Rahim Islam is a National Speaker and Writer, Convener of Philadelphia Community of Leaders, and President/CEO of Universal Companies, a community development and education management company headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Follow Rahim Islam on FaceBook(Rahim Islam) & Twitter (@RahimIslamUC)
We keep asking ourselves why the Black community in America has not made more social and economic progress. Is there something seriously wrong with us? Is what they say about us true? Are the reasons why we are not moving faster that we are simply an inferior group? Our pales in comparison to other groups and minorities seem to be making much more progress than we are, and many of them have not been in the country as long as we have. Something seems out of kilter.
What makes matters worse is the fact that we have made significant individual successes across the board. In almost every area, Blacks have accomplished historic feats under some of the most challenging odds and obstacles. Unfortunately, our individual successes have not translated into group success. In fact, for the most part, the media has blown over individual gains. When you examine what matters most in America (wealth), the Black community is, and has been significantly behind by every measure in spite of individual gains.
Even today, I listen to the “class” struggle amongst Black people, with the constant reminder that “NOT ALL BLACK PEOPLE ARE POOR AND LIVE IN BAD NEIGHBORHOODS.” I am here to say that the math does not support these false claims. What is more true is that nearly 75 percent of Black people live in urban American cities where there are very few bright spots that one can point to where we represent a majority, and can see what can be considered as “Promise Neighborhoods” (i.e. real estate values appreciating, strong commercial corridors, strong education system, etc.).
At a later time, we must unpack the word “gains” because I would argue that no matter how well you do in America, if you are Black you must work harder and longer. Your accomplishments will never equal those of your White counterparts. The largest cohort of successful Black people can be seen in sports and entertainment, and if double standards did not exist, there would be no need for Black associations to help defend and/or fight for equitable treatment. Even when we have achieved perceived gains, when we truly examine what is going on within that industry or sector, we will find that Blacks are being discriminated at a wholesale level that is now become structural.
I liken our dilemma to that of going to the doctor. We are diagnosed, and given a prescription for treatment. Yet the problem that sent us to the doctor’s office is not only unresolved, but also has exacerbated to new heights. Many of the collective gains that we have made are in total jeopardy today.
Either the prescription does not work or the doctor has misdiagnosed the condition. If you treat the symptoms of cancer and not the cancer itself, the patient dies. If you treat the symptoms of AIDS and not the AIDS virus itself, the patient dies. If we continue to treat the symptoms of the Black community and not the cause, our community will continue to worsen (social and economic dearth).
Too many of us when trying to diagnosis WHY OUR COMMUNITY IS NOT MOVING FORWARD, take the approaches that our enemy has designed for us to take. These approaches keep us farther and farther away from getting answers, and ultimately stagnate our real growth with a series of FALSE DIAGNOSES. We have been educated to focus on the victim as being inferior, the cause and the culprit.
We have been trained to scrutinize the victim as a destructive force in our community. Our leaders have spent considerable amounts of time and energy evaluating the symptoms (i.e. unemployment, incarceration, self-hate, etc.) and hardly looking back at the start. None of these issues just magically appeared; they have grown over time and are the results of years of making.
I contend that if we are not looking at the root causes, we will never resolve what ills the Black community in America has endured. Even when we make great individual progress, we will error on the so-called progress, and will get a false reading of the patient.
Let me be perfectly clear: For every one Black person that has achieved so-called success, there are tens of thousands of Black people that are sinking socially and economically.
You can only truly evaluate the health of the patient by looking at the whole group and/or the majority of the group to determine if the remedy is producing improvements.
How do I know that the condition is not improving? Just look at our communities; look at our schools; look at our families; and look at our collective wealth, which is our ability to “will” ourselves into being healed. By all definitions, on which I will elaborate later, the Black community in America is on life support.
Our community is out of position because our families are out of position. Our families are out of position because the Black man is out of position. This condition is near permanent with the state of poor education, mass incarceration, extreme levels of unemployment and underemployment coupled with a self-induced cultural suicide. This reflects the significant number of children being born that are so far removed from the original causes. They are socialized with abnormal behaviors that are being sold as being normal.
The misdiagnosis of the Black in America has woefully failed the Black community and has been orchestrated by both White and Black leaders. The misdiagnosis has been done several ways, which include but not limited to the following:
• The inability to truly value the total and absolute damage (physical and psychological) that has been done to Black people under the rule of White Supremacy for almost 500 years.
Starting with the brutal kidnap and extraction of millions of Black people from Africa; the horrific and barbaric transatlantic passage; nearly 350 years of torturous chattel slavery removing all remnants of our rich history and culture and reducing us to being and depending upon our most animalistic nature; only to be followed with nearly 100 years of organized terror with the growth of KKK and tens of thousands of illegal hangings coupled with mass and legal discrimination via Jim Crow laws that further economically handicapped our people creating socially-economic disparities that thrive today.
All of this took place against Black people while America and White Americans were free to build and amass wealth that is used as a measurement of greatness and hard work and because the Black community, in many respects lacks this type of wealth, we are therefore accused of being shiftless, lazy and not willing to work hard.
• The insignificance placed on the economic disparities caused by White supremacy, which in essence has created “structural” negative outcomes for millions of Black families and children. At the end of the day, in America everything is sweetened when you have capital or access to capital.
To suggest anything different is an absolute trick and/or lie to deceive us, and to distract us from coming to understand the nearly $200 trillion of wealth that has been amassed with a good portion at the Black man’s peril. Not having capital in a capitalistic system is like being in a hatchet fight without a hatchet.
• The degree of “total and comprehensive” poverty that the Black community inherited since emancipation that was supposedly erased once we were “physically” freed. In addition to economic poverty (our inability to do for ourselves); we suffer from cultural poverty (our inability to work with each other), political poverty (our inability to understand the political system); and spiritual poverty (our inability to see our connection and our responsibility to each other).
• The fallacy held by many Black people and many liberal White people that the remedy is a simple one, and therefore can be resolved quickly.
You hear all we need to do is “this” or “that” without even understanding ramifications or the practicality inherited in the statement.
There are no shortcuts and whatever changes achieved must be earned. Romanticizing the issues will not get it done.
Any remedy must take into account that it took centuries to get here and it will take centuries to get out. This goes against the “microwave” results approach that accompanies most solutions that we have been conditioned to believe would happen. There must be a plan that each generation can advance that will benefit generations to come.
• The belief that any solution will require a “passive” and/or almost nonexistent participation of the Black community. Many White liberals have no problem in supporting us as long as they are the solution.
This is a fundamental reason why our issues are not improving. Whenever solutions are announced, there is never a clear understanding of who is actually going to do the work and how will we measure progress. Of all the issues we face, the Black community must be in the driver’s seat no matter how inadequate we might be in any one area. We must have the patience to build capacity and ride the learning curve.
• The belief that our issues will not improve until the Black leadership comes together to form a critical mass, which forms a “central leadership.” The Black community must do for itself.
There will never be a time when someone else is going to fix our problems. The group amongst us has the skills, knowledge, and understanding of the problems including the systems that hold us down.
The entire Black community is hoping that our Black leaders will lead by example and demonstrate what I have termed as “functional unity.”
