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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5559
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 04:41 am: | 
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BETWEEN THE LINES: What's The Greater Obstacle To Black Progress: No Black Agenda, or Too Many Blacks With An Agenda?
By Anthony Asadullah Samad
May 22, 2007
*The Great (great) Frederick Douglass, once said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." Malcolm said, "We struggle in different ways" talking about the similarities between integrationist (access) and nationalist (identity) struggles for progress.
Former Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young once said, "We will struggle and there will be progress, while former South African President, Nelson Mandela once said, "The struggle is my life."
Martin Luther King once said that struggle on the part of an oppressed people will never disappear until freedom is a reality for all oppressed peoples of the world. Certainly, the great leaders and change activists of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, and even in the Twenty-first century recognize the inherent relationship between struggle and progress.
Yet, more than ever, the black community, in the collective sense, have become more conflicted about what the struggle is and what progress has been made as it appears the race is going more backward than forward. Literacy rates lower than they were 50 years ago. Poverty rates higher than they were 40 years ago. High school graduation rates lower than they were 30 years ago. Unemployment rates and STD contraction rates higher than they were 20 years ago. College admission rates lower than they were ten years ago. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point.
We need a black agenda more than ever. Some people say we got one. There are no shortage of organizations and activities that involve ourselves. But do they lead us to progress? We're all busy doing something, but our involvements gain little for the masses. All motion isn't progress. If it was, then why aren't we going forward? Maybe, because there is no black agenda pointing directly to collective progress.
In nearly every major city in America, black communities are suffering from a combination of poverty, economic subjugation and police oppression. The black community is in a consistent state of struggle and a constant debate over its progress, and what we're doing (what we gon' do, y'all) to bring about progress.
Over the past few months, several significant issues, from police shootings across the nation from (New York to Inglewood), to campus violence (from elementary schools to college campuses) and not to mention the "black image"
that has other people calling African Americans everything from Ni**ers to Hoes (and everything in between).
Malcolm, we are still struggling in different ways. And black progress has become a mixed bag of tricks that, in essence, require us to be careful what we ask for. Yes, we have more black millionaires, but half of them got rich denigrating the race. Yes, more Blacks are in the middle class, but they're still struggling to find quality schools to educate their children or safe communities to insulate themselves from gang violence. Yes, there are more black entrepreneurs than ever but black businesses still face more economic discrimination and redlining from banks and capital sources than any other group of people.
Yes, there are more college educated blacks than any other time in American history, but they will be the first generation that had less than their parents (and their parents had LESS education than they had). And Yes, there are more black agendas than ever-from Farrakhan's Millions More movement to Tavis Smiley's Covenant movement to Russell Simmons' Hip Hop Summit, to the many local movements in every city by everyday folks trying to change their quality of life. Yet, it appears many of these movements are led by more people with agendas than people looking to lead a black agenda. Personal benefit and self-aggrandizement has made many people too cautious to lead and more cautious as to whom they follow.
Some folk even go as far to suggest that this generation has no leaders. While that certainly is not true-this generation has leaders, just not in the civil rights/black protest tradition-it is true that those who lead are not leading us forward. Not when more people want to be Snoop Dogg, 50 Cents or Allen Iverson than want to be Dr. Keith Black, Mae Jemison or Kathy Hughes. And this generation surely must believe that progress is more than the individual successes of obtaining a Rolex, Bentley and a condo. It's not about what one or two of us have-it's about what all of us should have.
That's progress. And it's about what we will or will not let others say or do to us. Even when black dignity and sensibilities were under attack by Michael Richards and Don Imus, the black community was conflicted as to who should be "speaking for us." There were just as many conversations about who "appointed Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton" (suspicious of their agendas), as there were about who should stop saying Ni**er,*itch and Ho first, white people or us? Even Oprah, who it's been said avoids "black issues," weighed in on the agenda to repair black social standing. It didn't stop those with agendas from disrupting the process of achieving black progress.
When black stakeholders stepped up in California to mediate who should fill the late Congresswoman Millander-McDonald's seat, they were called "self-appointed" and "self-anointed" by, who else but, other Blacks. The purpose was to forge a black agenda to retain political power and people with personal differences and conflicted political interests came together to forge the process. Only those not part of the process (with agendas) sought to criticize the process from without. Some black people have lost sense as to when is necessary to get on the same page, the same agenda, as in the 1960s-when even Malcolm and Martin who were fighting different fights in two separate parts of the country recognized that it was the same struggle. We may not agree with all rap. We may not agree with all television programming. We may not agree with all the ways that black people make money now. But we can agree on what's appropriate. We can agree on what promotes the good and welfare of our standing in the society, and we can agree on what sustains our cultural longevity.
A black agenda doesn't have to be an individual agenda, nor does it have to be wasteless motion. A black agenda is finding how we constantly move toward a collective progress, where we leave nobody behind and retain our dignity throughout the process.
Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D., is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum (www.urbanissuesforum.com) and author of the upcoming book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com
http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur33725.cfm |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4457
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 09:52 am: |
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There is no black agenda anymore.
There was a black agenda when they said "All of you gotta ride in the back of the bus."
When that stopped it was everybody for his or herself.
Some people cannot even ride on the bus because they ain't got the dough.
Their fight is not the same fight as those who are trying to make sure the bus is clean and in good repair.
Or those who want to get a job driving or maintaining the bus.
Or those who want to OWN the bus.
Trying to find a universal agenda is pointless. Get you a crew and go for it. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8658
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 12:30 pm: |
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All movement is not progress. How true! How true! I agree with every word this man wrote. |
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