Thursday, February 03, 2011

No dog in this 'Black Community' fight but....

Khadija inspired this post for sure. I wanted to talk about something else today but I was blown away by the last conversation on Khadija blog were she referenced Elijah Mohamed and his work with the black community. Khadija's Blog


In truth and as Khadija explained,  EM's work and models for his work in the black community remain the only few examples of models and strategies that are successful with black people (I can think of only one or two others). If you want to look at community building models that have ‘been successful’ in the past, then look no further than the work of Elijah Mohamed.

I was particularly ready to do a dance when I came across this statement by Khadija

I don’t have to like Elijah Muhammad (and I don’t like him) to tell the truth, and admit that his analysis was 100% correct about many things. And that he was very wise in how he dealt with with AAs’ unique psychology and pathologies.

Wow folks I was blown away by this particular statement, and do you know why? The reason is that the multitude of words that black folk have to say about community building etc, I am yet to come across this clear understanding among any significant number that black leadership is required to understand the unique psyche of black people in order to come up with effective models.

I don’t even think that black folks even require their leaders to meet the 'challenges' of black folks for real! All they need is mouth pieces who anounce that black people are decimated by HIV, Crime, Poverty etc etc, without even having a coherent idea (beyond call for government interv), at how blacks can organize internally to change the situation as EM did.

You know when you go to an interview and they ask you to do a presentation on, ‘5 issues facing XYZ and how I plan to solve them', well I think nobody is even having such an expectation anymore when they elect so called black leaders. All black people want is a figure head, who can wag a finger at ‘the white man’ and makes the required ‘noises.’ That is essentially all that is required of black leadership!

No wonder why black community is more or less defunct.

This issue of leaders not being required to meet the challenge of the group they lead (beyond heading marches and being wheeled in to give opinions on CNN), plagues the whole of the black world. It happens in Africa. African leaders approach the presidential race of their respective countries without even having a clear plan of how they hope to solve the deep and entrenched problems in the country, but even before that, they haven’t even understood what these problems are or the unique psychology of their people that will lend itself to some solutions and not others! Lawdy lawd.

For all his faults I admire Kwame Nkrumah for understanding that he had to play a 'tight game of political chess' with both Americans and Russians, to deliver his countries infrastructure. Akosombo dam I believe, remains one of the countries major infrastructure a quarter of a century later and decades after his death.

The other day a friend responded to me re this discussion that, ‘well the CIA and etc always end up killing African leaders that are good for Africa.’ I said to him, ‘out thinking the CIA' then is a ‘leadership challenge’ that must be met! It should not continue to be an excuse especially since it has been going on forever. By now there should be strategies in place. It is only organisms intersted in extinction that dont adapt to each threat especially a threat that is known.

It is very clear why Jesus had twelve apostles (actually the number twelve denotes/symbolizes governmental perfection). He spoke of his death often but made plans for the work to continue beyond him. Today you have African leaders in their 80’s who haven’t even prepared for succession and will be brought out of office on a stretcher followed by years of turmoil in the country. Jesus prepared for successful continuation of his work in 3 years!

Leadership is adaptable and innovative. You are not prepared for leadership if you haven’t mapped out the problems and come up with some sort of clever plan of action (which you can adapt as more information becomes available).

Black leadership was always meant to be so innovative beyond anything any other groups could come up with, and that is simply because black people are surrounded by problems; layered, complex, internal and external. To meet the challenge then, black leadership was supposed to be ‘ninja’ like in level and style (and by that I invoke the general view on Ninjas’s as invisible, highly skilled with the ability to accomplish almost impossible feats; deadly effective). When black folk started patterning black leadership after mainstream (read: white) leadership then end was in sight!

Understand the challenge, met the challenge and stop excuses.

Khadija also said something that made me want to faint with the knowledge of it all; that black folk always respond with their cultural defensive, emotional baggage. Something happens today and it triggers and emotional memory/baggage response that is totally OBSOLETE (and just about satifying our need to have a historical rememberance moan-fest) for the modern situations.

So we think, 'This is rosa parks all over again let us respond accordingly', when it isnt. Read the comments of the post linked above to find this particular angle.


One thing that is sure re Kelley Williams-Bolar , black women who want to thrive need to wean themselves off the same emotional 'sympathy pulls' we had in the past.

I too felt sorry for Kelley Williams-Bolar but then I suddenly felt an 'attack of fears' as I realized how deep a mindset change we black women need in order to survive and how well trained we are to fall into a pit. The general mentalities of black women are no longer going to surfice (eg having children without particpating fathers, not thinking and planning for comfortable rather than 'on the edge' living, our need to defy legal structures to wag a finger at 'the man', etc etc), we have to 'come up higher'. Anything less than a totally reorganized mindset will lead to the sure ruin of many women. It is scary because many of these women that are destroyed never stood a chance because they were surrounded by bad advice and bad advisers! There but for the grace of God....

And I agree with Khadija that black folks 'cultural insecurity' is largely responsbile for us always finding outside causes to blame when it is clear that the blame belongs with us. This blaming government, racism etc etc when we could have taken simple steps towards our betterment, is a sure sign of people who have lost faith in themselves and their abilities.

People who know they can 'right' a wrong situation are never obsessively averse to taking any blame as black people show themselves to be, because they know they can 'handle it'. When people have lost faith in the ability to 'course correct' they are always involved in frantic effort to dodge blame. Dodging blame becomes the goal in itself, as they desperately try but fail in their attempts to not look like inferior people!

For real!


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11 comments:

TAY said...

On point a usual. These have been my sentiments for a long time. *clap clap* I do not know what the future holds for "us" as a people, but JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL.

Khadija said...

Halima,

Thanks so much for your kind words and the shout out; I truly appreciate it!

Bottom line: Any BW who wants to survive and thrive these days must drop all those nonproductive, obsolete thought patterns and emotional baggage.

And get in alignment with values and ways of seeing the world that have been proven to WORK for Black folks.

Christelyn said...

*Stands up and claps* I've seen first hand the automatic defensiveness of the BC when you point out dysfunction, and how our so-called "black b-leadership" just use all the same old excuses to keep us mired in the dung pit we are in, all while they line their pockets and doom so many to a life of sub-mediocrity. Also, you are right about black people needed some type of "figure head," because so many of us are sheep. We don't want to have to think for ourselves, because frankly, being a victim feels soooooo good. If you act a fool, it's not your fault right? "The Racist Man" is to blame. Ugh.

Faith said...

Hand-clapping! Wasn't that post amazing - esp with tying into the indoctrination of "we are lesser-than". It's why the gas-lighting of BW is so deeply entrenched. They're all expecting US to save them and they're MEN. This is why it's seriously over for the black community. It just hasn't reached full critical mass yet.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of the studies indicating how children who are spanked tend to grow up to be more violent. When black chidren are singled out in such studies, the results show that the opposite is true; that black kids who are spanked tend to grow up less violent.

When I express this to anti-spanking blacks, the most common response is "so you're saying that it is ok for our kids to be spanked and not theirs". We seem incapable of dealing with issues any way other than how whites do it (and mainly liberal whites). We never try to acknowlege our own nature and how best to serve that nature. Black "leaders" do this because only by working it the way white people do can they leave the option of complaining to whites or begging them to solve our problems. Setting the community up for self sufficiency isn't dramatic enough. They have got to march and fuss at others. This is what keeps such leaders in the spotlite.

Anonymous said...

I don't want to veer off this very important post. However,@ anonymous 10.09

I'd be interested in citations for the studies you mention.

Recent studies in premature babies show that they are more sensitive to pain (due to treatment) than other babies and that this continues throughout their lives. A cautious reading of these results suggests that early experience of pain wires the individual to feel pain more than those who had limited experience of pain.

I don't think spanking is short in the BC. And yet...

Anonymous said...

Jesus is going to have to take the wheel.if he don't the b/c is done for sure,but bw have to start doing whats right for them self's cuz sitting here waiting on the the bm to do right is costing bw badly so i think it's time for a new change!!! wake up bw the time is now.or never...

Anonymous said...

Halima said: "The other day a friend responded to me re this discussion that, ‘well the CIA and etc always end up killing African leaders that are good for Africa.’ I said to him, ‘out thinking the CIA' then is a ‘leadership challenge’ that must be met! It should not continue to be an excuse especially since it has been going on forever."

Halima,

Excellent post. I am so glad that you pointed out this flawed logic. I have been having this discussion with a co-worker of mine, who thinks that she is “sooo conscious” because she doesn’t like “ghetto stuff”, yet this is one of her main arguing points (read: excuses) of why the blacks cannot get their act together. It's this or some variation of “Well the government never lets blacks have/do this or that – or whenever blacks start to get ourselves together (her & her family are members of Black religious organization from back in the 80's/90’s) THEY meaning ---the gov’t/ CIA/ aliens from outer space--- have to tear US down.

Three things that I try to get her to see about her faulty arguments are that:

1.)Entitlement: NO one owes the blacks anything (like allowing you to build up your organization using their resources, jobs, money, laws, etc…). Just for kicks, I once asked her, “why at the height of this Black organizations movement did they NOT just leave the country and buy a small island or something (since they supposedly had millions of dollars, if I remember correctly)”? Of course, I got the blank stare as if leaving the US and going independent - to an island or something - had never even crossed her mind. This tells me that this same “great organization” could not function without mainstream US economy to hold it together, so it really had nothing-SMDH. Her argument is basically that “they” won’t let “us” do/get anything.

2.)No Infrastructure/ Faulty Foundation: If it’s always so simple for the government (CIA or what have you) to tear these organizations down, doesn’t that simply mean that the foundation and infrastructure of these same “great organizations” were faulty and/or flawed and not up to snuff???

3.) If we as black folk know for a fact – and we do - that whatever we build will be scrutinized and attacked quickly by the CIA, should not AVOIDANCE of the CIA’s tactics be one of your organization’s main (hidden-as in a department just for that) focus points? Yet this point seems to always be overlooked and then blacks, as usual, are perplexed when these events take place. If the organization cannot prepare for these attacks, which they know for a fact are coming, have they not already failed? It seems that simple to me.

zoe1231

Anonymous said...

One of the better articles We have ever studied with this issue. Thanks a lot!

Anonymous said...

When I first started reading your post I was like 'oh-no'I felt the burden of 'blackcommunity" coming on my shoulders and I was about to click out, but I'm glad you pulled it back to black women and what WE need to do-personally I'm done with anything "black community" it's clear that bm are NOT engaged in that effort-just look at Ms. William's father-why wasn't she living with him, rather then were she was???
"One thing that is sure re Kelley Williams-Bolar , black women who want to thrive need to wean themselves off the same emotional 'sympathy pulls' we had in the past.

I too felt sorry for Kelley Williams-Bolar but then I suddenly felt an 'attack of fears' as I realized how deep a mindset change we black women need in order to survive and how well trained we are to fall into a pit. The general mentalities of black women are no longer going to suffice (eg having children without participating fathers, not thinking and planning for comfortable rather than 'on the edge' living, our need to defy legal structures to wag a finger at 'the man', etc etc), we have to 'come up higher'. Anything less than a totally reorganized mindset will lead to the sure ruin of many women. It is scary because many of these women that are destroyed never stood a chance because they were surrounded by bad advice and bad advisers! There but for the grace of God...."

Yes, I agree. I'm a single woman-I surround myself with WHITE MALE friends! WM! I do feel bad for this woman, as an AAwoman, I say yes she was doing the best with what she had, and they should not have used her to make an example out of her. Saying more about her is too much-just obvious. Learn the lesson, give her grace as an AAwoman and move on! Going into nitty-gritty detail about how awful she is-is ridicules. Yes, go into nitty-gritty detail about how to not follow the path-bashing this woman…That’s more in line with being a mule for the bc. Look at her father why didn’t he help ahead of time-look at the children’s father-he wasn’t even mentioned! More proof bm are and have been failing bw! Black women need to separate themselves from ALL FORMS of black men.

ak said...

It's a shame that the father of Kellie Bolar-Williams' daughter couldn't even say that the his daughter could move in with him so that she could go to a better school, but that's typical.

Even Khadija said that the Nation of Islam is the only AA organization that had a vertically integrated business, especially when it comes to selling food. They grow and graze the food, disttribute it, and have it sold in NOI restaurants. More black mmen wouldn't follow Elijah Mohammed's model because it was too hard, too much effort. They won't follow it while the casual sex is always so free and easy.