“And I don’t give a f#@k what Bill Cosby said
’cause the problem gon’ exist when Bill Cosby’s dead
And I don’t think the revelation from the supreme beings
residing or hiding out in Bill Cosby’s head”
-Jay Electronica “Renaissance Man”
A few days after Christmas, the blogosphere and social media sites were abuzz with images and news articles of working class Black people buying and even fighting over newly released Air Jordan sneakers. Predictably this news story led many to fall back on the dominant narrative that irresponsible purchases are the cause of Black people’s problems. Never mind the fact that wages have stagnated for the past forty years and most people have had to go in debt to keep this consumer based economy going. Why? Because, according to some, “We are our own worst enemy.” Unfortunately, most of us don’t view the problem as ‘the system’ because we have accepted the dominant narrative of Black pathology.
In large part, the blaming-the-victim ideology that has become so pervasive has its roots in White Nationalist archetypes of Africans in America. The lazy, shiftless, socially and financially irresponsible negro narrative came to full maturity during the Reconstruction period, following the US civil War. Similar to other periods when Whites socio-economic position feels threatened, they are manipulated into blaming scapegoats for their problems. Once Reconstruction ended, this narrative was employed to justify legal segregation, economic exploitation, and lynchings of Black people. More recently in the 1980s, right wing neo-conservatives manipulated working class whites and, I argue, middle class Blacks to blaming their tenuous position on poor and working class Black people (welfare queens, the inner city drug dealer etc.).
The causes and solutions to the economic crisis show the hypocrisy of the lazy negro narrative. For example, Black people are told one of their problems is they do not correctly save and invest their income. On the other hand, financial institutions and banks that partook in risky financial instruments received over $7.7 TRILLION (yes with a T) in bailouts from the Federal Reserve. How much economic development would half that amount have done for the Black community?
Or, a case in point, we are told our poverty primarily results from that fact that we are not financially literate. In fact, researcher Dedrick Muhammand has demonstrated that Wells Fargo and other banks conducted ‘wealth building seminars’ in Black churches then targeted Black people for subprime mortgage loans. Lastly (and my personal favorite), somehow our problems are attributed to young Black men wearing their pants below their waist i.e. sagging. (sigh) The bankers wear business suits and they’re the main culprits behind ‘The Great Recession.’ Any questions?
One way to challenge the dominant narrative is to not view events and people as isolated phenomena but instead attempt to find the connections between what appears to be unrelated events. Our problems are not disconnected from other issues like American consumerism. Also, instead of a focus on personal responsibility, let’s look at Ujima or collective work and responsibility. In other words how do Black people as a group resolve our problems? After making these adjustments we can construct a narrative that correctly identifies the problem: imperialism and capitalism.
Benjamin Woods M.P.S. is a PhD Candidate at Howard University. His blog FreetheLand provides political and cultural analysis of historical and contemporary events as they relate to people of African descent.
Thank you for this article Mr. Woods. I think drawing a line between the stereotypes black people are labeled with and the behavior of the wealthy is an important one. It is important to always remember the constant social, political, economic, and physical beat downs we have taken for centuries from the government and its corporate and citizen allies, while those same citizen allies and corporations enjoy constant support in the same categories from the government.
I constantly bring up this subject I’d like to open up for discussion. Our problems were, and are currently exacerbated by the status quo. That’s an undeniable fact that needs to be constantly highlighted, analyzed, and organized against. I do not aspire to the lazy shiftless negro perception, but having been an organizer in the black community for over a decade now on a variety of issues, directly working with the community, and with no plans to quit working in the community, our people are hard to rally and organize, but by no means hopeless.
My personal experience, which by no means represents the common experience for those directly trying to organize poor black people(or maybe it does?), is that we do not rally and organize until something very serious confronts us head on, or somebody has something to offer. A huge part of the Panthers success was that they had something to offer the adults and their children. Namely food, protection, daycare, and other services. After needs were addressed, the community was then open to black liberation education (and they had the momentum of a movement behind them as well, and because we do not our job is that much harder).
I say to myself it is us who are to blame, the “conscious” folks. We have the capacity to build community support, but most times we do not live in the community, we are not on the ground in the community, we have nothing tangible to offer the community, we have not offered reliable and important services to the community that address their immediate needs, nor do we organize effectively, like the Panthers did in all of these aspects. I don’t want to knock other organizations out there doing the work. There are many organizations doing great things in the community and we should be behind them 110%, but most times we are not because we have our own agenda or niche we do not venture far from.
After working with adults and teenagers for many years, our best bet is the children, whom I currently work with. Their minds and souls are so flexible and motivated, and have not been beat to hardened rigidity by the cold world of imperialist economics and politics, which have weakened, manipulated, and warped many of the souls that raise the very same motivated children. Countless studies show how even in the worst of conditions, if a child has a lifelong mentor the chances of making it out are much higher. Even if we become dedicated mentors, we do not want to teach them to make it out, we want to train them to go back in. And I want to make clear that I do not think the adults and teenagers are a lost cause. Quite the contrary, they have the most to offer.
Thank you again for your analysis. This type of commentary keeps me motivated and fuels my reasoning for why I am in the community.
We have been talking about group cohesiveness for years. It’s the same old rhetoric.
We are the only group that practices non-economic socialism and you do not think that we are our own worst enemy? How many time do we turn our dollars over in our communities?
We are the only group that practices non-economic socialism and you do not think that we are our own worst enemy?
Great Peace Bro. Ben as always. I think the major problems as you have cited is our unwillingness by the leadership to admit that despite their individual successes, capitalism and imperialism has failed the world.
Problem is that “They” have develop parasitic opposed to “sovereign” national development plans and therefore as a by product “they” have also failed Afrikans whom they “led.” This really pains me when folks talk about black financial illiteracy, hell most people in America are “financial illiterate” (hence the foreclsoure) its just whites have enough to make a mistake, and for black folks we do not have “wiggle” room and people are preying on our sustained disenfranchisement.
Nothing we are experiencing is new, and because we do not want to admit past “bad” (mis-trails) decisions, i.e Civil Rights, Integration, and even Civil War over Maroonage (which would have resulted in a New Afrikan Republic in the black south with the assistance of the Caribbean and Latin America) the youth are suffering and we are medicating and jailing them for it.
Forward with new solutions to old problems.
Peace and Blessings