Being Black in America

Being Black in America

We hear daily of the mass exodus of minorities being railroaded into prisons and other types of reformatory situations. Many of us know all too well that being Black in America is often synonymous with being “guilty” in America. Although blacks account for only 12 percent of the U.S. population, 44 percent of all prisoners in the United States are black. Census data for 2000,which included a count of the number and race of all individuals incarcerated in the United States, reveals the dramatic racial disproportion of the incarcerated population in each state: the proportion of blacks in prison populations exceeds the proportion among state residents in every single state. In twenty states, the percent of blacks incarcerated is at least five times greater than their share of resident population. (From Incarcerated America)

I grew up in a tough neighborhood where the use of illicit drugs was rampant and the one that most wanted to be like as they matured was either the neighborhood drug dealer or the cool but otherwise worthless elders that littered the streets. These characters hung out and about aimlessly, they puffed on cigarettes and they came up with cool names for all of the kids in the neighborhood. In short, these ne'er-do-wells were local area celebrities in there own right, but for all the wrong reasons. Still for kids it often seems cool to have a slick sounding nickname and to be associated with someone who at least appears to be well respected in the neighborhood.

Well, I am here to say that it does not matter in most cases to the masses that one is striving to create a better environment for him or herself. The only thing that most young people (and old) in many urban communities see or hear is the squalor, the violence, the drugs and anger that seem to permeate our communities. This is very unfortunate due to the fact that it is actually a very small percentage of individuals that actually cause most of the problems and negative conditions. In such cases, one bad apple may not spoil the whole bunch, but it does make everything worse than it has to be for everyone in its sphere of influence. In too many urban communities the worst of all social ills corrupt and spread like malignant cancers.

The positive, hard-working, drug-free and law abiding individuals of our society have become the true minority. This is not due to our numbers being small. It is rather due to our voices being left unheard. We have become marginalized, isolated and left without the ability to assume decision-making roles in our communities and even in our own lives. We are judged and scrutinized by the company we unwittingly keep by virtue of being a member of troubled communities. Therefore, without unity in our communities the good people become the minority.

Why are the voices of good and virtuous people in the African American community heard at such a lower volume than the negative rappers, worthless rapists, soulless murderers and incorrigible thugs? Is there a method behind the madness that has manipulated and created the current situation? Yes. There has been an evil system in place since Plymouth Rock bashed the stolen Africans in the their collective heads in order to exploit, subjugate and enslave them as a people. This enslavement was not simply physical. It set like cement within the minds and the emotions of people of African decent. The slaves may have been freed but their children still are not totally free…not really.

Shackles in one’s mind are far more challenging to loose. Cages clamped around a woman’s heart are inconceivably more pernicious and difficult to escape. Chains wrapped around a man’s soul are far more difficult to break. Invisible bars nailed atop a Black baby’s crib are almost impossible for him to rise up from. You see, we were tricked by an evil force that taught us that we were less than. Less than what? We were taught that we were less than everyone and everything. We were lied to and we believed it! There you have it. In the Bible it tells us, “As a man thinketh, so shall he be.” Our oppressors knew this from the impetus of their campaign to use black labor to build their so-called New World.

In The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin Woodson, it states, “If you can control a man's thinking, you don't have to worry about his actions. If you can determine what a man thinks, you do not have to worry about what he will do. If you can make a man believe that he is inferior, you don't have to compel him to seek an inferior status, he will do so without being told and if you can make a man believe that he is justly an outcast, you don't have to order him to the back door, he will go to the back door on his own and if there is no back door, the very nature of the man will demand that you build one."

We now have the power and the capacity to rise to a new level of thought provoking action. Shall we stop and think about our thinking? It does not serve us to think like slaves about our communities, our physical and mental attributes, our abilities, our economic potential, our men, our women, our children and our God-given genius Uplifting ourselves and our communities starts with our thoughts, our empowered decisions and the actions we choose to take.

The shackles of slavery were removed from our feet in this country 300 years ago, but because they were not loosed from our minds we continued to think and act as slaves. Thus, the shackles have been replaced. This is evidenced by the high percentage of Black in prisons, the outrageous number of Black males leaving Black females to raise their children alone, the obscene rate of poverty and crime in our communities and the ridiculous numbers of Black youth who refuse to be educated. Make no mistake; though there are Blacks who have achieved some modicum of success, until we as a people are free, we are all enslaved.

In almost any endeavor we engage ourselves in we can choose to dominate or at least hold or own. Failure is not an option. Failure is a lie that we do not have to accept. Consider Tiger Woods and the way he has transformed the way the game of golf is played. Behold Ms. Oprah Winfrey. She was born into poverty in the south. Now she is one of the richest and most influential human beings in the world! Martin Luther King Jr. literally changed the whole world! Again, shall we stop and think about our thinking?

We have far too many examples of our greatness for us to fail to see what we can accomplish if we set our minds to it and seize the many opportunities for greatness, success and abundance that exist for us in the world today. Between 1983 and 2001, the number of black households with net worth of $1 million or more increased 79 percent, from 61,000 households to 109,000. These Black millionaires built their fortunes in large measure by owning their own businesses such as real estate, funeral homes, medical practices, construction, retail and service sector businesses. It is time for the African American community to begin to nurture more millionaires or at least financially stable, free people and far less prisoners. It’s time to think ourselves out of our constriction.