It appears the race is going more backward than forward:
- Literacy rates are lower than they were 50 years ago
- Poverty rates are higher than they were 40 years ago
- High school graduation rates are lower than they were 30 years ago
- Unemployment rates and STD contraction rates are higher than they were 20 years ago
- College admission rates are lower than they were ten years ago
I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point. We need a Black agenda more than ever. Some people say we have one. There is no shortage of organizations and activities in which we may involve ourselves. But do they lead us to progress? We’re all busy doing something, but our involvements gain little for the masses. All motion isn’t progress. If it were, then why aren’t we going forward? Maybe, it's because there is no Black agenda pointing directly to collective progress.
In nearly every major city in America, Black communities are suffering from a combination of poverty, economic subjugation and police oppression. The Black community is in a constant state of struggle and a constant debate over its progress and what we’re doing (what we gon’ do, y’all) to bring about that progress. Over the past few months, several significant issues, from police shootings across the nation (New York to Inglewood), to campus violence (elementary schools to college campuses), to the “Black image” of other people calling African Americans everything from Ni**ers to Hoes and everything in between.
Malcolm, we are still struggling in different ways. And Black progress has become a mixed bag of tricks that, in essence, requires us to be careful what we ask for. Yes, we have more Black millionaires, but half of them got rich denigrating the race. Yes, more Blacks are in the middle class, but they’re still struggling to find quality schools to educate their children or safe communities in which to insolate themselves from gang violence. Yes, there are more Black entrepreneurs than ever but Black businesses still face more economic discrimination and redlining from banks and capital sources than any other group.
Yes, there are more college educated Blacks than at any other time in American history, but they will be the first generation to have less than their parents (and their parents had LESS education than they had). Yes, there are more Black agendas than ever:
- Farrakhan’s Millions More movement
- Tavis Smiley’s Covenant movement
- Russell Simmons’ Hip Hop Summit
- Many local movements in every city by everyday folks trying to change their quality of life
Yet, it appears many of these movements are led more by people with their own agenda than by people looking to lead a Black agenda. Desire for personal benefit and self-aggrandizement has made many people too cautious to lead and more cautious as to whom they follow. Some folk even go as far as to suggest that this generation has no leaders.
While that certainly is not true - this generation has leaders, just not in the civil rights/Black protest tradition - it is true that those who lead are not leading us forward. Not when more people want to be Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent or Allen Iverson than want to be Dr. Keith Black, Mae Jemison or Kathy Hughes. And this generation surely must believe that progress is more than the individual successes of obtaining a Rolex, Bentley and a condo. It’s not about what one or two of us have, it’s about what all of us should have. That’s progress. And it’s about what we will or will not let others say or do to us.
Even when Black dignity and sensibilities were under attack by Michael Richards and Don Imus, the Black community was conflicted as to who should be "speaking for us." There were just as many conversations about who "appointed Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton" (suspicious of their agendas), as there were about who should stop saying Ni**er,*itch and Ho first, white people or us? Even Oprah, of whom it’s been said avoids "Black issues," weighed in on the agenda to repair Black social standing. It didn’t stop those with agendas from disrupting the process of achieving Black progress.
When Black stakeholders stepped up in California to mediate who should fill the late Congresswoman Millander-McDonald’s seat, they were called "self-appointed" and "self-anointed" by, who else but, other Blacks. The purpose was to forge a Black agenda to retain political power. People with personal differences and conflicted political interests came together to forge the process. Only those not part of the process (with agendas) sought to criticize the process from without.
Some Black people have lost their sense of to when it’s necessary to get on the same page, the same agenda, as in the 1960s, when even Malcolm and Martin, who were fighting different fights in two separate parts of the country recognized that it was the same struggle. We may not agree with all rap. We may not agree with all television programming. We may not agree with all the ways that Black people make money now. But we can agree on what’s appropriate. We can agree on what promotes good and our standing in society, and we can agree on what sustains our cultural longevity. A Black agenda doesn’t have to be an individual agenda, nor does it have to be wasted motion. A Black agenda is finding ways to move constantly toward a collective progress, where we leave nobody behind and retain our dignity throughout the process.
- Black Commentator Columnist Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of the upcoming book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com.
