... the other Black experience
The State of African America
What do you think our communities need to become more competitive (educational of otherwise), compassionate, and economically self-sustaining?
Tags: communities, economically, education, self-sustaining
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by coollikethat on -
I thought I'd post this---a somewhat comic rendering of a very serious topic----it's the current issue of the sorry state of Detroit public schools turned into a Shakespearean play by this week's issue of the Detroit Metro Times (a local underground alternative mag--one of the D's best). It's an interesting take on a very serious topic, and it's done very well--check it out:
http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=14748
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Permalink Reply by Fashionfreak on -
I think television and radio are a big factor in the regression of our younger ones. my brain was fucking fried in highschool because I was busy bumping hot 97 (new yorkers know what that is) and watching BET non stop. Thankfully that did not last long though, and I have returned to my senses during my senior year. I was def not the person I was raised to be for my parents NEVER allowed me to digest garbage it was the peer pressure in school that made me. Anyhow now that I am in college, I do not watch television esp the crap we know now as reality tv and listen to the nonsense being fed to my people.
In addition to this, parents really should start taking their children to museums, put them in programs where they can develop a hobby whether it be art, writing, sports (something other than basketball and football come on people) where they can flex their creative muscles and explore. Oh yeah and encourage them to READ more. Trust me when I say many people I have met cannot spell to save their fucking life and it is sad which could've easily been prevented if they read more books at a younger age to expand their vocabulary.
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Permalink Reply by SaintGermaine on -
Yes, I agree that the type of media we consume plays a big part in the way we live our lives. It all boils down to the idea that we are often limited by our emotional and intellectual vocabularies. It's no conincidence that lowest common denominator art is what's dolled out most heavily to the population. When's it going to become uncool to be stupid? Diesel's "Be Stupid" ad campaign aside...
Juicyincouture said:I think television and radio are a big factor in the regression of our younger ones. my brain was fucking fried in highschool because I was busy bumping hot 97 (new yorkers know what that is) and watching BET non stop. Thankfully that did not last long though, and I have returned to my senses during my senior year. I was def not the person I was raised to be for my parents NEVER allowed me to digest garbage it was the peer pressure in school that made me. Anyhow now that I am in college, I do not watch television esp the crap we know now as reality tv and listen to the nonsense being fed to my people.
In addition to this, parents really should start taking their children to museums, put them in programs where they can develop a hobby whether it be art, writing, sports (something other than basketball and football come on people) where they can flex their creative muscles and explore. Oh yeah and encourage them to READ more. Trust me when I say many people I have met cannot spell to save their fucking life and it is sad which could've easily been prevented if they read more books at a younger age to expand their vocabulary.
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Permalink Reply by dj ceiba on
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a common feature in the hood is the most recent immigrant group coming in & beating out blacks and puerto ricans in our own neighborhood. it's as if we're still so angry at the system for injustices: slavery, land appropriation, rape, poverty imprisonment, etc. that as a group (or as two different groups in the same neighborhood), we refuse to participate. THEN when someone comes in and figures out the game (it's not THAT hard...), black and brown people LOVE to hate. extreme example: i've seen people just in from the domincan republic selling crack to puerto ricans in our OWN neighborhood. makes you say "WTF?".
it sucks to wake up and realize not matter what we want to be or think we are, to live in this society, we MUST be a capitalist. question is: are we an EFFECTIVE one (that makes capitalism work FOR us) or are we ineffective (& let capitalism work against us)? there's simple things that go on every day that most of us don't do until it's too late & we're in financial straits or even ruin. taxes are a big one. credit is huge. education is fundamental. SKILLS (sometimes fall under the category of education, sometimes not) are the biggest thing. if you don't have a skill that you can flip, you usually can only sell your labor & more often than not, laborers are open to the worst kinds.
so yeah, as some one who's lived a little, i can see how understanding how capital can work with you or against you is as important as self-knowledge in america. but i gotta agree with golem. NOTHING can replace LOVE. self love. family love. community love. some type of spiritual love. it's empowering & it is infectuous & it (along with massive injections of infrastructure & capital) overcomes human & systemic depression in the long run. & i'm steading watching south america. guys like hugo chavez & evo morales are in the political vanguard in the new millenium. they are putting love into practice on a political level. redistributing wealth, kicking out invasive countries and companies, implementing green industries, trading goods and services with other local governments instead of using money.
it's a catch -22 in black and brown america because we don't own anything to redistribute...soon come
Codenamejupiterx said:OH! I see!! Yes we cannot survive with out love! I totally agree, I think we are saying the same thing in different ways. Please correct me if I'm wrong.........I think you are saying that when wealthy blacks such as ball players don't invest in their own neighborhoods, they leave the people there feeling somewhat devalued, so to even try to identify with their ultra-successful icons(and former neighbors) they end up purchasing overpriced products (such as shoes) promoted by these same icons. But it wasn't the shoes they were seeking it was love...........and I'm saying that the reason that ball player didn't invest in his/her own neighborhood is that he/she didn't understand the fundamentals of capitalism and therefore he/she didn't find it important to invest in his/her community, leaving his/her people(the people in his/her neighborhood) feeling depressed, unloved, and overlooked.
Golem_3 said:sure, I'll explain it some more (without rambling/ or going off on a tangent).
People say "money makes the world go round. NOT love". But yet so many people spend money trying to get it.
hmmm
Then, also you have to ask yourself, what do those other cultures have/ or don't have?
I can't speak for them, but I do know that we (Blacks) can NOT survive without love (as the root/ the foundation).
We have too much going on in us (psychologically/ mentally passed down from former generations) that make it impossible to get over without a solid core based in love.
That love can come in many forms (and it should).
The Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan said it best- "without strong families, we don't have strong communities or children. We must REBUILD the Black family."
I'm not a follower of him (so, please don't think I'm "riding" him), but I do agree with his message.
Essentially, you can't function in the world around you, without nurturing whats INSIDE you.
There are more drug-dealers among us than doctors/lawyers.
Why is that?
Its not because we're dumb. Weighing that powder on those scales is not for the lazy.
It certainly isn't because we lack the desire to want "things" in life.
Hundreds of thousands of Black ball-players (NBA, NFL, MLB) could collectively develop their OWN country.
But, why are the children (from their old hoods) still suffering (emotionally, and economically) while walking around in $150 sneakers (just to make themselves feel "valued")?
You see where I'm getting at.
"Love" is not something thats seperate from practical solutions.
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especially when i was in college, i used to be REALLY pissed off at "the system" all the time. it was irrational and non-directed at that time & it was bleeding into all other aspects of my life. the old gnarled dread that runs things in black buffalo told me to focus on one thing (my thing is drumming of africa & the diaspora) & use that as a tool to focus myself AND improve society. since then, i've been using drumming & dance as a way to teach everything: math, history, geography, racial/ethnic/cultural/ class awareness, & of course, the skills of drumming & dancing. i've done it BIG in buffalo, NYC & pittsburgh (& on a smaller scale in loads of other places) for kids and adults with great results. not to mention, the drum's taken me all over the world and i've met LOADS of other people in other societies that function like i do here - it works.
i'm not saying that EVERYBODY needs drumming and dancing or that its a way to solve ALL of our community's problems, BUT it's an example of how we can put a lot of change into effect in several different fields at once in several different communities with a little LOVE (there's that word again), effort & knowledge applied. i've had a few miracles too, where i've put a kid on the path & when i check up (if i've moved away or had to get a different gig) more often than not, they're still grinding away AND, they've become intelligent, productive members of society. would they have done that anyway? maybe. but i was able to reinforce something positive that's innate. everyone reading this has something they could do that could help. if we all did, as a group, black and brown people would be out of the shitzdom in a generation or 2 - TOPS!
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so-called "mixed" people and caribbean latinos are black, too. skin color isn't the only marker of race. maybe it is for the greater society, but we have to know better and act accordingly. afro boricuas are tri-racial - we can get down anywhere.
Dragon of the Ghetto! said:WHat about Mulatos and Afro-Boricuas like me? you want me to DIE????
hidaya said:First we need to stop depending on the white system to educate our kids. They only teach propoganda to make our children feel inferior. Secondly we need to stop trying to promote this integration bullshit and segregate our communities. ONLY black owned stores, black police and politicians etc. Thirdly, we need to stop letting our children watch tv. It is the destruction of our community.
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this is not realistic right now. black an brown america is in a "get money" period where as a group we get education and build infrastructure in our communities. once we own some things - it's realistic to think that we might begin to build our own system, but in the meantime, garvey's dream of a separated society, however beautiful won't work right now. to get to the economic place where black and brown people can run a government, our own industries, etc. were going to finish what we've started in terms of getting and reinvesting CAPITAL into ourselves. unless, of course, you happen to be sitting on some tanks and stealth bombers to back up that anti-US talk.
as for education, i can speak from direct experience. my mom was a teacher & i've been a teacher for years. i know what goes on in the schools from a lot of different perspectives. yes there's a lot of bullshit & i've left schools that were too fucked up because i couldn't consciously participate (against my morals). BUT, to say that schools ONLY teach propoganda to make black people feel inferior - just isn't true. for instance, i went to a performing arts high school where i studied guitar. was it perfect? no. did a black man chair the jazz department? no. did i want to go to school because i knew i was going to play music every day? of course. all my other friends were kicked out of their neighborhood school & i was definitely going to college! there's thousands of examples like this every day where kids find something in school that they like to do that makes them excited about learning and they excel.
i agree with you on TV. TV sucks & it's killing our kids' imagination.
hidaya said:First we need to stop depending on the white system to educate our kids. They only teach propoganda to make our children feel inferior. Secondly we need to stop trying to promote this integration bullshit and segregate our communities. ONLY black owned stores, black police and politicians etc. Thirdly, we need to stop letting our children watch tv. It is the destruction of our community.
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Permalink Reply by Q.A.Bradford on -
Reform the adults, invest in the kids. Just taking basic primary to high school education seriously and engaging in more non-illegal local entrepreneurship would be a great idea. There will always be propaganda--every American including conservatives feel that, esp. with ll the multiculturalism. But that dissemination ability is the parents responsibility. The parent does need to, however, make sure children are coming out with proper mechanical skills in linguistics, aesthetics, math and sciences. Sports are fine for fitness and some friends but get the sports career bullshit out their mind if they aren't very promising.
People also need to take a more ethnic-nationalistic approach rather than the racial-ethnic one. Nigerian American and Dominican Americans are usually sending a good amount of money out of the African American economic sphere, lest there locally promoting their culture with businesses and services. Same race, different allegiances.
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Permalink Reply by Virgil Spight on -
I am well aware of the structural disadvantages that we all face but we are truly in control of our own minds and bodies if we really choose to be. Education is the foundation for a better future for black America. This involves not just traditional higher education but also moral education. Unwed mothers are a significant problem for the community. The problem is that mothers and children and not provided for. I was taught that if I was man enough to create a baby then I should be man enough to take care of not only the child but the mother as well. It is really heartbreaking for me to see so many single parent families headed by black women. Truly a tragedy. The foundation of the black community is and will always be the black woman. As she goes so goes the community. My mother always said to me that if I was not serious and did not truly want to be involved with this or that black woman that I should be man enough not to play with them and to leave those black women in peace.
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