Universally Speaking
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)
Rahim Islam
I liken the Black community to the human body which is made up of a host of systems with each system being essential to the life of the body and works in conjunction with the other systems and organs (i.e. heart, liver, kidney, lungs, etc.), all under the direction of the brain.
When you examine the human body you have approximately nine (9) systems.
Some say there are ten (10) and some say eleven (11) but the actual number of systems is irrelevant to this discussion.
What’s important is that all of the systems are essential to the success of a functional and healthy body and all of the systems are all inter-connected and they work as one.
The success and/or failure of any one of these systems can significantly alter the other systems.
Unless the problem of any one system is diagnosed and remedied, they can cause the body to shut down and ultimately die.
The systems of the body are: the skeletal, muscular, immune, circulatory, nervous, reproductive, digestive, respiratory, glandular, and senses systems and each one of them are essential to the survival of the human being – you can’t have one without the other.
The human body also has the ability to heal itself and protect itself from disease.
You would be hard pressed to make the distinction as to which system is more important than the other because they all serve a purpose that supports the human body function.
In many respects the Black community is like the human body made up of a number of systems that also operate under a “structured” leadership.
Some of those systems are: family, political, religious, public safety, economic, education, cultural, etc.
All of these systems and more are needed to provide for a quality of “community” for its residents.
Unlike the systems in the human body that function under the leadership of the human brain that has been programed by the Creator to regulate all of the systems, at some point, even the brain and all of the human systems are led by the intelligence and wisdom of the individual – the “mind.” With human growth the mind governs all functions of the body.
The mind informs the body how it will operate and it will treat the body.
If the mind treats and respects the body, the systems of the body performs well at the mercy of the mind.
If the mind mistreats and dis-respects the body, the systems of the body are hurt and undermined which could lead to system failures that ultimately threaten the life of the human.
The community is similar in that it needs leadership to truly function and without it, you have chaos.
Unlike the human body, it doesn’t have the capacity to heal itself and protect itself from community disease – the people must do this.
They do this through community leadership which is represented by a combination of public and elected officials, private corporate, business, civic, and religious leaders, and the cultural values that community has adopted. If the community doesn’t have good leadership, then they can’t have the organization needed for community prosperity.
While the community has law enforcement, that represents the last line of defense needed to protect a community – when a community only has law enforcement and lacks leadership and/or a code of conduct that reinforces and governs good community behavior – then that community is on the brink of being out of control and a danger to its residents.
Let me make a few comparisons between what I believe are systems that serve the human body that have the same or similar functions for the community.
• Human Skeletal System (Physical Community Structure) – The skeletal system is the internal framework of the body.
It is composed of more than 206 bones and serves six major functions; support, movement, protection, production of blood cells, storage of ions and endocrine regulation.
I liken this system to the physical structure of the community – its roads, streets, highways, housing, community amenities, retail and commercial corridors and open spaces.
Like the human skeleton, the community’s entire “grid” is laid out to maximize and optimize this structure to support community life.
There are no missing teeth which causes you to lose more teeth.
Where you have neighborhoods that have well to great physical structure, you find great and productive neighborhoods that continue to appreciate in value.
Where you find the opposite, you find deterioration and community blight and neighborhoods that continue to depreciate.
• Digestive System (Community Policing, Safety, Code of Conduct) – The digestive systems involves the intake and breakdown of food into smaller and smaller components which can be absorbed and assimilated into the body.
In addition to the saliva and the enzymes that it contains, the digestive system is able to extract from the food all of the nutrients that the food contains and passes it through intestines with the waste being discharged.
In many respects the community function of this is the policing, enforcement, and code of conduct system.
The community that intakes activity (energy) that is able to use the best of the energy and has the “natural” capacity to discard that which is detrimental (waste) to the safety of the community is considered a good community.
I use the term “natural” because this activity should take place without force (i.e. when the body is backed up it must use a laxative to release the toxic waste).
When there is a disproportionate level of infrastructure placed on removing waste from the community versus the intake of positive energy, it is a community that will breakdown.
• Muscular System (Community Economy) – The muscular system is an organ system consisting of skeletal, smooth and cardiac muscles.
It permits movement of the body, maintains posture, and circulates blood throughout the body.
The muscular system is controlled through the nervous system.
Together with the skeletal system it forms the musculoskeletal system, which is ultimately responsible for movement of the human body.
I equate this system to the community economy. The stronger your muscular system, the more weight you can pick up and activity you can undertake.
Simply put, the more muscles you have allows you the opportunity to conquer the physical environment.
Equally as important is the community economy – if that economy is strong it can do so much for the residents.
Not only can it help to employ the residents and keep the circulation of money within the community, a key economic indicator of promise, but it also expends goods and services that the community has the opportunity to benefit from. It’s a win-win situation.
• Immune System (Community Culture) – The immune system protects and fights for the body against disease.
To function properly, an immune system must be able to detect a wide variety of viruses, worms, and germs.
No matter how the virus mask itself, the immune system can detect it and go to war to eliminate the virus from the body.
When you have an immune disorder in the body, the entire body is at-risk every minute of the day – a very simple virus could kill the human being.
Disorders of the immune system can result in recurring and life-threatening infections (i.e. HIV/AIDS, SCID).
Like the body’s immune system, the community’s culture also defends and protects the community from unwanted and disease-like ideas and values.
Not just the stated policing and enforcement, but the mental and spiritual policing that the role of one’s culture plays.
When the community’s immune system no longer works properly, we have a dilemma that we can call “cultural” AIDS – which represents the failure of the Black community in having the ability to defend against disease (i.e. immorality, violence, work ethic, self-respect, self-love, peace, etc.)
The Black community’s culture is under attack and is unable defend itself.
When the human body’s systems don’t function properly, they will produce a host of symptoms that impact the quality of life for the individual.
Equally, when the community’s systems don’t function properly, they will produce a host of symptoms that impact the quality of life for the whole community.
For example, if your nervous system begins to fail you, you might not be able to move your arm, leg, or some part of your body.
If this affliction is not diagnosed quickly and remedied – not only can the damage become permanent and the person is permanently handicapped, this disorder will disrupt every other system within the body and threaten the overall quality of life and/ or cause a quicken and premature death.
The failing of the nervous system will significantly alter your muscle capacity because the nerves are integral to the muscle and skeleton – everything is inter-related.
It must be noted that the symptoms don’t necessarily reflect the problem – they are only warnings that something is wrong with you.
We come to know that something is wrong because the physical symptoms impact our ability to not only function, but sometimes depending on the severity of the problem, can interrupt any sense of having a life at all (the person becomes extremely sickly).
We are then driven to seek medical help. We seek the attention of a physician with the hope that we can get to the “root” of the problem and that he can offer a remedy that will eliminate the symptoms and cure you of the “root” illness. How many people do we know that fell ill and/ or have prematurely died as a result of some nonactivity.
In fact, I’ve attended funerals of so many people that died from what has been termed “preventable” diseases – this means that but for the person’s lifestyle they would be around today (at some point later we will discuss this in more detail).
Let’s be very clear about the healing process: First) we must be in tune with our bodies and be discerning enough to recognize the symptoms – every expert speaks to the earlier the detection the better your chances of recovery; Second) we are able to listen to our bodies and seek medical attention – too many of us try to self-medicate and this approach only increases our risk of causing more harm; Third) the medical diagnosis is correct and the prescription is as well – it’s not automatic that the medical solution is the correct one and/or the remedy is correct as well.
In fact both have to be on target – you can have the right diagnosis but the wrong prescription; and Fourth) we have to, with fidelity, follow the prescription that the physician has developed – there are many times that we halfheartedly follow the prescription only to prolong the healing and/or increase the problem.
If you examine the systems that make up the Black community (i.e. family, political, religious, public safety, economic, education, cultural, etc.) and the deplorable symptoms that are manifested in a number of ways, you must wonder how the Black community is still alive.
Like the human being, you must be in tune with your community to understand what’s actually happening.
The community must also follow the same steps as the individual if it wants to recover – not doing anything is not an option.
Ignoring the problem as if it will miraculously disappear is foolish and irresponsible.
We must think that if we just ignore it, it will somehow go away.
You can’t pray away a life threatening disease that gets into the body?
How many people do we know like this (I’ll pray on it) and what happens, not only did the problem not go away, it got worse and caused the death of so many people.
What do the community symptoms look like? Let me give you just a few examples that are symptoms in the Black community: last hired and first fired with the highest level of unemployment and underemployment; highest academic failures especially amongst the Black males; highest poverty rates with the fastest dilution of middle class and the largest population of children living in poverty; highest incarceration rates of any other group; lowest number of business startups, business loans, and the circulation of dollars within the community; highest level of murders and Black on Black crime; highest level blighted and dis-appreciated neighborhoods, lowest level of wealth, etc. etc. etc.
What more evidence do you need to acknowledge that the Black community is very ill?
Trust me, this is not a knock against the Black community, this is just the process we must go through to fix it.
If the Black community were a human patient that finally paid a visit to the doctor – the doctor would say “it’s too late.”
The doctor couldn’t help because all of the systems within the body is failing and the doctor would have only one course of action and that is to place the patient in hospice and recommend that the patient gets his/her human affairs together because he/she would only have a short time to live.
If we’re fortunate enough to acknowledge that the Black community is extremely unhealthy (sick) and needs immediate attention, the question is where do we go to get help and expert attention?
Or do we think these symptoms are normal? If we think they are normal, we’re even sicker that the illness because we’re in denial.
We are sick because we have been made to be sick.
We are sick because we have been damaged by the nearly 450 years of chattel enslavement, Jim Crow, segregation, and outright racism of our ancestors.
We are sick emotionally and physiologically because the damage that this type of behavior has created a climate and culture of terrorizing the Black community. We remain sick because every American system still functions today with extreme racist outcomes that I call “structural racism.” This new racism is masked under the concept of a free market and maintains that we’re a “free market” society (this model is void of any responsibility for what America has done to the Black man and that because I say it – the playing field is leveled).
The Black community has been made sick and now the sickness is being used to enslave the Black man differently but is just as effective.
Nothing is clearer than the mass incarceration of our most needed Black men (i.e. ages 18 – 35) at a rate the world has never seen before.
If you want to destroy a community, you take the man out of circulation and you undermine the family unit at every level.
The international human rights organizations sight America as the worst human right violator on the planet because of this unfair and racist incarceration of Black men.
The Black community is sick because it must defend itself from, not only the structural racist systems, but it must defend itself against a media that is relentless in portraying Blacks as inferior, weak and worthy of the plight that it faces.
The White media says “see, how they behave” when there is no context for anything and in many respects – the outcomes we see, while not accepted, are to be expected.
The Black community is economically sick because we’re unable to chart our own destiny (self-determination) and we are at the same place in economic ownership (wealth) that we were at the time of the emancipation (we own less than ½ of 1 percent of the nation’s wealth).
The Black community must come to grips with the fact that, as a people, we have been seriously damaged internally and now the community systems that we need to defend we don’t have – BLACK CULTURE.
The Black culture, which is full of greatness, achievement, and accomplishment, has helped to propel and fuel our movement, and in spite of the enormous struggle that we’ve encountered and continue to encounter in America we’ve made tremendous progress.
Unfortunately, that system is failing us today and the Black culture has been hijacked and is no longer defends itself against community diseases that are crippling us.
Like the human body when its immune systems fails, a common cold can kill it.
Likewise, when the Black community’s immune system (Black Culture) is no longer able to fight against self-inflicted ills (i.e. indecency, low self-esteem, stupidity, ignorance, addictions, etc.) coupled with the impact of the massive loss of “daddies” for our little girls; “fathers” for our little boys; and “men” for our community, we now see ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR BECOMING NORMAL AND ITS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE WE DIE FROM WITHIN.
In my next article, I provide more information around the Black “Cultural” demise and what we can do to not only fix this most needed community system but to also save ourselves and save our people.
