What IF Racial Integration is NOT The Way

What IF Racial Integration is NOT The Way

What IF Racial Integration is NOT The Way

The past few weeks have been very enlightening and I believe that people are really coming to an understanding of exactly how divided we are as a county. This is all due to the Trayvon Martin case. This post is really not about the wrongs and rights of it OR who is guilty and who is NOT. It is more about the attitudes behind the verdict than anything.

This case has really opened my eyes and with that I started to think about HOW, we’ve been doing things in the last fifty years. Maybe, just maybe we have it all wrong.  We have been pushed to assimilate within the mainstream white communities but it seems as it that really is not working. One of the things that this case has shown me is how HATED and resentful people have become about having black people in their communities. I am not saying that ALL people are resentful and hateful ONLY some.  There are a lot of communities that embrace integration. However there are a lot of others that DO NOT.  So in those cases WHY are we trying to blend in and force those people to accept us?  It really doesn’t seem to be working.

So under these circumstances should we NOT just go another route and separate? Form our own towns, with our own businesses, schools, daycares, supermarkets etc.? The more I think about it the more I cannot rule this out as a bad idea. I actually think that I am on to something.

Think about this, Black people have 1 trillion dollars in spending power YET some of our communities suffer economically more than others. OUR schools are being closed, we do not own stores in our own neighborhoods, and other races of people move to our neighborhoods and reap tremendous financial rewards from our people. Why are we allowing this to happen?

I am NOT an advocate of “Going Back To Africa” because quite frankly that is the stupidest statement I’ve ever heard. MOST black folks in America know absolutely NOTHING about Africa, actually more white people have probably travelled to Africa than black folks. Also, most importantly WE are AMERICANS, why shouldn’t we benefit from the American rights that our people DIED for.  Our people were brought here unwillingly on slave ships and we have clawed and scratched for every damn crumb we’ve earned in the last 400+ years. WHY should we go anywhere? WE earned our rights to claim American citizenship and then some. Frigg it, I ain’t goin’ NO where!

I say it’s time to look at Black Wall Street as a guide to considering moving back to primarily black communities. There was a very tragic end to Black Wall Street but the community is a display of the kind of black community we can have if unity is present.

The Greenwood community seems almost imagined when we examine it through a historical lens.  The oil booms of the early 1900’s had many moving to Tulsa for a shot at quick economic gains and high life, and African Americans hoped to prosper from the new industry as well.  Tulsa, like many cities and towns throughout the US, was hostilely segregated, with African Americans settling into the northern region of the city.  As we often saw before integration, Blacks in the area created entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves, which housed an impressive business center that included banks, hotels, cafes, clothiers, movie theaters, and contemporary homes.  Greenwood residents enjoyed many luxuries that their White neighbors did not, including indoor plumbing and a remarkable school system that superiorly educated Black children.

I say YES, to setting up businesses in our communities and funneling our monies in areas that will benefit our people as opposed to making other cultures rich. These same cultures that DON’T want us in their neighborhoods, DON’T want us mingling with their children but it is OK to get rich off our backs.

Now folks have stepped their game up to the degree that they are willing to kill our kids because THEY feel as if we shouldn’t be in their neighborhoods. GUESS what, maybe we shouldn’t! Maybe we should go back to our own communities? If this is the only way to keep our children safe from hate, irrational anger and being gunned down, we can’t afford NOT to consider it.

Sources:

Ebony: http://www.ebony.com/black-history/the-destruction-of-black-wall-street-405#axzz2b2tbejAo

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