever environment that one finds him or herself. The desire to survive and to achieve rank, status and privileges is thus part and parcel to human or animal group dynamics. Consequently, one can or should expect the power of environment and culture to play a profound role in human behavior due to the environment or culture setting the value system and means for achieving rank.

When one looks at the African in America, otherwise known as African Americans, one can see the existence of a culture born from, but different than, the larger white culture created and shaped by white America. Of course, the creation of the African American sub culture is the evolution and summation of the experience of African peoples in this land. It is primarily the reaction to the actions imposed upon black people from the white culture, which includes slavery, Apartheid and other forms of discrimination, exploitation and violence targeted at black people throughout the centuries.

Despite the severity in degree and kind of the black experience in America, there has always existed the opportunity for blacks to achieve rank and status among other black peoples, whether in slavery or in an emancipated state of being. Thus, blacks have always competed and achieved rank and status among ourselves, if not among white America, for as long as we have been in this land. In light of this, black America has never been void of the opportunity for rank and status amongst our people, which has created a culture of intra-black competition which offers benefits for our biological prime directives of survival and mating, which just happens to be the same biological prime directives of whites and every other racial group.


It should be expected that those with competitive drive would seek status and rank in the culture. In most inner cities the alpha male, those strong and competitive, will naturally seek to establish rank by emulating and participating in behavior that offers rewards and status in the given environment and culture. In the black culture that is most often sports, entertainment or illegal activities such as drug dealing. If these youths were socialized in a different culture, they would be doctors, lawyers and CEO’s.

All humans, whether consciously or subconsciously, desire positive rank and status. The problem for many African Americans that to achieve success by the normative standards set by white America, they must resist the natural propensity to compete for rank in their immediate environment. This is because achieving rank in the inner city can and does often work against achieving rank by the larger societies normative standards set by whites. Whites are socialized by white expectation and emulation while blacks are socialized by black expectation and emulation.

The black culture of today is characterized by a hyper competition amongst each other, having been conditioned not to compete against whites, which has lead black people to feed off each other in a negative way. The “crabs in a barrel” analogy or syndrome is an example of how this division is helping to keep black people from putting up a good fight for social and economic parity with whites, along with the never ending presence of discrimination from the larger and dominant white culture. However, I must state again that the black culture is the direct creation of mistreatment and discrimination by the dominant white culture as some will surely suggest that black culture is internally created, when it is not. Black people were purposely stripped of their true African culture, which was replaced with a culture engineered by white supremacy to keep black people beneath whites.

Given that we have been conditioned to compete against, as well as disrespect one and other, the system of white supremacy has molded a reality where the frustrations and anger that should be directed outward are thus directed inward. The person looking at you all crazy with a “screw face” is most often another black person as any black male can give testimony to. This is because such a person sees you (another black person) as the primary threat to what they want, whether it is money, women/men or respect. When a black male sees a white male, he does not feel he is in competition with the white male, as a result of historical social conditioning and the decline of overt forms and practices of white racism against blacks. Consequently, when blacks become frustrated and angry, other blacks will likely absorb what should be directed at the “system”, but has been redirected inwards, which is how the white culture socially engineered it to be.

The African American culture is thus what allows drugs to be as devastating to our community as disenfranchised and poor black community it becomes a conduit to achieving social and economic rank through illegal activities. Add to the mix lax gun laws and the easy availability of weapons and you have a destructive mix of intra-black violence as poor blacks compete for a version of the “American dream” by warring with and destroying the lives of other black people. In many ways, we have been conditioned to see other black people as the primary competition and threat, otherwise known as enemy. For the longest time, society penalized blacks who tried to compete with whites or who manifested violence against whites, through the courts and through the intimidation of mobs. The dominate culture rewarded black on black competition and violence, while punishing blacks who attempted to compete with whites or who committed violent acts against whites. Such is an example of how black culture has been socially engineered to be self destructive.

This hyper-intra black competition helps to prevent the primary instrument to our rise, which is unity. Our culture offers status and reward and a means to achieve such by juxtaposition with other black folks, while ignoring the realities of white folks and the role they have played in our conditions. As long as we have something that other black folks don’t have, many of us have achieved rank and status, despite having much less than most white folks have. Consequently, many black folks don’t want to see other black folks rise up because such becomes a threat to their own status as status is only achieved by socioeconomic displacement and separation. In other words, in order to have status and rank, you have to have things other folks don’t have and in this case things other black folks don’t have as they are the primary juxtaposition for rank. This type of attitude is very pervasive and prevents black unity and the collective from moving forward.

These thoughts were inspired by my recent trip back to Michingan and my old neighborhoods. Thanks for reading them.

The importance of having our own Language...

"Note: this was written prior to my vacation, having went home, I can attest to the realities discussed in this piece as still being true today."

As I was out doing a little shopping today going from store to store, from swap meet to swap meet, I found myself in stores and shops owned by a diverse group of people including but not limited to Black folk, Asians, Arabs, Whites etc.. But the one thing most of these stores and when I say most I mean well over ninety percent of them had in common was the store clerks of these stores and shops were mostly if not exclusively Mexican men and women barring the owner and his family. Clearly this is because the majority of those who frequent these stores and shops are Mexican. However, I thought back to how our community shops and stores that were mostly if not exclusively frequented by Black men and women were also owned by people from outside our community but they did not hire us to work in these stores and shops as they now hire Mexican men and women to work in them. Then it dawned on me, it's the language!

It is no secret that Black men and women were robbed of everything that was uniquely ours and those things were replaced by things that were uniquely European. This includes religion, culture and the language we speak. Surely we all have thought about if not debated the fact that Black folk in America are amongst the small group of Black folk on the earth that speak one language exclusively and it is the language of our oppressor, but how often do we stop to think over how much this reality has worked against us.

During our enslavement here in America we had to develop a language system that was only understood by us, this was done to pass messages alone and warn others of coming danger or possible planned escapes or insurrections. White folk did not understand what we were saying and thought we were just talking and singing but within our words was a message for our people. This historical reality underlines the importance of having ones own language and demonstrates how empowering having a distinct language can be or at the very least it demonstrates how empowering it is to communicate with ones own people in a way that is different than how we communicate with others.

Today in America, Mexican men and women are a good example of how empowering having ones own language can be while simultaneously reminding us how disempowering being robbed of ones language can be.

If merchants who set up shops and stores in Black communities to make a living off of our dollars had to speak a language that was unique to us in the way Spanish is unique to Mexican men and women we would see a different reality in our communities. Imagine if Black folk in America primarily spoke Swahili or Yoruba and English was our second language, this would mean all outsiders looking to do business with our people and in our communities would have to learn our language or hire us to help them do business in our community versus just moving in and setting up shop. Present day realities says that outsiders would employ us versus learning our language on their own as witnesses in places where Mexican men and women are the majority of shoppers. However, being that we only speak English which is basically the language of the land, the merchants serving our community need to only speak it, thus there is not a need for them to hire any one from our community so that they can communicate with us as they must do to communicate with Mexican men and women who only speak Spanish.

The loss of our language by way of our enslavement and not having a language that is uniquely ours has enabled outsiders who come to this country and need to learn English (the language of the land) to do business here to also use the English language and the fact that Black Folk only speak the English language as their catalyst to prey on our people and our community thus exploiting one of the many fallouts from our enslavement “The loss of our language”.

The Return......

Back from Vacation..... it was great and will be referenced in the next few op-ed's of mine. Glad to be back... will answer all e-mails sent to me while I was away.

Pe@ce...

A Friday Rant

In listening to the rhetoric of black conservatives, who knowingly or unknowingly parrot the ideology and philosophy of white conservatives, I have recognized a not surprising pattern. The pattern that I recognize runs contrary to the supposed conservative’s principle regarding “Victimology”. You see, to take their statements at face value, one would purchase the impression that focus or attention on external forces that assault opportunity, is what keeps black people down, as opposed to the supposed external impediments keeping them down. Ergo, conservatives believe that it is the blaming of ones condition on outside factors, as opposed to looking within, that keeps people down.

The pattern is that conservatives do actually believe that people can and are held back by external forces, however, they reserve the exclusive patent rights to claim who or what is the victimizer of a given people. As an example, conservatives feel that blacks are held back by Black leadership of the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Many believe that the black masses are being led astray by these leaders focus on racism and not internal causes of black problems. Another example is the liberal ideology which implements policy which the conservatives believe rob people of the will and incentive to work and be personally responsible. Then you have the plight and poverty of the masses of sub Saharan Africa always being blamed upon corrupt black leadership. All these are examples where whites and conservative black folk are willing to see blacks as victims.

The more you listen to conservative rhetoric regarding race, the pattern and patent regarding victimology becomes clear. Conservatives play the "black victim card" subjective to who the accused are. When the accused is whites and America they say that focus on what others are doing to blacks works to keep blacks from doing anything for themselves. On the other hand, they are quick to point to other black people or liberalism as forces that are keeping black people down. As long as the framing or blaming of cause and effect is of the nature of black keeping blacks down or liberals keeping black down, its ok to validate and point out blacks as victimes. On the other hand, However, when the blame is placed on whites and America, it becomes a taboo and an invalid crutch that blacks should immediately cease talking about if they want to get ahead.


It is common knowledge that the plight of a people is often linked to other people and external constructs. People had little trouble linking the poor standard of living and freedoms in Communist nations to communism and its leaders during the cold war. People had little trouble linking the plight of the people of Iraq to its leader Saddam and his dictatorship form of governance. Hence, people were compelled by leaders in this country to not expect these people to be responsible for changing their plight, but were convinced that they needed our help to better their lives and to spread freedom and opportunity. Of course, it was ignored that corporate America profits from the spread of “our system” to other parts of the globe. Thus, victimology is often validated by the right when the right sees that it can profit from its truth and when the truth works against their interest they must seek to discredit and obfuscate the truth to protect their interest.

When it comes to linking leadership (white) and political economic construct to the plight of black people in America, it is quickly shot down as being invalid or an obfuscation to hide personal irresponsibility for ones own condition. The problem is that there is much evidence that America is the land of opportunity and also much evidence that this is a land of white supremacy. All one has to do is to look at the Senate and the heads of corporate America to understand who the disproportionate opportunity is really for. Whites have always thought highly of the intellect of the Asian, while historically categorizing the Negro at the bottom of the intellect totem pole. Consequently, their power and control resulted in a self fulfilling prophecy made true by unequal treatment and opportunities which manifested a condition of social and economic inferiority.

In conclusion, the dual beliefs of white supremacy and black inferiority, in a country dominated and lead by whites is bound to manifest a victimization against black people, whether by conscious intent or not. If people in Iraq can be victimized by a dictatorship and if people living under communism can be victimized by the leaders and institution of that ideology, than surely it is valid to believe that blacks are victimized under the system of white supremacy.

Bush to the People of Iraq Quote: "We will Stand down when the people of Iraq have stood up". In other words, we will help Iraq unti Iraqis get their act together.

Conservatives to African Americans: Paraphrase: "Pull your lazy selves up because helping only makes you more lazy, dependant and irresponsible!"