It is so good to see another person who understands what is truly at stake for the black community. We all would like to see the day that the black community can take pride in a black president. But that shouldn’t mean that black people should take any black person as president. So many people have lost perspective on what is truly important. Making history is more important than making a healthy black community.

Peace

Having a Black President means absolutely NOTHING if he (or she one day:) is not willing to acknowledge our story in a way the directly impacts policy change that benefit our community. I leave you with this question, where are our modern day Soujornor Truths, Harriett Tubman’s, Malcolm X’s and Dr. King’s? Maybe we should revisit Tubman’s method of freeing Black folks; just a thought:)!
As a people, we have lost our political will to speak truth to power. Unfortunately, living “The Good Life” is more important instead.

Correct. We have different experiences and therefore we have different viewpoints/perspectives. However, I do agree… money isn’t going to save the Black community.

theblacksentinel,

I concur.

Go figure all right! Those people know as well as all the rest of us that if we dare to cross the line dominant America has drawn in the sand, they won’t hesitate to strip us bare. These folks would end up right back where they started and once you start feeding at that trough you don’t or won’t want to go back.

So to think that all it is going to take is throw money in our pockets is foolish. Everyone going his or her own way in order to get ahead is the whole reason why we are so divided as a community. Everyone for themselves is exactly the problem.

I personally don’t believe that we should have to work harder than the average white person to get the same things. I believe that if I work equally as hard as Joe Whiteperson then I should have as much as Joe. Why is it everyone’s assertion that I should somehow have to work double or triple what Joe does just to break even? How does that make sense? I am not saying that people shouldn’t work hard, I am saying that their shouldn’t be this preference that demands black people do MORE than anyone else.

That is ridiculous. Thanks.

It’s more than just different experiences. We have totally different perspectives on what is and isn’t important for the black community. John White worked hard. He was a successful contractor working and living on Long Island, New York in a predominantly white neighborhood. But when the drunk white boys showed up in front of his house threatening his family, all of his hard work and sacrifice evaporated in a puff of smoke.

Money alone isn’t going to save the black community. A lot of black people get paid recompense by the dominant community for their abuses against black people. Individual black families get lottery sized settlements for police getting caught beating the shit out of their loved ones. But it doesn’t stop anything. The dominant community will happily write a check for getting caught abusing the few in order to keep the vast majority of us in line.

And every time it happens Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman, Will Smith, Beyonce Knowles, and the vast majority of high profile, deep pocket black people keep quiet about the disparity. Go figure.

Peace

I didn’t not comment on your last response because I concluded that we have had different experiences and therefore different views on this topic. Differences of opinions are perfectly fine and makes neither of our views any less valid. This is why I didn’t reply to your last response. I respect your view point.

I in no way strayed from the topic of the post and had no intent to take anyone down anywhere. I simply shared my view that perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing that Blacks didn’t rally around Rev. Wright… that perhaps that same energy should be used to come together as a community and help each other.

I’ve just always assume that a blogger is open to varying opinions on the topic of their post. Particularly when that opinion is presented respectfully. C’est la vie.

Here’s what I find to be agreeable blog visitation/commenting, from my travels around the InterWebTubez containing the sub-society of blogland.

I would suggest to Malik or 27th Floor or any other visitor of any other blog to start by reading the blog author’s essays, if you want to know what the blog author thinks.

And then, when you have a specific question relevant to the specific topic of the primary essay from which the comment thread originates, then ask the question there, in that comment thread.

If you have a general question about BPM’s views, send him an email. Don’t clutter a comment thread with questions that don’t bear on the essay in hand, or the comments following the essay.

I find it very disturbing that posters such as Malik and 27th Floor would pretend they are simply trying to figure out BPM’s perspective, while each of their comments seeks to take BPM down a few pegs, politely so, but still taking him down.

That’s common practice among the wolves who wear sheep suits.

You don’t really think that other people just have to work hard to be like Oprah or Michael Jordan do you? These people got their opportunities from people in the dominant community who needed their skills to fill a job. You sound like those people who tell kids that if they work hard and get good grades they’ll be successful. But there are only so many jobs, only so many opportunities, not everyone can be Oprah or Michael Jordan. We need to stop thinking that the key to success is individual financial wealth and start thinking like a community. Neither Oprah nor Michael Jordan is strong in their commitment to the black community. Money has a way of changing loyalties and allegiances. Vast quantities of money are not and should not be our individual goals. Call me crazy, but nothing good will come from the pursuit of wealth for the sake of wealth.

Peace

Yes, there is division in our community. That can’t be denied. Whether it’s the accomplished being ridiculed as “uncle toms” by their black counterparts or the impoverished being ridiculed as lazy by their black counterparts. We definitely are a bunch of crabs in a pot. It is sad. Because of this division is why I feel that we each need to make our own path and find out way. If one of us can do it, then all of us can do it. What makes Michael Jordan more capable than the next black person? NOTHING. What makes Oprah more capable than the next black person? NOTHING. We need to raise our individual self esteem and bust our ass for whatever it is we want in this country. My belief is that if Leroy made it so can you and you and you and you and you. If Keisha made it so can you and you and you and you. Yes, there are challenges. Yes there is bullsh!t to overcome. Whether we do it as a group or as individuals each one of us can accomplish whatever we set out to achieve. I just believe in the power individual passion and our ability to overcome. Call me crazy.

You’ve expressed some excellent points. When things happen between members of the black community and members of the white community, white people usually find the support they need from other white people. You mentioned Don Imus and Michael Richards. But it goes to the the regular white joe like Stacey Koon, one of the police officers caught beating Rodney King like a piniata, Mark Fuhrman, the racist cop from the O.J. Simpson trial who admitted his hatred for blacks, Daniel Cicciaro, the seventeen year old who had the audacity to defend a white girl’s honor by showing up at a black man’s house drunk with a white posse and got shot in the process, Joe Horn, shot two black men in the back when his neighbor’s house was being robbed, and even Fuzzy Zeller, who blatantly reminded everyone that Tiger Woods was little more than a fried chicken eating nigger after Mr. Woods won the Masters. These people get their support from the dominant community without having a plan. Why do people in the black community insist on waiting for a plan before we give our own such support?

Peace

It is interesting that you say “In spite of the discrimination that still lingers we must not paint a picture as though we are all flipping burgers due to “the man” holding us back. It simply is not true.” Then please by all means explain why blacks have such an underrepresentation in corporate America? Is it because we would rather flip burgers?

My point here is to say that WE do NOT have the cohesiveness we need in order to help those of us who can’t help themselves. When we have people in our own community who will agree with the dominant community that it is justifiable for cops to beat and kill our members, then we have a big problem.

And the problem is not that we have a few that agree. We have the majority of blacks with this attitude that “hey I made it, so the black community is no longer my problem.” We have people saying that the only way for blacks to truly be free one should be able to absolve themselves of the black community without guilt. Does this sound cohesive?

What is the first thing that a black person does as soon as they “make it”? They MOVE AWAY from BLACK people AND the BLACK COMMUNITY!!! You claim that all whites don’t support other whites. Well when was the last time that a white person “made it” out of a lower class and moved to the black neighborhood? Not to mention if you want to see white support then you don’t have to look any further than Don Imus, Michael Richards or Dog the bounty hunter.

These people were supported and given whatever they lost due to their disparagement of the black people back by a supportive white community. How many white people are going out of their way to give up white privilege so that equality can get a foot hold in this country? None! They support the fact that they and other whites have this invaluable invisible leg up on minorities. And please don’t tell me they don’t realize it.

If a plan is so important then by all means fill us in on what you’ve come up with. The problem is that we don’t have to have a tangible plan since the plan should be something that comes together when we come together. Black people need to stop this waiting game, always sitting around looking for a big shot leader. That is why we are in our quagmire. MLK is dead so we have no one to lead us. We are not a group of sheep who need to be led. When you allow yourself to be led you are pretty much going to slaughter. Ask the sheep.

We KNOW what the hell needs to be done, so lets come together and do it.

Thanks.

As far as putting together strategies goes, strategies for who? We are not a community with a common interest. We are a community with separate interest. Before we can put together strategies for a people with a common goal black people have to come together for a common goal. Too often we come together for separate interest or for the support of one of our own that does not have the interest of the black community at heart. Developing a strategy for a people that don’t support each other is a waste.

Peace

You keep coming to these argumentative conclusions about what I post because you are blatantly ignoring my point, which I will repeat for your convenience,

“… we need strategies and how to most appropriately exert our energy…”

and

“our energy would be better spent looking within our own community so we can do [better] for ourselves. Within our own community there are role models and resources to encourage, enable and uplift us so that more of us can realize our dreams and close the wealth gap that exists between us and the White community.”

and

“Identifying a problem is only the first step and in no way solves the problem. Having a plan is the imperative 2nd step. Following through with a plan of action is the 3rd step and the only real means of making a difference.”

Those 3 quotes are my point. Which you pretty much agreed with in your last post by saying, “But what is more important is to help each other. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And the chain called the black community has a lot of weak links in it.”

I don’t think further discussion is going to be productive. I’m trying, clumsily perhaps, to clarify the nature of the problem you want to address, and to get you to clarify how you propose we address that problem, since you assert that it’s imperative that we rally around Jeremiah Wright, or else resign ourselves to continuing to live in abject bondage. You, on the other hand, are trying to defend your position. I’m not interested in trying to prove you wrong. I’m interested in trying to discover what’s real.

By the way, if you’re interested in a discussion of the strength, cohesiveness and resilience of the Black community, I would suggest the book “Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals Are Failing Black America” by Algernon Austin. Peace.