Every once in awhile I read a book that actually really does leave some sort of lasting impact on my life. When I was a kid, it was the imagery of Charlotte's Web that did it. As a late teenager, The Autobiography of Malcolm X opened my eyes to questions I had about race and dedication.
Now its "Our Black Year."
A good friend - she calls herself a book slut - gave me this book to read. At first, it sounded like it would be a nice story about some more crusading black folks who thought "how nice it would be to buy from only black businesses for a year." And while the book was that, it turned out to be so much more to me.
The Andersons of Chicago, a well-to-do corporate mom, corporate dad and a couple of commercial perfect little girls, decided they would spend one year in buying from only black owned businesses. And, of course, it turned out to be one of the most difficult undertakings ever for them. Well, you'd figure it would be that way.
But what got me was the book, written by corporate mom Maggie Anderson, was much more about the psyche of black folks and why we collectively refuse to see ourselves as a group, as do those who are Jewish, Italian, Korean, etc. These folks support their own while at the time setting up shop in black communities and taking all our dollars out into other communities that have little to do with any of our black butts. One interesting fact in the book that says it all: dollars spent in, say, the white communities, circulate there for weeks or months. In black communities - six hours.
In the end, it leads to black communities that continue to crumble because, well, we don't care.
Too many of us, probably myself included, who seem to have some education, good jobs and doing okay have just economically abandoned those who haven't. We've left the true idea of the "Talented Tenth" -- in which the more educated would work to pull others up with them -- in the dust. We've moved on up and then away.
Not to say that there aren't black businesses that operate in shady manners, continually run themselves out of business as they operate like fruit stands and wrongfully think we should shop with them. They aren't helping themselves or us at all.
But the issue is this: black folks have to take control of the economics of the black community. In case you haven't noticed, we don't control any of that. And when I say black community, I say that as a group of African-Americans who seem to have forgotten what our existence in this country is all about. We've allowed ourselves to become a splintered collective that forgot what our great- great-grandparents fought for. We were a group trying to get our slice of the pie. But we've become so satisfied by the individual crumbs that the greater world has tossed to us -- to shut us up -- that we've forgotten all about what made other groups, Italians, Koreans, et al, successful. Taking care of our ourselves.
That isnt about shunning whites, Asians, Japanese or anyone else. It's about taking care of ourselves, as they have done, to make sure we are pulling our own weight and contributing and sharing in the combined wealth that all of us as Americans should get. It's about bringing us all up to the same level, making us a bit stronger as a nation. It's not about being anti-anything. If someone gets that from this, then they are a complete idiot.
It's all about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and not making fun of those who don't have boots or who's boots are really pieces of cardboard that they've written the word "boots" on. It's about making sure we can all have a pair of boots.
Instead, we've become a group that separates themselves. A group that fought to sit in the front of the bus, only to choose to go to the back of the bus anyway. Of making fun of those who ride the bus. Or think we are too good to ride the bus.
So ask yourselves, "How am I REALLY helping my black community?" You'll probably be shocked at the true answer when you honestly look into the mirror.
