Going around the 'net, or reading opinion pieces, or listening to talk shows, I often read/hear people say something like, "Despite what Blacks think, racism is NOT the number one problem facing Black America.
OK, for me that's a no brainer; it isn't Black America's number one problem. What I want to know is, what percentage of Blacks believe it IS Blacks number one problem?
I suspect that most Blacks will say that it's not, and if that's the case, it's another issue of critics of the Black community setting up a straw man for them to defeat.
Does anyone want to help me find such a poll of Black folk?
Men getting women pregnant, then not caring to help raise them, ain't a racism problem.
I think that's number 1 or tied for it with crime in some Black areas.
Posted by: DarkStar at December 13, 2005 10:17 PMIf it's not racism directly, it's the perception of pervasive racism. In some (many) circles, it's the idea that 'the man' won't let you get ahead, so why try. It's that fatalistic take-what-you-can-get mentality (combined with crabs-in-a-bucketism) that feeds [insert community/personally destructive behaviour here].
Kids need to be taught that greenbacks are colorblind and the value of a good credit rating (run your own legal bidniz, yo).
Posted by: memer at December 22, 2005 12:07 PMYou can argue this several ways. The answer, however, won't matter much in the final scheme of things.
It's pretty easy to argue that racism has little to do with our situation. It's not why we're here. We're here because strong African nations participated in human commerce to enrich themselves. Europeans negotiated trade agreements, then developed an ideology to soothe their unrested souls. That ideology, white supremacy, is the foundation for the practice of racism. So what?
You can argue that racism is the root of everything that we're dealing here. That's an easy argument to make since the empirical evidence is everywhere. At the end of the day, so what?
In either case, black folk on this side of the ocean will have to collaborate to a greater degree in the realms of politics, information, finance, real estate, warfare, education, law and health (to name a few areas), if we are to not merely survive. Comparatively, we're doing much better than might have been expected - or much worse than is possible.
Power continues to be vested in groups, not so much with individuals. To that extent, collaboration is the only option. If collaboration is aided and abetted with a bit of external infiltration (pseudo-assimilation: creeping with an agenda), so much the better.
Posted by: Temple3 at December 22, 2005 02:08 PM
I'm having trouble thinking of a problem specific to black America that isn't more than one degree of separation away from racism. So what is that problem that is #1?
Posted by: Bomani at December 13, 2005 11:23 AM