One of the reasons African Americans find Black progress and true freedom difficult is because many African Americans are scared!
They are afraid to stand up, afraid to speak out, afraid to unite, afraid to organize, afraid to defend themselves and afraid to protect themselves, their women, their children and their communities!
In a capitalist country like the United States, economic freedom is necessary. We must control the economy of Black communities. We must find ways to generate revenue for ourselves to create jobs for our people and to end the dependence on others outside of our community for our maintenance and survival.
More often than not, no one is seeking to hire Blacks but Blacks.
So-called corporate diversity is merely modern day tokenism. The devil doesn’t like Affirmative action, quotas and Black set asides for us but they are quick to say “We hire Blacks and women. Look at Jemima, she is both Black and female!”
I’m old enough to remember a time when Black families could buy everything they needed from Black businesses in the Black community. There were Black owned grocery stores, clothing stores, restaurants, taxi companies, hotels, car dealers, dry cleaners, home builders, insurance companies, banks, media companies and more right in Black neighborhoods.
We should go back to those times but African Americans are afraid to do that.
I remember when anybody Black could join Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Christians worked right alongside Muslims, the educated worked with the less educated, light skinned Blacks got along with darker skinned Blacks and so on.
Today, the Crips are afraid to trust the Bloods, the Alphas want nothing to do with the Ques, the Links can’t deal with the Eastern Stars and graduates of HCBU’s won’t even consider doing projects with Blacks that attended predominately white universities!
Peril and danger are real but fear is voluntary!
If we are afraid to assist, help and do business with each other we are afraid of ourselves.
We are all in the same bag, I the same boat. Those of us who are scared, meek and afraid to do what’s necessary to progress will get beaten, shot, killed or jailed just as quick as the Blacks that will protest and fight for equal rights and justice!
In the ghetto, they beat you, mistreat you and disrespect you just like devilish people with beat you, mistreat you and disrespect you in the suburbs!
If we were not afraid of our past and ignorant about our culture and our journey for survival in America we would know that fear is not an option!
Where would we be if Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and others were as afraid as you are?
Don’t ever be scared to do the right things! We should not fear economic, religious, judicial and other freedoms. Freedom is a good thing to have and to fight for. (Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net. And, if you want to,“Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook.)
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.