As I listen to various African-American leaders articulate our people’s problems at the many “Dog & Pony” shows (that we citizens, who are truly concerned about our respective communities, are obligated to attend to make sure our neighborhoods are represented), we find ourselves wondering if we’re on the same page, or even in the same book that the speakers are reading from. On the other hand, since we make a sincere effort to look at events and issues from a Black perspective, we simply are unable to relate to the current state of mainstream America.
The question is: How can descendants of slaves, who are still being persistently discriminated against in 2002 America, have the same perspective as privileged Americans who make the rules that control the ebb and flow of our society? For instance, how can Black graduates from separate but unequal schools, possibly think the same way as people who were educated in schools that thought they were doing our children a favor when they sent us their old books and/or everything else they’ve used when they got new stuff?

Say what? You don’t think there are still Black folks who (in spite of all the evidence to the contrary) are dumb enough to think White folks know how to educate our kids better than we do?
If so, you will probably be enlightened by our next edition’s article about the ongoing Aldine ISD controversy that’s being researched as we speak. And that’s all I’m going to say about that at this time.

Meanwhile, we would like to assure our readers, who study our glorious Black History that began on slave ships and expanded to position of national leadership--that we aren’t the only ones who know where the library’s “colored section” is located. Where I’m coming from, with that clever observation is that our history can also be used against us.
Unless you’re brain-dead, you surely realize that there are many White folks and perhaps some Black folks who would love to go back to the future. Back to when we were on the outside looking in like it use to be before we were allowed participate in the Democratic process.
They might not want to go back to the massa-slave relationship per se, but they definitely would love to see more African-Americans stop complaining and be content with our progress, since we are living better than any other Black folks in the world. Quite frankly, there is a very thin line between an elitist and a racist. We Must Understand, when it comes to excluding others, usually that thin line has dollar signs in front of it.

Let’s tell it like it is and admit that many of African-American intelligentsia, are elitist, i.e., “bourgeoisie” and don’t want “riff raff” living next door to them in their affluent enclaves, any more than rich White folks want them as neighbors. The difference between elitism and racism is that elitists can avoid having the poor with them always, simply by paying the cost to get lost.
You won’t see too many Black folks in Reliant Stadium’s luxury suites, unless they have serving trays in their hands. On the other hand, racists can’t afford the price of exclusivity; therefore they find it a bit more difficult to avoid being around undesirable people they disrespect.
We often wonder why it is so difficult for the media to find poor, White folks, any place other than trailer parks? Truth is, many of our political and economically naïve people just don’t know where to look.

Check out any neighborhood where a few White folks are still living, although they’re completely surrounded by minorities and you can bet that they aren’t counted among the upper middle class, liberal Anglos. When you think about it, affirmative action created somewhat of a new class of Black and White Americans. History records that Black people could do more, with less, than any other ethnicity in America.
And you can forget about the myth about three and four Mexican American families living in the same house to make it. Have you ever seen a new Mercedes parked outside a shotgun shack in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood? And let’s not even mention Asian or other minorities.
It has been a long time since we insisted our children work in the family business, when there are sports to be played and cheerleading to be done at Black schools. The fact that racists remember Black History too, scares the hell out of me.

We Must Understand, Black History far exceeds affirmative action and integrated public jobs that became our economic savior and chief catalyst for our progress. Strong Black backs, inexhaustible energy and a willingness to work long and hard is the bridge that brought us over.
But, unless you’ve totally blind, dumb or crazy, you must realize that unemployment among African-Americans has reached epidemic proportions. The unemployment rate among African- Americans gets higher every day. And our history certainly notes that when our people don’t work, our neighborhoods stop working.
And that should scare us to death, since strong backs and hard work are no longer marketable assets. To tell the truth, everything that depends on Black consumer dollars is in serious trouble when we lose our jobs. Furthermore, privatizing public jobs suggests that we can’t depend on public jobs to rescue us in the future. Nor can we depend on those Mom & Pop stores that kept us going in the old days, because cost of small business translates to big start-up bucks today.
Good help is hard to find aside, we have to compete for our own kids, who we educate but can’t afford to hire. Surely that’s what killed our neighborhoods in the distant past, but we have forgotten our history and are making the same mistakes again. In essence, we have dismissed our history and the mistakes we made (trying to do it the way others do), rather than continuing to do what worked for us in the past.

Unfortunately, you can be sure, that racists remembers Black History too. You also can be sure that they aren’t likely to make the mistakes they made that allowed us to compete with them-- in spite of an uneven playing field--ever again!