Universally Speaking
Message to the Community
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
There is a consistent conversation that happens in the Black community – which is, “We should be doing this,” “We should be doing that.”
Never do you hear, “who’s going to do it?” Yes, we have a whole of problems that seem to go unattended. In fact, it appears that the Black community, especially our Black leaders, are asleep.
The questions of “who” and “when” seem to be very reasonable question. Just as reasonable as it seems, it has been extremely difficult to determine who will have the ultimate responsibility for doing the things that we all see and say must be done in our community. Who is responsible for addressing our issues?
Why is it so damn hard for our community to mount any real and sustained defense of the Black community?
What are we doing wrong? Who will develop the Black agenda (what does it look like) and who is accountable to the Black agenda?
How will we hold America and all if its institutions accountable to our agenda? Yes, we have activism, sit-ins, boycotts, rallies, etc. – all of these things are reactionary.
When will we develop an agenda that we can marry with our activism?
Our issues are extremely serious and real and will not miraculously change themselves, issues like: poor education, mass incarceration, police violence, unemployment, and the many social and economic disparities that Black people have lived with in America for a very long time and have absolute political ramifications.
If Black lives matter, we must own the political infrastructure which means that Black votes must matter
. Everything in America is both economic and political just like the enslavement of our people.
There is no other issue that drives America but economics, which is how do we utilize scarce and limited resources against unlimited needs and wants and who will own the resources.
Whoever has the economics has the power and whoever has the power has the politics – they go hand in hand.
We should be addressing our issues from an economic perspective just like our competition. In fact, there is no other solution that we can have in America that is not an economic solution and there can be no economic solution without a political solution.
In addition to the damage that has been done to our people, this is why I constantly bring up our history in this country and the absolutely incredible disadvantage that we have had today and historically.
Where you start absolutely matters (economic race).
America has built a $150 trillion economy that is in play every day, and there is a fierce competition being waged for its ownership.
Most, if not all, of this economy was built off the American Institution of Slavery with our ancestors as its raw energy – do you think that now the children of this advantage who have inherited both the wealth and power is going to want to share that with us.
Give me a break. Our fight is an economic and political fight, whether we engage or not.
Again, who is going to take on this fight? What strategy will we develop and how will it start?
The simple answer is no one person or no one organization can handle the complexity and multitude of the many issues that the Black community faces at one time.
In fact, we don’t have any organizations that handle one aspect of our issues with any real degree of success because the issues are inter-connected and can’t be separated. In addition, most of our organizations are struggling because they lack capital.
Our non-profits lack endowments and our for-profits lack investment. Yes, we can overcome these challenges but we definitely can’t do them alone – it’s absolutely impossible.
If Black lives matter, Black organizations must matter. If Black organizations matter, then Black capital and Black politics must matter.
We will never have the success that we dream about without coming to this basic reality that politics is an essential component of our struggle. Some of our issues are not just local, but have national ramifications.
That means our strategies must be not only local, but connected to a national strategy which we don’t have.
In addition, no one organization has the capacity to develop a comprehensive strategy to address the issues we face – both historical and current. Most, if not all of the issues that we face are inter-related and inter-connected.
Let’s examine at the impact of “failed” public education. There is a direct co-relation between: education attainment and the level of employment one might achieve.
For men, having a good paying job with benefits is the difference in being a “father” to your children; legally providing for your family and not becoming a participant within the mass incarceration of Black men.
This is why the term “school to prison pipeline” is used to describe the relationship between education and incarceration.
Everything described above regarding education is political, so how is that we can believe that we don’t need a political strategy – it’s nonsense to believe.
We absolutely need a political strategy. Malcolm X once stated that “anyone who takes their children to the enemy to be educated is a fool.” Who is the enemy that Malcolm is talking about?
He is clearly talking about those that don’t believe in our right to self determination; those that have spent time fighting causes that are dear to our people; those that don’t want to see the Black man receive equitable treatment and true freedom, justice, and equality. It’s very clear that the “enemy” uses the law of the land (politics) to enforce his racist agenda and we must do the same to defeat them.
Because our challenges are inter-connected and inter-related, our solutions must be also inter-related and inter-connected.
This alone increases the reason why. “Who is going to do it?” is never really addressed.
Who in the Black community can answer just the education issue alone – let alone the issues of creating jobs as well?
So we go day-in and day-out living with these problems and, not only is nothing being done, the problems are worsening.
In fact, things are so bad now, other issues are popping up which can be seen in the demise of the “traditional” Black family and the erosion of the Black culture.
We have so many men in prison or unemployed, two parent heads of household (mother and father) have dropped nearly 70 percent since 1960.
This will produce increased negative social ramifications that, if not addressed quickly and precisely, will ultimately destroy the community from within. If Black lives matter, Black issues and the Black “agenda” must matter as well.
I spent a good portion of part one of this article talking about the importance that we honor our ancestors. Doing so requires that we reflect on their struggle and their pain and their suffering.
For some, this only increasing the probability that “Who is going to do it?” won’t get done. Why?
Because some of our “so-called” leaders don’t think this is relevant and I say they are dead wrong. Isn’t the essence of Black Lives Matter about holding America accountable?
Did America, just all of sudden, start to oppress the Black man in America?
How absurd a thought, when even our most challenged understand that the Black man has been victimized by White America.
For many of us, we just don’t understand the emotional, psychological, social and economic damage that Blacks have and continue to face – this makes the fight for accountability essential and much needed.
We can’t say that Black lives matter today and not take into account our ancestors and the absolute disregard for their lives having no meaning – we must say that Black lives matter now and in the past even though we know that our history in this country that Black lives absolutely didn’t matter in America.
What is the Black agenda, how is it developed, how is it communicated and to whom; and how is it enforced?
Each one of these questions must be answered with a high degree of accuracy and purpose if we are to say that Black lives matter.
I once heard that “we have no permanent friends or permanent enemies – we have permanent issues.”
No one will every respect us until we understand how America works.
Why should we always be asking people to do this and do that when we have the power?
The power lies in our ability to create an agenda that we communicate to everyone (public and private) and those that adhere to our agenda are allowed to continue to operate and those that don’t we oppose and fight at every level – it just that simple.
I don’t care if that person is triple Black – if he doesn’t honor our agenda he becomes our enemy and he must be removed from the position or office that he isn’t using to achieve aspects of the agenda that we deem important.
I hear all of the time that our Black elected officials have abandon us because they are not delivering to the Black community what its needs.
While there is some truth in that, the reality is that unless they are given a clear agenda that speaks to what we want them to do or not do, we can never lay the full blame on them – it’s unrealistic.
Today, unlike previous Black elected officials, seeking these political offices were part of the movement versus just having a job.
This has significantly watered down the political effectiveness of Black elected officials.
In fact, the way it really goes is that it is the business community that drives the agenda and the interactions with politicians.
Unfortunately for the Black community, this is not the case because the Black business community is anemic and for the most part.
White businessmen and special interest groups (i.e. unions) dictate their agenda to our Black elected officials.
I know this might sound strange but Black elected officials shouldn’t be considered our leaders. Why?
Because they are usually a vehicle for the delivery of an agenda and if no agenda exist, they will do what they think is the right thing to do, but never seems to have the impact that is needed.
In other communities, politicians are the last people that they recognize as leaders because it is the business community that dictate to politicians what it is they want.
Think about it. Who runs the city? What is it that they want? What is America?
The last time I checked, America and this city and this region are about amassing economics and creating wealth – that’s their agenda and anything or anyone that stands in the way of that agenda will be removed.
Read Part III in next week’s issue of the Milwaukee Courier.
