I'm amazed at how slowly the veil is lifting from black folks eyes. I'm living in Oakland, California. The Bay Area is one of the MOST diverse places on earth. Racism doesn't dance in sheets here, but economic racism is HUGE ... and getting bigger. Here are just a few points that I'd love for 'yall to just ponder on:
1. Quote: "A business should remake itself when it is at the peak of its success. Failure to do so means that it's competition will adjust come up with new ideas before it can adjust."
2. Quote: "The only constant is change." Change is the only thing we KNOW will happen ... yet, black folks (esp. black men) continue to hold their heads in the sand ... denial is a doomed ostrich hiding its head in the sand from the upcoming storm.
3. China and India cannot are BOOMING. They are standing on the runway, ready to fly. Soon they will become the world's biggest economic powers. Multinationals are just waiting, and when it happens, they will pull their money out of the U.S. economy with a quickness. (Remember Bush and his gang trying to get Social Security money to prop up our economy?) [NOTE: In Oakland, more blacks are dropping out of High School than graduating. Choices + Values = Future]
4. It's far too late to be angrily mumbling that "Mexicans need to go back where they came from." The Jinni is out of the bottle. They are eating our lunch and soon, they’ll be eating many more white folks lunch too. They are showing us where our game is weak.
5. "My enemy - my friend" say the Buddhist. God told gave us two main instructions ... Love God and love your neighbor ... even when he doesn’t love you back. We have some powerful lessons to RE-learn. Chief amongst those lessons is the fact that all these once poor Asians and Mexicans are now driving the cars we used to drive, living in the houses our homeless asses used to live in, and working in the jobs we used to complain about and would die to have back. How'd they do it? Yeah maybe they had a little help... but basically they built a better mouse trap. Provided a better service, and pooled their money. They lived together when they needed to. Supported each other economically, physically, emotionally, intellectually and CULTURALLY.
6. WHY are we taking up Prince Machiavelli's agenda (Google it if you don’t know) and turning ourselves into "Thugs" that destroy any and ALL business hopes in our own community, kill and terrorize our own people (esp. the nerds we need to hold close to our bosom) and create hatred between the sexes? WHY? WHY are we doing the Klan's work for them??
7. An East Indian engineer who runs a computer chip manufacturing company recently told me that "America needs creativity. There will increasingly be more jobs out-sourced over seas. If you're going to start a company, it needs to hire at least 10,000 people to make change." He has been trained to look at the high end ... but have you looked into the world's new micro loan industry? There are POWERFUL ways to make change happen on the small end too. [SEE: Kiva Microfinance at http://kiva.org/
and http://www.blacksolutions.blogspot.com ]
8. Disaffected youth ALL OVER THE WORLD look at disaffected people here in the U.S. and many emulate our actions. We can help engineer POWERFUL changes for ourselves and others. At the very least, we can stop being "Niggas" to the world and position ourselves better than we are currently doing! "He or she who doesn’t engineer his or her own destiny, will have his destiny engineered for him." What do you think the plans of the super rich are for you?
9. WE NEED TO STOP BEING BLACK-WHITE MEN !!! AHHaaHHHaaahh!! God wants every one to be his or her AUTHINTIC selves. We do NOT need to:
a.) Huck-a-buck to the world. Speaking all phony and laughing all silly
b.) Go 'round the back door for a piece of chicken and a biscuit after stabbing yet one more brother in the back. STOP THIS SHIT!
c.) Embrace our own spiritual, psychological, moral and ethical destruction by thinking that crime is our only hope. What the hell is this "No Snitch" crap?? If Spooky up the street breaks my car window and steals my face plate for a $5 rock and you don't tell ... guess who's window he's going to break when you park YOUR new ride at the curb?
10. Why do we keep embracing the WRONG people? What's with all this anti-Semitism rising up about? That ain't our fight. Okay, who cares if the guy at the deli is rude? His cousin marched with us .... before many of you got here. But that's besides the point ... what the hell do you think the term, “grow up” is all about?
The list goes on and on. Include the fact that "those foreigners" dollars now mean more than ours ...and the best we can do is continue to yell about Reparations and apply for SSI?? C'mon folks ... we betta than THIS!!
I assert that the biggest obstacles to change for the black man and woman today is:
a.) The inability to work together. We have to become "brothers" and "sisters" again and cease being "niggas."
b.) Denial or the Fear of Change
c.) The inability to see what our true demons are. We're so busy trying to be *special* and defending Snoop Dawg that we can't even SEE that the things we've come to value most are killing us. Going to the night club tonight? What you going to look for??? What do you most hope to do ... and with whom??? Yeah....
Henry J. Kaiser said that a problem is an opportunity in work clothes. Folks, we have LOTS of opportunities staring us in the face right now. Rolling all over us. You have choices … but whatever choice you make, DO NOT fall into ‘hating “foreigners.” Step up ~ not down. We keep REACTING to such SILLY shit ... when right now it is absolutely critical that we start to do things very, very differently. It's already too late for at least a third of us. There are too many rats in our cities ... yet we refuse to move... and when we do, it's to wherever they navigate Section 8 to.
C'mon ... inside you is the gene pool the walked out of Africa and peopled the world. I look at the Bible and early history with some trepidation. We claim Egypt ... but what is Egypt's karma? Moslems? Yoruba Religion? Those were the people who had instrumental hands in selling us into slavery ... and they are still in power over there. Look at how they treat us when they open a store in our neighborhoods. And that's were we put our support when we at least start thinking of doing something different. WHAT ABOUT EACH OTHER!!!
Time to relearn again what we had to "relearn" during the Civil Rights Movement. How to love and work together. That is the route to our survival, and our future wealth. Failure to do so ... is our doom. Being a "Black Republican" ain't going to save you. It ain't bad ... it just ain't going to make or save you. A Faustian Bargain is always a bad, bad choice.
But most of all, I strongly urge each of us … before we begin to take on the outer world’s challenges, to start with that man in the mirror. Align your will with God’s … and you can run. Slay your demons … drug addiction, sex addiction, Happy Hour … T.V. (who in the hell cares WHAT Paris Hilton is doing??), and all the other dysfunctional things we’ve been seduced into using as coping mechanisms.
There’s a big world out there. Together, we could build something really wonderful in it. But first we have to get despair out of our house. We have to get “false pride” out of our hearts. We might have to get our finger nails dirty again … lose some of those guts. But if you do … oh … if you take this next challenge by the horns … with wisdom, charity, and the strength of character that comes from learning spiritual values … we can do more than just survive—we can flourish!
