Written by: KEVIN J. DUMPSON
(The Black Aristotle, Student of Life-Blue Collar Philosopher)
Have you ever wondered why black people fail to function as a community?
So have I, and this has led to my delving deeper into the cause of our lack of cohesiveness and support of one another as a people.
I’ve come to my own conclusion but Webster’s assisted in confirming my hypotheses.
As I view our people and the manner in which we move function and operate, I discovered that we were more neighbors than a community.
As a people, we appear to only live in the same geographical areas. We look relatively alike. Our skin has some shade of brown possessing melanin. Our hair is of a similar grade.
We even, for the most part, speak relatively alike and eat many, if not most of the same dishes.
Our social economic status is quite similar as well.
If we were to delve a little deeper into our origins we could all possibly even trace that back to the same States where slavery abounded.
Even with all of these similarities, we fail to congeal, move, think, and operate as a community.
Thanks to Massa’s mind games are designed to divide and conquer the people more than the individual. We’ve more or less become individuals in pursuit of our own personal Nirvana‘s, statues, and accomplishments and not so much concerned with the betterment of the masses.
As a people we appear to be all too willing to allow the next guy to be the voice for and advocate for or against wrongs being perpetrated against us as individuals, and our people as a whole.
According to Mr. Webster, a community is a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists.
I will add to this by saying, that it is also focused on unifying for the recognition, respect, and acknowledgment of society by seeking justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.
“Individuality must give way to the struggle for social justice”
Are we doing this?
I’d say, “NO”!
I’ll point my finger at most of you because you’re the reason we’re in the condition we’re in!
To strengthen my stance I’ll tell you that a neighborhood is a number of persons living near one another or in a particular locality:
There you have it! We simply live near each other in predetermined geographical areas assigned by the powers to be.
Even though we live in the same areas we don’t know each other‘s names, or families, know what each other does as a profession, or even wave to one another!
Come on brothers and sisters can we actually call ourselves a Community when we don’t know each other? How are you going to know my concerns without speaking to me?
Although some concerns for us as a people are universal.
Such as being profiled by police, being stopped for driving while black, being incarcerated at higher rates, receiving longer sentences, having shorter life expectancy than other races, having higher crime-ridden neighborhoods, being passed over for promotion on our jobs, being followed in stores like thieves, receiving subpar customer service because of our skin color.
These issues don’t even require you to speak to me to know that as black people you and I both need to be concerned as to whether we will be handled and treated as first-class citizens.
We’ve grown accustomed to being coddled because of political correctness. In this day and time, we need to move away from that and speak facts, telling it like it is. My purpose is to wake us up as a people. We need to get up off of our couches become active in our community and instigate change for our people.
Stop looking for your so-called leaders to bring about change, because most of the individuals upfront are merely up front and are not leaders!
Most blacks have blown their best chance at bringing about change by not voting. Black people have the tendency to point fingers, yet not vote to ensure we get rid of the soft-spoken, self-serving house Negros and put some black men and women in positions that possess a vision for our community, but also possess the backbone and intestinal fortitude necessary to stand against the systemic racism that has held us in check for centuries through oppression.
The next time you find yourself inquiring why we as a community are not upwardly PROGRESSIVE, realize that we are not a community and simply functioning as unneighborly neighbors.
Ask yourself what you’re doing to create a cohesive, PROGRESSIVE black community!
Complacency is killing us!
