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)
In the previous two parts of this article I tried to make the argument that the Black community was too intractably tied to the Democratic Party, and in addition to losing the presidency to Donald Trump, the Democratic Party has been losing political control nationally over the past 30 years and, therefore, the Black community is losing as well. THE BLACK AGENDA IS NOT BEING MET.
The Black community is in a dire situation with nowhere to turn because we have placed all of our political eggs in one basket.
Unlike White Democrats, when they lose, they have the ability to withstand the loss and, in many cases, mount a campaign to regain what was lost.
We must always remember that there are Republicans, there are Democrats, and there are White People. White People still hold considerable privilege regardless of their party affiliation.
The Black community does not have that luxury. Blacks, not only do not have the leadership (capacity) to do the same as Whites, they do not have the resources.
There is a basic and general concept when participating in the political process, and is that political players and their agenda are never supposed to lose. Those that lose are the politicians themselves, but not the political players or their agenda.
The political players figure out a way to ensure that whomever is in office, there is a path towards implanting their agenda. Unfortunately, for the Black community, we are mere novices when it comes to politics, and because we lack real political leadership, we suffer.
Real political leadership is not with Black elected officials. This too is another example of how we have gotten things so twisted. Real political leadership can only come from the private sector, primarily from the business community. Who is responsible for our political leadership? Who is responsible for charting the course for developing and implementing our agenda? What is the Black agenda anyway? Therein lies the problem; we are without real political leadership.
The fact that we have so many different so-called leaders, in effect, we have no leadership.
The problems the Black community face are real and monstrous, and having the loose approach to solving them is equivalent to not doing anything at all. This model cannot work, especially when the opposition is well organized and well resourced. Some have put all of the lack of progress on the Black elected officials, which is flawed. While one of the more visual gains made by Blacks over the past 50 years has been to get increased political participation with Black representatives at local and state government elections on city council, state representatives and senate and in some cases mayor, it hasn’t been equitable. There are still too few. In fact, Blacks, while having the largest voting bloc in many urban cities, lack any real political power because the Black elected officials have refused to work together as a caucus.
Too many of our Black elected officials have assimilated and emulate the politics of their White predecessors and, therefore, the idea of Black liberation through politics has been lost.
The Black political accomplishments, while not transformational, have come at significant cost to the Black community. Unlike other groups, Black politicians are now considered the leaders of the Black community. Effective groups in America have private citizens and business leaders as the community leaders. They determine the agenda for the politicians. Politics works best when the politician’s agenda is driven by the private sector. In addition, because of the financial contributions made by the Black private sector to any Black candidate, they can also hold the Black elected officials accountable. When the Black business community suffers, or is weak, the Black community will suffer. THE BLACK COMMUNITY LACKS THE RESOURCES.
Unfortunately, during the same period of political growth Black business leadership decreases and this dynamic creates several problems for the Black community including: giving non-Blacks the ability to control the Black political agenda and politician; shrinkage of the Black economic agenda and delivery of its most needed outcomes; and false belief that many Black elected officials are the leaders of the Black community.
The Democratic Party and many White Democratic Leaders, nationally and locally, have figured out a way to fulfill the primal and basic needs of Black elected officials as political compensation to the Black Community for its loyalty. This is one of the numerous reasons why many Black people believe that the Democrats have taken the Black vote for granted.
In previous articles, I have written extensively on the damage that has been done to the Black community, and about the skill of the enemy in getting the support of the Black community without even acknowledging and/ or accepting it. Imagine if I poison you and the poison harmed you in every way without killing you. You were able to keep your mental faculties, but I significantly and structurally made you non-competitive; and even though I was always around, you knew who I was and what I did to you. Then, you still acted as if I had not poisoned you at all, nor am I to blame for your inability to compete. THE STRUCTURAL ECONOMIC DISPARITIES AND SELF HATE WE INHERITED REPRESENTS THE AMERICAN POISON.
It Is absurd for the Black community to have lived in America under the most extreme and oppressive conditions for nearly 400 years, and not truly understand the damage that has been done. Starting with the brutal kidnap and extraction of millions of Black people from Africa; the horrific and barbaric trans- Atlantic passage; nearly 350 years of torturous chattel slavery removing all remnants of our rich history and culture; and reducing us to depending upon our most animalistic nature in order to survive, 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 handicapped our people creating the social-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, which they use as a measurement of greatness and hard work. Because the Black community lacks this type of wealth, we are accused of being shiftless, lazy and unwilling to work hard.
The insignificance placed on the economic disparities caused by White supremacy that has created structural and negative outcomes for millions of Black families, should be number one on our agenda and yet it is barely discussed. At the end of the day, in America everything is sweetened when you have capital or access to capital, and to suggest anything different is an absolute trick and/or lie to deceive us and distract us from coming to understand the nearly $200 trillion dollars of wealth contrived by White America on the backs of our ancestors. THE BLACK COMMUNITY LACKS THE RESOURCES.
We spend most of our time focusing on the things we need now and we have very little capacity to focus on the things that we must control in the future. This is not only a leadership issue, but a resource issue. This is not a knock against our community; this our reality, and we must own up to it if we are ever to change the outcomes. We have very little capacity to plan for the future and to build capacity when we always fight for survival. We definitely cannot build capacity without resources: MONEY.
I know there are some who say “The Black Community Has Money.” I say this is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. The Black community has very little resources and the ratio of successful Black people, however you define success, is anemic especially compared to the White community. It’s just basic math. Ask yourself, how many wealthy Black people do you know? You will get your answer and you will come to understand the magnitude of this reality.
Our issues are more complicated than most people believe and not understanding that politics is more than just voting is a serious situation for our community. I call it political poverty, which is our inability to understand the political process. What is behind the political process? What is behind the recent political election where nearly $2 billion was spent (this is not just about voting)? When I say, we lack the resources, let me give you a few examples of the political infrastructure that the Black community just does not have:
• Black Philanthropic Foundations: Foundations that give away hundreds of millions or billions of dollars annually on causes that affect the Black community exclusively. Sure we have a very few individuals that have created foundations to make donations, but the scale is anemic when it comes to the magnitude of our problems.
• Black Think Tanks: Every political issue is tied to a set of core principles that are debated, studied, and ably defended because there are thousands of people who spend their entire careers on them who then inform not only the public, but also the entire political process. I know of no Black Think Tanks that have the financial capacity to operate at a competitive level and provide leadership to articulate and defend the Black agenda.
• Black Special Interest Groups: These special interest groups are heavily funded to sway the public and the political system to be sympathetic to their issues. They spend billions of dollars annually to get their message out to the public and they, in many cases, control and achieve political outcomes for their agenda.
• Black Political Businesses: PAC’s, lobbyists, lawyers, financiers, poll takers, message makers, campaign architects and managers, etc. are all unique businesses within the political process and they operate at every level. Many of these firms are either “R” or “D” and some are both. They represent a significant business sector within our economy and yes, we have Black people in many of these places, but there are no real Black Political businesses at the scale needed to implement a Black political agenda.
• Black Owned Businesses: The impact of having an anemic business community is directly tied to our start in this country and our inability to post profits needed to contribute to driving all aspects of the political process.
There are very few for-profit, Black owned businesses that are capitalized at the levels needed to compete and there are equally few non-profit Black organizations that are endowed to carry their work out in perpetuity. Most of our businesses live day-today and are unable to do what other businesses have been able to do for their political process.
As I have stated previously, politics is much more than voting and like most things in America, it comes down to winners and losers. Winners are competitive for a reason and as are losers. While leadership is critical, equally important is having resources.
In upcoming articles, I will elaborate on the Black agenda and how we must address both our leadership and resource gaps.
