Our Bonds Are Broken: Why Communities of Color Keep Suffering
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We all have a vision of prosperity, and with that vision, an eagerness to blame the outside world when things don’t go our way sometimes. Although several economic, social and political problems are without question the fault of institutional racism, biased employers, and a world of white privilege, how long are communities of color willing to bleed? Instead of our pockets getting fatter, our problems are expanding more quickly than a bottom in tight jeans…and overflowing into a muffin top of defeat.
Will we ever be honest about our overall health as a community? Will someone ever have the courage to not merely chastise communities of color, but help us help ourselves? Will phrases like “communities of color” and “the urban community” always be euphemisms for poverty? Can those phrases ever be yanked from the context of “suffering” or “problems” or “pathologies” and become synonymous with wealth and power and integrity—not just for the sake of lawmakers and mouthy pundits on cable news channels, but for the real people who are defined by them?
Though minorities have secured some powerful representation in the fashion world (think supermodels Alek Wek, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Beverly Johnson), and in the political world (think Barack Obama, Colin Powell), and in the worlds of music and entertainment, many of these icons do not reflect, or affect, the lives of everyday people.
In the real world, where black unemployment rates are always the highest, health problems are always plaguing people of color, and education is continuing to tumble in minority communities, regular folk, i.e. Tom, package and Tyrone, need to start admitting that they have age-old problems.
What’s more, we need to start fixing them–by ourselves. The first step though is admitting that we have a problem. We’ve listed the ongoing problems below, as well as their solutions, in our much needed process of collective rehab.
- Diddy’s Defense Admits Violence But Denies Sex Trafficking In Opening Statements
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- Why Actress Amber Iman Calls ‘Goddess’ A Love Letter To Black Women In Theater [Exclusive]
- Former Pro Footballer Ryan Clark Calls Diddy A ‘B—-‘ For ‘Stomping’ Out Cassie In Video
1. Our Love Affair With Excuses
PROBLEM: We see Beyonce with cute $550 pumps, or we notice our favorite lawmaker’s $2,000 watch and think those items would make cute gifts for our boo-cakes. Of course, they would. Boo-cakes like pretty gifts; pretty gifts make boo-cakes feel really warm and special inside. Problem is: we don’t have any money in our retirement savings, we have never heard of a 401(k), we have no investments, no wealth, and, in short, $3 in our savings accounts after all our bills are paid—if we remember to pay them. Now, instead of shifting our mental gears and saying, no, we cannot buy what we cannot afford, we charge our Beyonce- and favorite lawmaker-inspired “gifts” to our credit cards, go deeper in debt, and blame the Bush economy, the Obama economy, the white man, the milk man, our parents, our dogs, everybody and everything besides our lavish music-video mentalities for the fact that we’ve just made our own selves broke.
SOLUTION: We need to go from a “why” mindset to a “how” mindset. Let’s ease up on unpacking “why” black people “this, that and the other excuse,” and start building task forces in our homes. Having a task force mentality in the home will enable households to set goals and achieve them step by step, with each family member assigned a responsibility. For example: Mom, your responsibility is to ensure that we put $500 a month in our wealth bucket, and ensure that Dad doesn’t spend it. If you’re single or a single parent and have zero wealth, and no one is employing you, either employ yourself or find out why. If people are not hiring because you don’t have a bachelor’s degree, your task is to see if you can get one. We need to get that “task force mentality” in our homes, whereby we lay out our toughest problems and come up with a plan to end them. We can also lay out some tasks based on our dreams. Either way we want do it, just no more explaining away why somebody didn’t let us start a business or finish a degree or raise the kids we fathered or mothered or whatever else!
- Diddy’s Defense Admits Violence But Denies Sex Trafficking In Opening Statements
- Favorite Moments From ‘The Bomb Fashion Show’ During New York Fashion Week
- Why Actress Amber Iman Calls ‘Goddess’ A Love Letter To Black Women In Theater [Exclusive]
- Former Pro Footballer Ryan Clark Calls Diddy A ‘B—-‘ For ‘Stomping’ Out Cassie In Video
2. Skanky Issues With “Black Leadership”
PROBLEM: Nowadays, being a “black leader” is like a fad. In our generation, leaders don’t have to rally people who are suffering or do anything to help those in need! All they need to do is polish their teeth and smile for the cable news cameras. Are you sick of it yet? The number of big words in our so-called leaders’ vocabulary and their “analyses-ma-ficationsss” are really great…really great—for them. But, communities of color need people who can say to them directly: we’re going to teach you how to get out of debt for the next 30 days. Then, we’re going to monitor your progress, create benchmarks/milestones, and come back and check in on you every 30 days after. We need voices that say, we’re going to show you how to coalesce and build wealth. We’re going to show you how to speak to children in empowering ways. We’re going to join forces and bring you resources. Who is leading this charge? Who is on the side of the people?!
SOLUTION: Reward our leaders at home, first of all. If there is a man or woman in our very own midst, who is taking better care of us than any skanky politician or pundit ever could, we need to celebrate him or her. On a larger scale, we need to start voicing our needs and allowing only those who are effective to represent us. We need to groom young men and women to not only be great at controlling video games, but even better at controlling the outcomes of their lives. Leadership begins at home. We need to be the foremost leaders of our very own selves.
- Diddy’s Defense Admits Violence But Denies Sex Trafficking In Opening Statements
- Favorite Moments From ‘The Bomb Fashion Show’ During New York Fashion Week
- Why Actress Amber Iman Calls ‘Goddess’ A Love Letter To Black Women In Theater [Exclusive]
- Former Pro Footballer Ryan Clark Calls Diddy A ‘B—-‘ For ‘Stomping’ Out Cassie In Video
3. A Failed Educational System
PROBLEM: So, yes: we have to work to make ends meet, leaving our babies in the hands of who knows what teacher in which school. We are good people, with good hearts, and all we want is for lil Malik or Mukisha to get his or her As, build good character, pass these “standardized” tests that could possibly be designed to fail minority students. But, whatever: if any kid can pass school, then our kids can. So, in the Board of Ed, we all trust. Right? Wrong!
SOLUTION: Working to pay the bills is important, but how many parents can actually tell you what their children did in school two weeks ago? How many attend parent-teacher meetings? How many rally with other parents to campaign to get better teachers or better equipment? How many times do you scream and shout and applaud when your child brings home an “A” versus when she learns to do the “Single Ladies” dance? The educational system starts with you: the parent. Buckle up, review and stamp your children’s work every night, and Google what your child is supposed to be learning at his or her age. Just Google “educational curricula for grade 6” for example, and do your homework as a parent! If you see the system failing your babies—as opposed to teaching them what they need to know to compete, then you need to unite and organize with like-minded parents and aggressively ensure that your kids are not left behind.
- Diddy’s Defense Admits Violence But Denies Sex Trafficking In Opening Statements
- Favorite Moments From ‘The Bomb Fashion Show’ During New York Fashion Week
- Why Actress Amber Iman Calls ‘Goddess’ A Love Letter To Black Women In Theater [Exclusive]
- Former Pro Footballer Ryan Clark Calls Diddy A ‘B—-‘ For ‘Stomping’ Out Cassie In Video
4. Colorism
PROBLEM: Light-skinned, dark-skinned: yawn.
SOLUTION: I’m sorry, what century do we live in? We’re going to need to let this self-hate/colorism thing go now. Thanks for the long stay though!
- Diddy’s Defense Admits Violence But Denies Sex Trafficking In Opening Statements
- Favorite Moments From ‘The Bomb Fashion Show’ During New York Fashion Week
- Why Actress Amber Iman Calls ‘Goddess’ A Love Letter To Black Women In Theater [Exclusive]
- Former Pro Footballer Ryan Clark Calls Diddy A ‘B—-‘ For ‘Stomping’ Out Cassie In Video
5. Poor Attitudes Towards Health
PROBLEM: Communities of color suffer HIV/AIDS, breast cancer and diabetes in huge percentages. And, according to the Center for Disease Control, 36% of non-Hispanic black men who are 20 years and over are obese. For black women, that number is 53%. Within that same demographic, 39% of black men have hypertension, and 43% of black women have the same. But wait. We haven’t even touched mental health stats yet. Our attitudes towards our ongoing physical health issues can be poor, but when it comes to mental health, our stance is even worse. We laugh at those who suffer from disorders, and even go so far as to convince ourselves that people of color “don’t do that depression stuff.”
SOLUTION: We need to think of health as an index that measures our mind, body and spirit—not just how many times we caught a cold each year. We need to maintain high indexes for our individual selves, as well as our extended selves. Our community is our extended self: which is why fighting for the health rights of others, even when we are not sick is so important. We cannot thrive as individuals if the community around us is drowning in malady.
- Diddy’s Defense Admits Violence But Denies Sex Trafficking In Opening Statements
- Favorite Moments From ‘The Bomb Fashion Show’ During New York Fashion Week
- Why Actress Amber Iman Calls ‘Goddess’ A Love Letter To Black Women In Theater [Exclusive]
- Former Pro Footballer Ryan Clark Calls Diddy A ‘B—-‘ For ‘Stomping’ Out Cassie In Video
6. The Breaking Apart of Families
PROBLEM: Where do we begin with this “baby daddy” and “baby mama” language we’ve been pushing for the past two decades? Our language around family is becoming so toxic that we don’t even have the guts to admit that the terms, “baby mama” and “baby dada” are RI-DIC-U-LOUS, or that the n-word doesn’t mean “brother,” it means the n-word!
SOLUTION: Family is so sacred: our families have bestowed us with long-fought African-American, Latino, Asian-American, legacies in this country for years. We shouldn’t mar those legacies with the low standards and structures we’ve been accepting for ourselves? We need to increase our standards and change our language! If you had three and four baby mamas and daddies and you actually married them, and every time you had to refer to them as your ex-wife or ex-husband, you would be forced to reflect on what it means to have three ex-wives and ex-husbands, rather than three “baby mamas” and “baby daddies!” You would be forced to dig into yourself and own up to your failed relationships, rather than trying to camouflage them through your kids and saying “baby”-mama/daddy as if the baby had anything to do with why you can’t keep a home. It’s almost like, we’re the babies here—and it’s time to grow up.
- Diddy’s Defense Admits Violence But Denies Sex Trafficking In Opening Statements
- Favorite Moments From ‘The Bomb Fashion Show’ During New York Fashion Week
- Why Actress Amber Iman Calls ‘Goddess’ A Love Letter To Black Women In Theater [Exclusive]
- Former Pro Footballer Ryan Clark Calls Diddy A ‘B—-‘ For ‘Stomping’ Out Cassie In Video
