Am I my brothers and sisters keeper? Giving Back or Giving up on the Black Community
- By Wings
- 23 December, 2012
- 6 Comments
Which way will I go? Moving back to the ghetto could change the world?
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”. WEB DuBois
I grew up in a low income, predominantly black community in Germantown Philadelphia. I was encouraged by my parents and grandparents to do well in school and to pursue a college education. This, they believed, was the key to overcoming the inequitable economic and social realities that far too many people with just one of my multiple minority identities (I am a black woman with a disability) tend to confront. You see, before I was even aware that my difference made a difference, they knew it would, and they tried their hardest to prepare me for it. So at the age of 17, I followed their advice and left the only community I ever knew to pursue my higher education at a predominantly white institution.
This small move, just 4 hours away from home, changed everything. While I’ve gained a great deal from my educational experiences and newly obtained privileges and social status as a college educated American, it has also come at great personal costs that raise more questions for me everyday. One such cost is the disconnect I now feel from the low income black community that helped to instill the very values that lead to me pursuing the goals that have resulted in my academic success. I, like many other African Americans from similar communities experience a double consciousness that is related not only to race, but also to class. This ability to be aware of multiple perspectives because of the many identities that one person inhabits can be a blessing and a curse. For the African American from a poor inner city family pursuing their education at a predominantly white institution, it often means that they no longer fit in at home, but they don’t exactly fit in at school either.
To address the issue of “fitting in” many educated blacks create their own spaces where they can be affirmed and supported. These spaces include black student organizations, alumni associations and even residential communities that cater to African American professionals. The challenge that this creates is that we have now tried to solve a class problem by creating and finding comfort in another class, i.e. The black middle class. As I complete my dissertation, I know that receiving the PhD will undoubtedly grant me entry into the precious gem called the “black elite”. The problem I am wrestling with however, is that I am not sure if I like or fit in with that group either. Not if it means abandoning the people I left behind to pursue my educational and economic goals all those years ago.
In the book “When Work Disappears” William Julius Wilson argued that the exit of the black middle class from mixed income black communities was a significant contributor to the creation of the ghetto (areas of concentrated poverty, usually hyper-segregated by race). Similarly, the late Derrick Bell argued in his last book “Silent Covenants” that even during segregation, there were healthy black communities, and that in many ways racial desegregation was disadvantageous as it led to even greater class division among blacks. Because of desegregation more blacks with wealth and/or education were able to leave poorer black communities and enter white communities with similar incomes as theirs.
The challenge African Americans who were not born with but who later obtain some sort of class status face is “Am I my brother and sisters keeper?” In other words, do we have any responsibility to the communities from which we came? If you are like me, and are fortunate enough to be one of the few who were able to pursue a college education or more, then you didn’t walk, you ran out of the ghetto in search for something better! But now that I found it, I’m haunted by the stories from people back home. Family members and childhood friends struggling to find or keep a job in a black America who’s unemployment rate is over 14%, under a black President! While I was studying for college exams, many of my high school classmates were having babies too young, and all too many others have been shot and killed. Yes, I have managed to make it out, but what about the others? Nothing in all my years of higher education has taught me how to reach back and lend a hand to them.
But maybe it’s not my responsibility. After all, I worked hard! It’s time for me to “do me”! Right? I don’t owe them anything.
As more and more members of the Civil Rights generation age out of this world, at the same time that members of the hip-hop generation gain social control, I hope we remember the values that the Civil Rights generation have taught us. These values include challenging dominant cultures values of individualism and wealth at any cost, not conforming to them. They taught us to seek power with, rather than over people, including our own.
I am my brother and sisters keeper, not because I have to be, but because I choose to be. Will I move back to my old neighborhood? Probably not! I want better for myself. But, I also want better for others too. Finding collective ways to do that is the challenge we must all face together.
Copyright © 2013
There's not a week that has gone by in the last 7 years where my mind has not been wrecked by the same conflict. When I travel from the "suburbs" to the severely unkept and dangerous city that my mom resides all I can do question will this crap ever get better.
WINGS….thank you for this article!!!!
like PavarottiShakur said, i think about this allllllllll the time. how much responsibility should i feel to black communities, as opposed to other disadvantaged communities. how many people got mad at Oprah for building that girls' school in Africa when there are plenty of schools right here in the US that could use her help?
people are ALWAYS asking….what has the President done for black people???
at this point, i find the concept of "black" community as troublesome and as complex as the concept of "blackness" itself…i actually like to think that i'm BEYOND race and gender…until i'm the only black person in the room (which is often)
nonetheless, i am definitely going to "do me". giving back is a part of my essence, and lately i've been thinking about committing to more charities that do global work. today, that's what makes me feel good and productive. tomorrow, i might feel differently.
How did you get beyond race and gender? And is transcendence a new IPad feature?
To give up or give back to our own people. The fact that it is a question in our minds is an indicator of how colonized we still are. The question would have confused our ancestors before they were marauded by strangers and made to adapt to their ways. It was once understood that we progress as a whole, or not at all. The amount of money that black Americans make places us within the top 10 wealthiest 'nation' of people in the world, and yet we have nothing to call our own. Every other group of people recycles their earnings within their own communities before they spend it with others and create an economic infrastructure for themselves – only we do not do this. There exist entire think tanks devoted to how others can get us to bleed our wealth even more into their communities. Almost none of the white-owned businesses in the south would survive if we were not this way. The earnings of blacks per year in New York state alone is enough to build an entire infrastructure in an African country. Stephen Covey's classic and legendary book: "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' is premised on the observation that, independence comes before the ability to effectively interact in an interdependence with others.
You ask an excellent question. Your answers may be more thorough and satisfactory to you with more information. It's out there. The social engineers of the many ways in which black people behave (especially some of the worse behaviors), maintain this by deception. One of the deceptions is by ever viewing the social inadequacies of blacks – and society-at-large's reactions and response to it – as a 'cause' rather than as an 'effect'. However, it IS an effect. And to effect change, we need to know that. And know that being savvy and strong enough to climb out of the bucket doesn't mean one has to jump back in it to help. It is enough to become conscious one's self and then use the Each One, Teach One method.
Hi melanin rising,
I think I mostly agree with what you are saying. My article came out of a place of wanting to contribute to the uplift of the black community. It also came from a place of frustration of not exactly knowing how that could be done. I take issue with some of your comments. You state" The amount of money that black Americans make places us within the top 10 wealthiest 'nation' of people in the world, and yet we have nothing to call our own. Every other group of people recycles their earnings within their own communities before they spend it with others and create an economic infrastructure for themselves – only we do not do this." I think we need to be careful about how we compare the black community to other racial ethnic communities in America. We have a unique history that includes the positioning of economic structures which historically insured that black business and black wealth was not developed or underdeveloped. This created a dependence on the businesses and wealth of white and other communities. So the historical burning of black owned businesses, business loan discrimination, and redlining all worked to terrorize and systematically disadvantage black people in a way that it did not disadvantage other groups, including some other communities of color. So, I don't think it's fair to compare our circumstances to other groups that did not have similar challenges and then conclude that because we weren't able to achieve the same advances as they suggest that there is a deficiency in us. Rather, there are policies and practices that designed the current racial hierarchy in our society deliberately. I believe comments that solely blame the black community for outcomes that are largely the result of inequitable social structures is a sign of Internalized oppression and a misinterpretation of history and our contemporary society. So, that's the structural part.
The interpersonal part I think is the effect that these inequitable structures have on how black people view themselves and each other. The fact is that there are rewards, serious rewards for buying into the status quo and supporting the interests of groups in power, which tend to be white, upper class men and women. So, many minorities decide to identify with the majority interest as individuals in order to receive majority approval and rewards, (some call this assimilation but it's more than that), rather than do the hard work it takes to identify with the interests of oppressed peoples and work with other communities for the uplift of all people. The second option is difficult and includes a great deal of challenges. Because many in our community suffer from internalized oppression themselves, we often have to fight others within our own community, as well as the majority group in order to work towards the collective interests of all. So, yes it's true that there are blacks with money and power who don't do enough to uplift members of their own community. But there are those who are doing a lot. Just because we don't hear about it from the majority media, doesn't mean it's not happening. As a people, I think we need to focus more on our assets, on what we have, and less on what we think we are lacking. White America wants me to believe that most black people are all about themselves and that blacks in power have abandoned their communities. I refuse to believe that and I wish we more easily believed and celebrated the best in us, rather than the worst. Your statement assumes that other racial ethnic groups behave towards each other at least economically in a superior way than blacks do. I take issue with that. Just because a group has a better economic outcome does not mean they put in a superior economic effort or desire. Our lack of having is not because of a lack of hard work and trying.
So I take some issue with that statement. A lot of what other groups have is the result of privilege, that they did not earn, and a lot of what some groups don't have is the result of disadvantages that they did not deserve. It's unfortunately that black people especially tend to assume otherwise. But, nobody is harder on us than us. Nobody is more self-deprecating than us. You want to know the problem with black people? Ask a black person. We can come up with quite a list. But that self-deprecating behavior that is now a part of our culture, is the result of oppression. Let's form more strategies of resistance by starting off for once with what's right with us, rather than the ways in which we are deficient. Like our resilience, our social networks, family ties and sense of faith and pride. What is it that has given us the power to survive and endure all that we have? Yes, it's amazing that any of us has any wealth at all. How did we do that? And how can we unite with others to help them do the same? The answers to those questions is what will help solve the social and economic challenges not only in the black community, but throughout the world. The others who have gone on and decided to conform to mainstream standards and adopt individualist values in order to gain majority approval like the black rich that you mentioned who don't help, forget about them! Their lost to us. Let's focus on what we got and build from there. And what we have is a lot! We are powerful, but the messages we receive on a daily basis suggest otherwise. We need to resist the urge to assume the worst, and focus on building up the best in us so that we are strong enough to combat the negativity that does exist in and around our community. We can do that in part by recognizing that we are made up of the same stuff that our ancestors we made of. They are neither morally superior or inferior to us in any way. So, when you state that my question " would have confused our ancestors before they were marauded by strangers and made to adapt to their ways", I don't think I completely agree. There were ethnic conflicts before slavery and colonization in Africa as well as social hierarchies and systems of oppression. None of those can be compared with the US system of slavery, but I say that only to mean that the challenge that the black community faces is also a human challenge. The challenge of whether to work collectively with people, or to rule over them? That was my question at it's core.. Should I ignore the needs of my black brothers and sisters and just get mine? This is the message that we get in the media. I wanted to challenge that idea by saying that power with rather than over people is the only power worth having. Thanks so much for your comment. My 2 cents.