There was an article in the Atlantic magazine some time ago that discussed the notion of a black community. It is quite heterogeneous in terms of discussion and in terms of actual identity. Presuming that there is such a community and that it presumes that such people in a community endeavor to help one another prosper and overcome historical impediments that have become systemic or socio-political, then we can begin a brief discussion. The notion of the community as described above will contrast greatly with the phenomena of the dynamics of crabs in a barrel or the bottom of a slave transport ship. In either case, crabs and the humans in the ship are trying to get oxygen for survival. But, if you are living in the belief that the community is about helping other members of the said community, you would not think, act or behave like a crab when in contact with other members of this said community; would you? You would be quite amazed at men who are living for their own kingdom or kinghood or queendom who think battery acid is their best tool in ensuring other people have less hair and less beauty as they climb in their emotions to their envisioned throne. Could people really be alive with the purpose of doing nothing else but hurting other individuals and dividing families? But, what does someone else's appearance or health have to do with anyone's notion of kingdom or queendom? They might have to think a bit bigger so that someone else's appearance is irrelevant to their lofty and worthy personal life purpose above all else and others in that crab bucket. Next, we have to juxtapose the reality of black women's liberation with the greater goal of apparent progress in that community. Is it that black women's power and their struggle entitle them to use, hurt, maim, kill, steal from and crucify any male member of that community who knows nothing about their paradigmatic agenda or personal life experiences that seems to compute the male member as nothing more than a variable or factor of authority while withholding opportunities sent by post to male family members that would help the whole family and community in fear of a loss of household authority; seeing them as nothing more than a variable to be treated in horrible ways if he does not conform to their paradigm; a paradigm that may eschew a desire for one wife with whom a man wishes to be faithful? It also presumes sisterhood must supersede family. But, how many times did your brother help you with your home work? Is the notion of womanhood to be enmitous with manhood? The issue of violence in the home exists in every community. This is quite sad and what is a young boy to do who may have witnessed this? He leaves that notion of family and watches "Leave It To Beaver", hoping for his ethnic version when he grows up with a trip to the black dessert shop called "Juniors" once a month. Next, we would have to juxtapose the reality of sibling rivalry along with those who believe in a "people, my people" with this notion of community that presumes a certain amount of togetherness(isn't a sibling a member of the community? What happened to her or his vehicle? How many times did she go to the chitlin shoe store?) for it to exist above and beyond the obvious heterogeneity; that is someone who is a Louisianan needs to obviously put his Black Louisianan identity before his black identity and treat a black New Yorker with a sense of disdain at a Jazz concert in the presense of other black Louisianans and who is to argue since you are entitled to your community expression; right? Next, we can add the issue of faith to the discussion as juxtaposed against those who do something called "slanging" or juxtapose that against hedonism in the community or the "anything goes". The end result is that their are other communities who crave the freedom and individuality that a Western-Judeo Christian society affords and they subsume individuality, personal power-seeking and expression to the greater community identity. They also subsume this to the importance of personal family name and its many generations. They consider themselves sufficiently free and successful not to resent the goals and achievements of any family member in this great wide world with soo much to offer. Qu'est qu tu regardez dans la ici? IL est le television? But it could be that black people do not feel sufficiently free as individuals to express their need for personal power-seeking on any individual any where so they simply cannibalize within the walls of the crab barrel and use their personal authority for no other purposes but to kill and hurt their own community members. But, this is not what they teach their young at those Saturday schools. They teach them about community, their special historical inventors like Banneker and Carver and demand that they work very hard; maybe twice as hard to get a C in a world where nice Anglo-Catholic, Muslim, Catholic, Baptist, Atheist and Agnostic people regardless of brain-tone or skin tone do studies in great universities and institutions of higher learning to evidence systemic racial inequality and the need for some socio-political redress. But, it is best to think of it as logistic inequality when you are logistically a racial and financial minority. But, its a different story in every country in the world for minorities. Even if the population numbers were on par amongst various racial groups in some Western societies, the logistic inequality would remain most likely for reasons that might be cultural and historic that leads to financial questions. We could look at South Africa or the United States as an example. We speak of logistics because if it is systemic, we would have to ask how is it a systemic issue? Who is running the system and with what agenda if there is any agenda to speak of such that it is systemic or do we mean to say habitual or cultural? If it is about systems, we can design an operating system that works regardless of whether it is a white school trustee or black school trustee involved; much like the operating system that works on a black Lenovo phone or white Lenovo phone and this like a McDonalds million dollar franchise. Schools should not operate with less systemic virtue. This is also true for the administration of any university or professional body; no? So, a system that at least seeks officially or unofficially to hire in proportion to the High School graduation stats based on race in any given society could actually help since you really can't be "equal" when you are logistically less resourced in terms of population numbers and in terms of various other indicators. When the population numbers are equal, should we presume that anything will change? What happens in homes and in the invisible walls of a crab bucket may answer this question. The truth is you are not guaranteed a job even though you worked twice as hard for that C or B. But, you are very thankful to be alive and to have learned something along the yellow brick road. You just want to serve the community in which you graduated and the more visible community that encouraged you( if you serve one community, you are serving the other and both evidently since they are indivisible) as you do as you are told like you always did. Then, they have a special Chinese lunch at Christmas with rib tips from the take out down the road along with some biscuits and some fried chicken with maybe lower battery acid content than the occasional Black or West Indian restaurant since there are children eating the chicken in a church hall maybe. Do not forget the rum cake with tropical fruit flavors from the nice lady who always rubs everybody's head with so much affirmative love! Who could fail to graduate after 19 years of that sort of thing on a Sunday afternoon in a church hall or basement? Aren't you thankful? Make sure you visit her and her daughter once in a while although the daughter said she was not the marriage type, wanted to hold on to you after she broke up and won't leave you alone after 25 years although you made it clear that you would give marriage a second consideration after you became a chiropractor. Then, you heard she was selling your seed and also your essays that she tried to use in an undergrad program. She was an only child and had a tendency to suggest that sisterhood superseded every other consideration including the community. This may have meant recruiting females to her bisexuality and trying to suggest that any man with any woman could not be trusted and had to be a cheat. As such, she would offer herself and her 12 inch wearable instruments as a substitute. She seeks to come into any relationship like a satan and divide. She also gave a fetus conceived with one of her ex's seed as a dish of cooked pork to a family for Christmas. She also seeks to use other people's ideas and seeks to stop at nothing; including more murder. But, you, on the other hand graduated without cheating? Aren't you thankful? Didn't you show thankfulness? There is nothing wrong with the Chinese food because you cannot deny the racial ad-mixture that could involve some Chinese genes so let us take the advice of our ancestors and honor all of our ancestors; all of them and be at peace since there is a lot of work to do to ensure that we can just enjoy 70 years of life without trying to assimilate other black people or victimizing black people to the assimilation of our version of a truly heterogeneous black community in the argument about loyalty and "togetherness" and a fear of the lack thereof or our own personal black notion of community or identity within the larger community or black community with a fear that says we don't understand why anybody would go to university or is it that we don't remember telling children to aspire to great things and to seek some kind of qualification to help themselves and not to forget the community and the struggle. The "struggle" could be a Saturday school teacher who, after your successful graduation, thinks you are using great swelling words in your graduation or your post-graduation and thinks you are trying to avoid the black community in his projection of negative self imaging. Sometimes fathers do this as well so they think they have to negate the person they encouraged so that they can maintain their feeling of being equal or superior in the fear of possible rejection. They do not see the graduation as an extension of family or communal success when the graduation arrives; sort of like a young child resenting a newly born sibling. They could not have anticipated that they would have had this guttural, infantile reaction but the reaction does betray a certain underdevelopment in terms of one's outlook. How is the graduation taken as a threat of any kind? Could it be about position in the home or community? Is it appreciation? They could just see that no matter what, if the person or child does not come back to say thank you, the Saturday school teacher or father can celebrate the success of the delivery of even one word of positive affirmation that bore fruit. He certainly said "thank you"; didn't he? But, the fear of being left may override the most selfless logic in the uh struggle; the struggle that should be about a better community and not the circular legacy of continually overcoming perceived rejection or abandonment. You really want those kids to do what you do; whatever that is as if they didn't sit as you demanded in Sunday school and hear what the nice people had to say in earnest. That is something that may require some juxtaposition with the word of God, with self love and self-acceptance. You should not see your encouragement as being vain. They graduated and have served the community and the greater community. Also, they have come back to say thank you on several occasions. They also taught at Saturday school themselves. One last observation is that if you love any shadow or semblance of your great or minority culture, then you should probably keep the people alive who are not only consumers but who absorbed the most important and essential lessons of that culture; that is to do your job and the task assigned to you. You don't have any resources or people to throw away in seeking a sense of personal power or authority if the endeavor at Saturday or Sunday School is about the success of young lives and your culture. The priority should be the greater community in which you love; not you and you alone.
Warren A. Lyon, www.londiniumtvchannel.com
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