Making Progress?

   Previously, we talked about politic-king, knowing who you're working with, and joint interests.  I can't turn back the hands of time, but just like the raps that come off these urban streets-- some of the credit goes to the neighborhood that produced them.  Every phase we go through in life, presents us with certain challenges--just like changes in the terrain: it's the person's response to that environment, that produces the genius out of the culture in which we see before us.  Yet, some credit has to be given to those who challenge us to do better--even when they attempt to bully us!  This is why Jazz is considered America's Classical Music art form and Blues is America's only original music in which all other forms of music are derived from.  It is produced from the conditions America impressed on the Blackman and Blackwoman.  The person's responses to our environment is what makes our attitudes and forges our abilities from the underlying significance of those cultural experiences.  Nothing gets tossed; all of it shapes your reality.

We, Blacks in America, are a phenomenon, living in an inner-city and rural environments, existing as a culture inside a culture--because of the manner in which our people came to this country and the color of our skin which makes us easily recognizable and separate.

 It is no secret that Western culture is the culture-at-large--no matter how many other cultures comprises this country, and Western culture alone is the dominate culture.  Nor is it a secret or a surprise that the nature of Western culture impedes the progress of our own subculture within this country--just as it does the original (Native) American.

   We, as Blacks in America, are descendants of a people who were abducted from their homeland for the purpose of exploitation.  And the people from Europe and America who orchestrated slavery in this country, did so for the purpose of extortion.  Like B-Divine says, "Some people are in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime."  These deeds (which happen in this country) left scars, not only for a lifetime--but nearly half a thousand years!  

      So after Americas period of bondage slavery was no longer in vogue, "Get in where you fit in," became the name of the game.  And where our people "fit" within the American fabric, is at best, a questionable proposition.   However, a relationship has been struck between whites, and it hasn't changed much in nearly half a thousand years.

  As a matter of fact, after 310 years of cost-free servitude for the making of America's wealth--our relationship is symbiotic.  It is a relationship where our economically depleted Black "subculture soil" is disproportionately dependant upon the American Western economic, educational, and political "top soil" for our own Black cultural development.  This places us in a "docile buck for sale" position--where the best Black athlete in sports, arts and entertainment, engineering and technological know-how, as well as, music and literary endeavors--gets sold to America in a wholesale, disesteem manner (similar to the act and process of prostitution).

     There will be no hostile takeovers by the workers here--there will be no mutiny on this ship! This is because most Blacks in America place more of an emphasis on their strides as individuals--than as members of an ethnic group who were stolen from home 458 years ago.

      Now when most of our Central Asian relatives (so-called African), come to the United States, they leave their other wife and family over there (because polygyny is not accepted as a mainstream custom here--just promiscuity)--that is if they have another wife--they'll send money from the States to support their family, extended family and fellow kinsman there.  Oprah Winfrey makes money for her own interest.  Bill Cosby makes money for his own interest.  Tiger Woods makes money for his sole use, reinvents his heritage (while not primarily identifying to his father's Black lineage), marries a White woman, cheats on her--and now supports her White tribe.

     Nat Turner did not think like this.  Sojourner Truth did not consider this path.  George Washington Carver was not this way.  Denmark Vesey did not think like this.  Harriet Tubman never pondered that road.  She led loads of people to freedom--and the majority of Blacks who live in Niagara Falls today owe their freedom and common heritage to her!  It was not Frederick Douglass' ideology.  His ideology orchestrated acts which led to the Emancipation Proclamation (freedom for Black people), which changed the way White Union men and White Confederates looked at Black men.  Nor did Booker T. Washington--and his acts inspired Marcus Garvey. . .

     After all of their efforts, we remain--for the most part, a scattered people, who have bought into Western concepts of rugged individualism--and are all out for the own interests alone.  You would have thought that the Black residents of Niagara Falls would have maintained bonds with all those who had made the trip with this 'female Moses' to the promised land--but it seems very little was done to maintain their solidarity as a special group of people.  Neither was enough done  to establish businesses that would have secured their interests.  Not even a local holiday to commemorate the journey.  We, as Blacks, have all these NBA Black millionaires, yet these rich Blacks don't have any rich towns where they've pooled their resources, securing some of their common interests.  They just live their separate dreams of oblivion, inside "The Matrix"--as Olympian gods with 'clay feet'--relying on the society at large to protect their interests and investments.  That never works.  Just look at O.J. Simpson and his Sport Commentator peers, or the Jewish businessmen in circa Nazi Germany.

      It is ludicrous to put your trust in a different stock of people, especially when the two groups don't see eye to eye.  And It's a known fact amongst Blacks, regardless of social status--that on major issues Blacks and Whites don't see eye to eye.  Many Whites believe we should never rise above being a servant or entertainment to the White man.

      I spoke to an Italian acquaintance of mine, who took a trip to Montana, a couple of years ago.  Upon returning, he said, while he was there, he saw huge tracts of land for sale in the area where he was, but when he visited the realtors--he kept getting turned down.  Finally (after being a little disheartened), he came across a woman who worked for one of the realty firms (who also had a romantic interest in him), that helped him figure things out.  She said, "You're not from these parts are you?  They can tell it.  They can tell it, and wouldn't sell land to you--even if you offer substantially more.  They don't want people with your ways around here."   He seemed a little disturbed by the discrimination--as we muttered, "Welcome to our world." 

     Just a few days ago, I watched an ESPN documentary on a football player, a defensive lineman by the name of Allen Bailey, from the Kansas City Chiefs, who grew up on Sapelo Island, in Georgia. This is an island off the mainland in the Georgia sound.  On this island, these so called former African slaves have lived a near traditional African life, from the time they came to America.  One of Allen's relatives, his great aunt, Cornelia Walker Bailey, traces their people's lineage back to 1857.  In Hog Hammock Community, where Allen Bailey grew up, 54 out of a population of 70 are his relatives.  Cornelia Bailey went over to so-called West Africa and witnessed that her cousins over there, "don't live much different than the Salt Water Geechees live, here in the sound."  At one point, it seemed, the people were owned by the tobacco merchant R.J. Reynolds, but they've been free--at least since the Emancipation and have had cultural, tradition, and family bonds from then till this day.  But today, due to summer resorts houses being built by outsiders on purchased land--the Salt Water Geechee way of life (culture) on this island is being threatened by the rise in  property tax--while those people in Montana will still continue to carry on with their world as they know it.  Now I know it's possible that R.J. Reynold's relatives may have sold their section of land to the outside world, but if they didn't and it was some of Allen's relatives who did...  Which would be the wiser, the one who made great profits personally but changed their people's way of life, or the one who maintained their way and turned a fortune down? You make the call.  All I know is some things (like freedom), you just can't put a price tag on--personally or collectively!

      And since we are talking about politics, and knowing what people you are working with--it should be fairly obvious to most people by now, that Blacks and Whites in America do not have the same joint interests, since Blacks are not considered equal by the dominant culture (that is, those in America who are of European descent)--and this unjust attitude of superiority and privilege, creates an environment which underscores what Blacks in America are culturally experiencing everyday.   Granted, I am not talking so much about race, as much as I am speaking on how we, as Black people, were introduced to the American scene by White slave traders and the relationship they and their kind established 458 years ago.  Therefore partnership under these terms would not be wise for Blackmen and Blackwomen.

   By politics, my person means, "The principles relating to or inherent in a sphere or activity, especially when concerned with power and status: activities aimed at improving someone’s status or increasing power within an organization: the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power." 

         The main concern of knowing the politics of others is to understand their principles related to their sphere of activities, their power and status--as well as activities associated with the governance of areas in which we mainly occupy (a.k.a., their concern about us as a people).  I also mean when my persons says, "politics of the company you keep," that my person is concerned with the principles in which other persons govern themselves with; ideas they keep concerning social graces; their morals, ethics and interests--as well as figuring out whether these areas they have, coincide with my own!  
 

   But I digress, we were talking about how to establish proper relationships with others, on the basis of having common interests, and similar enough politics to work together for the same common cause.  If we are not on the same page, as far as codes, morals and ethics, there is no deal--as far as trading and other business endeavors are concerned.  I have to be able to trust you.  In the work we're putting in, you must be reliable.  You have to be dedicated to get the job done.

    Many people fail because they want to turn "their girl" into something that she wasn't.  Believe as you may but, you can't turn a whore into a housewife.  And if you seem like you did--then whore-ing was only a "part-time gig" to her--something that she had to prove to herself: Some "good talking to," she had to give to herself.  And be this as it may, nothing useful is going to come from this, until this person (suffering from that state of mind), RESOLVES TO CHANGE IT.  I'm using the word she, but this applies to all relationships and situations that are unequally yoked.  "If it don't fit, don't force it!"

    Things have to run their course, before that person  gets their fill or gets the opportunity to see things for what they really are.  You can't get good things out of a bad or dysfunctional relationship.  Nor can you force a person to become intimately involved with things they do not know, or have experience with.

      That's where knowing the politics of a person comes in:  This means you ask questions and get answers which reveal the code that they go by, as well as, their values and interests are revealed for your examination.  Once these values are known, one must analyze to see what is common between you two--and how long can alliances be maintained; which causes are common, which are the same interests, etc.  Of course, these notes have to be updated as often as you possibly can (maybe as often as you talk to people and the conversation lets things out).

   It literally takes my being out to hear how quickly persons of today, are so willing to call someone a friend or associate and engage in enterprise after just meeting them a few encounters ago.  If I am going to help keep your "boat afloat,"  I better know what banner or flag you're flying and what codes you go by. . .

   I know that person maybe a good person, but sometimes they may be in a bad way.  When this is the case, they will have to get their fill, before they can create the attitude necessary to turn and walk away.  If you are to be any help at all, your attitude has to be for this type, like a couple of lines in Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing":  You'll have to "be standing on the side, when they get off their trip"--as opposed to trying to get in there and change what they are doing to show the person a better way.  When junkies are fiending, you better hide your jewelry--because it won't be that person, but their addiction talking and taking over. . .

    Many persons, seeing all that talent that this person has, and the potential that talent represents, will begin to rush the process, in the attempt to help the other person with their success--oft-times to their chagrin.

   In life, the amount a person goes through, directly relates to the amount of resistance that person has to learning the proper lessons.  Even though they may be good meaning people, you're "helping them out," might be interfering with their growth process.  And even though your intentions are good, your act will be interfering with providence--which makes it bad.  In the Christian faith, doing something like this is called trespass.  On the streets, if you help out an addict by shouldering one's burden, you may be "enabling" them to have more cash flow to buy more drugs...

   Just because you are in the same religious, political, economic, or social group, does not guarantee that your politics are or will be the same.  People weigh in at different rates of development: Every lawyer who graduates from law school, does not graduate at the top of their class.  Therefore, just because your group expounds on excellent principles and morals, doesn't mean the people who belong to your group will adhere to them or realize them at the same rate of development--nor does it  guarantee that they ever will.

   They say that you meet in life, the exact reproduction of your own thoughts.  Your "thought" is a misnomer.  You meet in life, the exact reproduction of your own considerations.  Consideration is a sense of your own values.  If the values you see in others, are like the values you know, then that's a good match--and it doesn't matter where you see it--that's a good match!

     We don't live in a perfect world, even if the group you are in is striving for perfection: And this has been an "Achilles heel" for Black people in America, who are (and have been) growing in consciousness--for as far back as my person can remember.  We, the people who are Blacker than blue, have been searching for our reprieve for so long--when we see something that has a lot of our answers, we want to make it the utopia, claim it to be the only way, and take a didactic, elitist attitude towards it.  Oh, it might be worth mentioning, that a similar quality is experienced by the brainwashed Black who has moved into a previously White community and thinks he's made it or been accepted--or the one who brags about  being the only one of his kind amongst a sea of White faces.

     Too often, because of the Western way which does not openly embrace you as part of it and one of its own, many Black people who were incarnated in North America, do not feel good about the relationship--or ourselves in relation to the freedom and privileges in this country.    Until President Obama was elected, many of us did not see the president as the father of our people, just as leader of this nation.  Black and White are two separate realities in this country, and if you are Black, you know far too well, it is a position where one is kept wanting. Many of us will not rise above the adversity that comes with being Black in America--we will blame the color of our skin for our stigma or feel inadequate (being around the "other" Americans)--due to a lack of understanding concerning the Black people's chronicle in the U.S., and the dysfunction it has brought about.

     The Creator of all, formed all humans for His purpose.  There is a divine destiny for Black people, and you must find that purpose, and form a personal relationship with it.  Put more care in considering, living, loving, and there will be more love and care in you.  You must establish a strong connection with that aspect of God that lives inside of your being, as the better part and conscience of this human existence.  This time is precisely when you have to reach inside and find your own integrity as one who is worthy.  But recognize, as you are reaching for those higher qualities, you must prepare yourself for those who are Black, but believe that "they are not alright (and nor is anyone else who has Black skin)."
 
     These types of Blacks are not going to like you.  They are going to accuse you of thinking you are "better than everybody else."  They may like what you have, and they may like the control you have over your life--but they feel don't have the powers you have--and this is why you're despised: they don't believe in themselves like you do.  This phenomenon is the direct result of the conflict between the two cultural environments that exist within American society.  Other ethnic groups may have conflicts but they came here of their own free will.  They chose this for themselves--we were abducted and not given a fair choice afterwards.

     These Blacks are some of the scarred victims.  There are plenty Blacks in America who know the events concerning our chronicle in America, but do not see it for what it is.  They fail to see the message which is being sent.  The descendants of our ancestors are like children--staring into a store window that their forefathers helped produce--without being compensated for their labor: cursing their poverty, as though their parents let them down.  They are currently longing for the things in that store window, while working for peanuts for the same store owner.  Being frustrated by the opportunities available to little urban innercity boys and girls--but still wanting what all the little priviledged kids have.  Resorting to all manner of things like drug dealing, gambling and stealing to afford such finer things in life: produced by fancy sounding company names, made by rich slave makers of the poor.  Produced in sweat shops by children whose grandparents were former slaves, prison inmates, and overseas persons and migrant workers, for less money than Americans make.  But sold to the buyers as though it was made with American labor cost and overhead (like Urban Outfitters, L.L. Bean, and Banana Republic).

     Yes, you must be doing something wrong: believing what you are told, as the powers that be "blame the victim."  Your poverty is produced by the former owners who made themselves a pile of Black gold from the sweat of your labor they stole: Now they pick and choose by quotas and government incentive plans--while the Japanese got repatriated for the wrongful treatment here in America during World War II.  Yes, you are doing something wrong.  You are not thinking for yourselves and researching our chronologicals and their history.  You are not reading between the line and having faith in their references, instead of finding documentation of your own.  You are relying on others who do not have a good track record, instead of transitioning into self-reliance!

     There is no utopia: perfection is something we strive for and work towards.  A perfect place is not a place you reach but an eternal goal.  Reading "Mein Kampf" (writings of Adolph Hitler), the writings of Nietzsche and early Nihilist writers like Franz Kafka, Imperialism (England then America), one would get the impression that there's a large number of Europeans suffering from delusion or depression, or that quite a few of them have a God complex.  If that is the case, I know it must please these beings to see the dependency that the civil (as opposed to human) rights struggles produced for America.
     
    Combine the American descendants of this sort (European ancestry), with the symbiotic relationship we, as Blacks have with American society--and one will quickly recognize that Blacks are mingling with mayhem accepting the current social and economic system.  It would seem more viable, at least,  to have the option of a readily available Black entrepreneurial base, near the innercity of most major areas--providing our own with at least, an alternative.

     This would require a strong sense of nationalism.  One that would be willing to research the company and invest in our own businesses by soliciting them and buying into legitimate Black businesses--rather than just buying stock in "traditional" American stock.  Investment firms which research amongst our own Black Enterprise to find and report which Black businesses are solid enough to invest in.

       Allow me to demonstrate:  Let's say you grew up in the innercity and both your parents were Black and you grew up in a Black neighborhood.  Let's say your parents gave plenty of love and affection.  They encouraged you, and were able to instill in you a belief that you could accomplish things, as well as, a sense of pride in what you have accomplished.  Your inner environment of father, mother, siblings and extended family will nurture and encourage that mind state.  You will face a few obstacles, but the interests and goals of the family will help to overcome that.  There are higher forces at work here.  There's family, there may be religion, but the family believes in you.  That's all good until you get older and 'hit the streets' or get out of kindergarten.  After that you begin to face more challenges.

   One of those challenges is your sense of social order.

  The ethnic environment in America is cultivated differently.  In the extended family, you might have a splattering of all the different types represented by the plurality or ethnic cultural tradition, as well as the human condition in general--but they are linked under a few common ancestors and family ties.  A lot can be manipulated through respect, family moral codes, and family bonds.  The ways and customs are a natural outgrowth from the relationships of the people which form it, and even the ill-behaved may be reprimanded but they are still part of the family.

   When we become older and interface with the ethnic subculture, there are familiarities and differences.  Chief among them is the fact that we are the same people, but come from different tribes.  We have tendencies that are common to Black people, but we have different ways of handling it--depending on the tribe.  There maybe common ancestors, paramount kings, tribal kings and such, but in America (due to slavery), most Blacks don't know who they are--nor is there a sense of belonging and comradery, or self policing--past block committees, business committees and/or chambers.

   In a family, no matter how far the plurality takes us, we still have the family to bind us.  In the street, we just have the diversity, with only police and social services to regulate and keep order.  The outside culture or mainstream society regulates the sub cultures and neighborhoods through city councils, ordinances, local laws and local law enforcement.  In ancient Rome, they had the vigilis, or watchmen, today we have police on surveillance, surveying the areas.  If things get to out of hand, state troopers and/or SWAT gets called in.  If that doesn't work, the national guard are deployed.  If that doesn't work, the armed forces swoop in and marshal law is enforced.

     On the other hand, we should not be looking for the ultimate society or religion to join.  For those who are conscious or self aware, one should realize that there are more than one way to gain knowledge of the true self--by using this method, we are saying that this is the one we know the best or are more intimate with.  There are no perfect people.  We are all composed of both positive and negative elements.  Therefore, the problem is not a matter of finding the perfect group, but an issue-by-issue examination of the person or persons--to see how many issues you and the persons you examine are on the same page.  You can be from different groups and have the same objective--and have several ideas in common but not totally be on the same page.  This makes the issue, not what organization one belongs to, but the level of a person's cultivation or growth and development--in matters social, political, economical, temporal, and the amount of enlightenment.  This determines the amount of work you can do together.  The issue is not a perfect match, but how long can you do business.  This, of course, will be on the basis of how the separate persons are "built."

     "Some people are in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime."  However, all your associates must have a sense of belonging to a people and of course a destiny for that collective group.  Man vs. society seldom affects widespread social change, without like minds working in the arts, sciences and humanities.  We must work together for the common good.

Peace and blessings,

    



C. Be'erla Hai-roi Myers