International Journal of Applied Sociology

p-ISSN: 2169-9704    e-ISSN: 2169-9739

2016;  6(1): 1-6

doi:10.5923/j.ijas.20160601.01

 

Self Esteem Development is a Community Effort

Jack A. Kirkland

Washington University in St Louis, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, St Louis, Missouri, USA

Correspondence to: Jack A. Kirkland, Washington University in St Louis, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, St Louis, Missouri, USA.

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Copyright © 2016 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).
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Cite this paper: Jack A. Kirkland, Self Esteem Development is a Community Effort, International Journal of Applied Sociology, Vol. 6 No. 1, 2016, pp. 1-6. doi: 10.5923/j.ijas.20160601.01.

I have written this paper to show the correlation between the social statuses in self-esteem, of two people, one oppressed, depressed, limited to access the full institutional structure of a social system, and the other having free and open access to all institutional avenues within a nation, America. It is a story of the deprived group’s plight to obtain their individual and collective “personhood,” and self-esteem, as well as their collective group self-esteem. Admittedly, this is an extremely difficult pursuit, when one’s personhood, and self-esteem, is besieged with subtlety, subterfuge and disguises, aplenty, deliberately to prevent such a statement of adequate self-esteem to be announced, celebrated, and be uncontested. In America, there are the psychically rooted memories of “chattel slavery,” riveted in the sub consciousness of a population, deeply etched, and rationalized and morally entrenched, and openly and consistently revisited in the structure of “Institutionalized Racism,” This, even so, in a society that postulates itself at home, and makes believable abroad, social equality and an unbiased delivery of social justice.
One would assume that such a noble nation would, on the basis of centuries of observation, of the positive deportment and social compliance of Black people, grant equal citizenship, and full rights to all that might wish to exercise the pursuit of equal self-esteem. This would seem especially so of a previously estranged people, who have labored under the greatest strain and burden that a people could bear. This is a people who have demonstrated their national allegiance, their willingness and eagerness to assist this nation in its highest call of citizenship, to go to war for the safety and honor of this nation. All that a society could require, mandate, of this people has been offered, in their deepest patriotism and loyalty. Blacks are a people who have proved their merit and desire to function within the framework and the structure of such a demeaning and rejecting society. Every challenging social test of commitment to which Blacks in America were submitted; even with structured, limited, unequal and restrained preparation, they have passed the test without exception. And, for the greater part of the 20thCentury, while still embracing the encumbrances and shackles of segregation, Black Americans served as the “moral compass” for the country.
The “Civil Rights Movement,” of which I was a strategist, offered a chance for America to fully include Black Americans into this social, economic and political fabric, to be equally competitive, to which Blacks have been exempted, and have experienced resistance and hostility, in a variety of ways at all levels, even in the face of presumed acceptance. And, correspondingly, without an embrace of honest commitment, the plight of Blacks has been spiraling downward with great rapidity, this, even when, seemingly, all of America is moving upward, at his disregard. This is owing to the steadfastness of the white racial disclaim of the disproportionate distribution of opportunities, called “white privilege”, which leaves Blacks with the leftovers, of these institutional offerings of social progress, and an uneven standard of living, and ability to earn a living wage, in a Free Enterprise system.
For some time now, after many years of exposure in the social work realm of graduate social work practice and education, I have found this professional practice often leading to the creation of a repository of disproportionate landings, for many Black individuals who have experienced social failures. I have come to the painful conclusion that an oppressed people may be able to find social adjustment, a sense of self-esteem, and even comfort, in their own discomfort and self-definition of self-esteem, which can be at odds with that of the counter definition of the dominant culture of a society. This is an understandable phenomenon for a people, in a rejecting society that excludes them encased. And, yet, they can find self-esteem, somewhat of a kind, in their own collective exclusionism. And, in such a cloture, “huddle of the masses,” is found self-protection provided within a group, looking inside of its own cluster for their own definition of self and personhood to be insufficient, when the group is once again turned around to face the rejecting dominant society. This self-definition, of this inner group is self-esteem, as defined by themselves, is comforting within, but is defined as insufficient, as seen by the outsider; the one who has the authority to make the institutional sanctions of invitation for inclusion, who disagrees with the rejected group. This ethnic self-definition is almost always considered flawed and falls short of the reflection of adequacy and self-esteem, by the inviting group of presumed authority. There are exceptions whereby individuals are offered admission, of the rejected group, in keeping with their acceptable norm, which fluctuates, and is adjusted for all other outsiders, to be acceptable into the ranks of the exclusive insiders, depending on their need, situation, and the social pressures applied by adversarial organizations, and sporadic uprising by the masses.
To this rejected group, which holds not the “keys” of entry of acceptance into society, for reasons of “color,” and for the instant “reminding that society of its “subliminal guilt,” of reason for rejection, “slavery,” it must find another avenue to travel for this society to be willing to barter their right to open admission.
In my professional pursuit, I have searched to find such a “key” to this open door of entry for Black America, for access into this exclusive entrepreneurial system. I have sought a “unique pathway” through Social Work “education and practice,” and have redefined, and redirected my effort of enabling students to provide a greater gift than “traditional services,” as the step-up out of Black poverty. In doing such, I provide them the “innovative tools,” and the “imaginary weaponry,” to engage Black people in the opportunity to become self-producers. This is the “key” for Black self-esteem, individually and collectively, as a people in America. While this may seem as though it is merely a way to reshape the system as it exists, I assure you that there are dramatic, radical differences.
In this pursuit, of creating a new model, I have also, privately and personally purchased considerable acreage of land, some time ago, in the city of East St Louis, Illinois, to build, “The Helping Village,” which is to be a “Town within a Town,” which I am developing. The details which undergird the body of my plan are not the subject here, and will be describe in a later paper. It will be a prototype of what I propose could become a mini “model” of what is possible for Blacks to replicate in form and model. With the development of a “macro” entrepreneurial campus elements of which could be implemented in Black Ghettos nationwide, Blacks would comfortably approach and knock on the door for entry into main stream America, with sufficient self-esteem as a people to be ushered inside. I have discovered that a rejected people, without serious ownership of property, or at levels of production, or distribution of goods and services, will continue to “beg” for open admission and will not receive full self-esteem, and that, seemingly granted and even begrudgingly ceded, will become progressively lessened in time, without the forthcoming evidence of future capital investment in one’s own investments.
Therefore, “Social Economic Development” must be the “New Face” of Social Work, in a socially and economically depressed Urban America, where most Blacks reside, if Blacks are to gain sufficient foothold, to garnish adequate self-esteem, they must have the vision to see and grasp the future, and hold and stay their ground, and stand fast where they currently reside. Otherwise, the “great plains” on which Black Americans currently live, cities, across this vast country, are similar, somewhat at threat of loss, as that of the “great plains” was to the Native Americans, Indians – urban land is now under heavy contest for the taking, as once fleeing white suburban populations are seeking to return to cities in preparation for what is the “New Frontier,” like a tsunami tidal wave. It is the rushing, oncoming technological, “digital revolution,” that follows the “industrial revolution,” and Civil Rights Movement, which sent these groups packing from cities in the first place. The Native Indian’s definition of self-esteem and self-sufficiency was based on land ownership and control, and the ability to hold the land, whereby he was first confronted by a foreign concept to him, “Manifest Destiny,” or Free Enterprise. And, so it is now with the Black Americans, who are now city dwellers, who will see a similar pattern of land exchange, “grabs”, under Eminent Domain, and other such outrageous, immoral, but legal forms for land separation, under the same plan, with a new name. The American Indian was conveniently dislodged of the buffalo, and his work and his way of life, along with his individual and collective self-esteem. And, so with the ending of the Industrial revolution, and the onslaught of the Digital Revolution, the same has been accomplished with the same intentional conclusion for the Black American. Both are without definition of self and are caught up in being redefined by others, generation after generation, as being progressively less than adequate, as they become less and less able to manage their own lives, due to gross deprivations of ownership. Both are separated from the mainstream of production for self, one physically, the other artificially. Both are entrapped in Ghettos, one more isolated and distant, one near and segregated. Both are on reservations, one with prescribed boundaries, set by the government and treaties, the other isolated and racially distant, because of status.
The evidence of the impending contest, of this economic separation, of what I speak is being readied and repeatedly advanced daily in the headline news and body content of many cities and some States in America, and is reported in their budget shortfalls, and inability to promptly pay all debts, as their extended indebtedness reaches far into the future. Further, resulting evidences appear, such as the rashes of urban bankruptcies, evidenced by Detroit, Michigan, and the recent flare ups with police authorities in Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland Ohio, and Baltimore, Maryland, with its contagious implications for other urban communities, all mask the underlying dynamics of which we are all so familiar - mass poverty, joblessness and hopelessness - which is felt and openly exercised by frustrated Black youth, in drug economies and gang activities. These are young and older adults exasperated, unemployed and underemployed, who see their lives having little purpose or chance for reclamation, or for any readjustment to normalcy, or of the hopes of the yester days of which their parents spoke of having. They feel that they are caught in a” torrent,” of centrifugal pull of force towards the illegal and obscene way of life for mere survival, a redefined self-esteem and personhood. They see themselves marking time on the treadmill of a bleak existence. In my paper, “People are Surplus,” written in 1986, an abstract of it was published in the St Louis Post Dispatch, St Louis Missouri, newspaper, editorial, I stated, “many of the African American youth trapped in low income, high crime infested neighborhoods are at best hoping to reach the “golden age” of 21, un-traumatized by gunshots killing someone known to them, casually, or intimately, or themselves slain by some senseless unprovoked attack.”
Social Economic Development, is a concentration of study which I founded, at the Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St Louis, in 1977, in which I served as First Chair. Here I recognized this “New Face” of non-traditional Social Work, must come from the independent and integrated working relationship of the destitute people, and newly emerging, “right sighted,” and redirected organizations, within the communities themselves. Here emphasis is on Social Economic Development from the inside of the community, with assistance from the outside – this procedure would mount synergy from the community inwardly to impact the family, which is held captive to the values held by this now outer rejected community. This is in recognition that the community is the “womb” of the family, as the community fares, so does the family, and the individual. In encrusted, impoverished African American low income areas, a male child, after the age of 9 years old, is challenged to be reared by his family, even should that family be hopeful of embracing the dominant “culturally accepted” values. These youth are influenced by the larger outside communal groups, which serves as a “mirror” reflecting its image back to youth who are predisposed to become like them, if they are to survive in their “locked in, but locked out” environment, survival and coping become the mechanism of behavior for this modification, and new norm. Ironically, the options of ostracism and rejection, and cultural castigation is a commanding force for youth to accept these standards and adopt them for their reward of self-esteem and personhood and their life existence. This is contrary to what the mainstream society would expect, thus, so often, the socialization for acceptance for self-esteem by one group, is to be socialized for anti-self-esteem or rejection by the main stream.
You rightfully assume the community, PARENTS, to function effectively and positively in this new “re-socializing pattern,’ or new “nourishing” role, of provider and protector. The residents must have the capacity to organize around their “marginalized existence, and galvanize the wealth deposited by the deterioration, debris, destruction before their very eyes and all around them, and translate this potential, “economic discarded waste” into a wind fall.”They must, with wit and savvy and combined effort, transpose their “wasteland” into a revised and modified product, one that yields income, leverage and money for jobs and work. Such is the avenue for the positive self-esteem, and to perpetuate a life of decency of the great many Blacks who will be permanently locked out of mainstream society.
Turning this seemingly nothingness, to the casual onlooker, into work opportunities, in order to create a central productive forum for communities, to stay in place and to maximize their potential for communal “quasi-sustainability,” to realize the potential of this unrealized wealth, they must utilize their innovative capabilities and collective abilities, to amass both work and wealth from their efforts. This is, indeed, the very heart of Social Economic Development.
As difficult and seemingly impossible this appears, it is real. There is no help coming to change the situation from becoming worse. What is required in the flow of this process is “Venture Capital,” with guided direction and “no strings” attached. In my paper, The White House Conference on “Balanced National Growth and Economic Development, 1978, submitted in the Public Forum, I wrote
“Meanwhile, grants and loans must be provided on a long-term basis. These borrowing neighborhoods (communities) should be treated as they were newly emerging nations, as indeed they are.”
The entrapped Blacks in cities, living just a house ahead of the bull dozer, of the one being demolished, because of progressive poverty and inability to stay, must reason how this “declared waste,” half destroyed, burned out and abandoned housing and buildings, spaces of blighted areas, desolate and abandoned storefronts, can be an “economic good,” both for the moment and the future. They must have a futuristic perspective and vision on how to make their community people not only “stakeholders,” but even better, how to make the people “stockholders,” and benefactors of dividends. Yes, as recipients of these abandoned, discarded, wasted properties, they must see how they can yield fiscal and psychological dividends, and self-esteem. This collective action of community wealth gathering is well within their reach, with innovation, vision and imagination, and one professionally educated and trained in Social Economic Development, The fact that Black communities are so frequently in the shadow of the bull dozer, awaiting the announcement of “Eminent Domain,” by some anxiously waiting developer, should be the clue, to the informed, that there is much potential value therein. You see the deployable, but well located Black Ghetto community, is well developed; all poor Black communities are so, they are just not well developed for the people who live there, but only for those who benefit from the misery therein, and its derelict position and condition.
Unless the rejected, and economically underprivileged Black people in the “throw away Black Ghettos,” have the opportunity to engage their creative abilities to work innovative processes in their bleak, deserted communities, to accumulate wealth for their own shared internal distribution, and have the hope to make better their own lives, in this Free Enterprise System, the situation that we are accruing, in wasted lives, will continue to erupt in anger, violence and criminal activity. This reflective impact on depressive behavior, emanating from this imposed “artificially inflicted mental health syndrome” of depression, hopelessness and deprivation of self-esteem, will only be more and more costly in accumulating even more wasted lives and lost potential, of the many more youth growing up in loss of self-esteem, with apathy in the mire of degradation. This will constitute a “Loss of Conscience,” a Monogram, so entitled that I wrote in 1993, and such is the inheritance of the youth today and the foreseeable future.
This disregard and contemptuous position taken on behalf of others more affluent than low income Black urban dwellers, will continually weigh heavily on America’s future in the loss of production. This will be reflected in the Gross Domestic Product and Gross National Production figures, and will eventually play a major role, seriously affecting the dominant status that America plays, as world economic and moral leader. Moreover, it will impinge upon its dominant status as major holder of the world’s reserve currency. This, granted, is a large economic leap for this paper, but the implications and ramifications of the loss this poses, for the informed, can easily be extrapolated into economic pain for all of us. Thus, as the Chinese economy escalates the full impact of its production, and our American debt increases exponentially; and as we both become co-contestants for the position of being the largest economies of the world, there will be an urgency by China to competitively place their own Yuan/Renminbi, in the basket of the world reserve currencies, as their economic structure rises to match that of America. The consequences of the aftermath of this situation, soon to happen, will heighten the poverty in America, especially in Black America, due to increases in inflation or “stagflation,” and especially so in the Black ghettos, as jobs that might possibly be made available will be shipped overseas. So, as Blacks and whites “mud wrestle” to hold each other in check, the world goes passing by as our frustration and the lack of mutual help to one another languishes, in “check mate of each other’s hold on self-esteem.
But this is not an argument of economics, but one which bears more deeply on “Institutionalized Racism,” as how it is now orchestrated, which causes us to understand the situation is not just relevant to Black self-esteem, but is one in which all America’s self-esteem is encased. This act of fairness and equal justice presses down heavily on the much less secure “white self-esteemed” in America, whereby many would rather deny themselves, both the entry and help of the rejected group as equals, of which this paper is the subject, which could more than make–up much ground in an American integrated, collective work force. Such would maximize potential production and self-esteem of all, or rather there will be the continuing witnessing of the erosion of both, the now acceptable and the unacceptable group. Albeit, both will be eroding in self-esteem, one only at a lesser degree than the other, nevertheless, one can argue this to be a very shallow victory for either group.
We know the difficulty of bringing people out of poverty, when great masses are rapidly falling into poverty. We know that the meagre incomes earned by those who both know and witness this fact, and those who casually observe, that wages are below the living standard of survival and decency for increasingly many, and that this permanent condition will not lead either group to the land of adequate retirement with comfort, sufficiency, or adequate self-esteem. It will lead most of us to poverty and beyond the pale of Social Security redemption.
We all can see that depression is no longer a mental health definition of sporadically perceived individuals, as a syndrome, but is a relevant definition for massive numbers of people encrusted in neighborhoods, and cities. The dynamic massive events impacting the majority of Black citizens, trapped in perpetual depression, their rise or eclipse of “self-esteem” is, and can easily be seen, as an indicator, barometer, of how well ordered mental health, and self-esteem is, not just for a people, but also for the American society as a whole.
To be sure, there is great awareness that the whole world is experiencing an obvious deleveraging, a slowing down of economic growth, and a middle class America that is becoming less able to sustain it, and is shrinking .Yet, granted, a very small number of people, in every land, are accelerating into the stratosphere of wealth. The Black poor, a group that is progressively going deeper into poverty, is being further alienated, likewise, as they experience generational poverty from which they, nor their progenitors can emerge. This is especially true for encrusted Black America Ghettos, where the lowest tier of poverty in America exists, in which this group is mostly the enmeshed, matted down, destined into multi-generational poverty, with no way out.
The premise of my paper could be a Biblical quote, “the poor ye shall have with you always.” The numbers of poor Blacks are staggering and ever increasingly escalating, accelerating, and mounting, in the urban poor Black Ghettos,” and, while more people seem to be having more than they themselves had in the past, it is far less than what they need now for survival or just to stay even. While those generations in need who are in larger numbers are coming after them now, they see themselves of even less self-esteem, and economic means, and have much less than what they require, or need for maintenance or sustenance. Here we see the winnowing, or thinning out, of those less able to purchase resources, by those with less than a “living wage.”And, while there may be more greater numbers in need, more than ever before, according to the means that is allocated, that same amount allocated is stretched much further along the food chain than ever before, so that more and more receive less and less. This inequality of income resonates all the way to the argument of desperation, and does not forestall the reality that poverty is slowly consuming the Black masses as effectively as the Sub-Saharan sands are the grasslands of the Sub-Saharan African southern region.
This dynamic of sustenance distribution has always been on class and race selectivity, and has been abated only recently, with the advent of the “industrial revolution” of mass production, the invention of the ‘Assembly Line, “the inclusion and involvement of classes separating out the Black segment, last hired and first fired. But, the lab or movement and unions, see that gains are now being retarded, by the “digital revolution. “The shifting sands of poverty are now piling back up on the masses via the way of the new and ever radical changes in work production. Resultantly, without the wherewithal of academic preparation, the new poor “warehoused” in Ghetto schools, are delegated and relegated to the modern technological “stone age.”Inasmuch as over one half of the African American families do not have computers in their homes, one can see how this continuance of loss of self- respect and self-esteem deepens of a people already rejected, and now forgotten. This is especially so as the public school systems are essentially as separated now as they were during the last century of enforced segregation, and offer little respite for Black Ghetto youth to catch up, in real terms.
Again, this paper is not a fundamental argument with “Free Enterprise or Capitalism,” it is a logically defensive position of how one can sustain one’s self- esteem in the “economic sand storm” that is blowing across America, the African Sub-Saharan region that I refer, and liken it unto the hot, “Ghettos” of America, that are rapidly drifting away, like the sands. The Blacks are blown out of cities across the wide terrain of where they are being driven, guided and directed, into a mass monolithic, ethnic, economic basin, waste pool, which will have them end up in a worse economic plight than they now endure. This will constitute an even more massive loss of hope, faith and the prospect of sustaining self-esteem in the deprived, low income Black newly created wastelands.
I offer a plan to this African American population, and the profession of Social Work, Psychology and Society, which purports to serve as the champion of self-esteem, and protectorate for this people, how such a remedy of accomplishing the purpose of enhancing self-esteem, is possible, and why it is imperative for all people. Those deprived of self-esteem yesterday and today, will deprive others of it tomorrow. The circle will be complete, we are all part of the whole.
Therefore, in the endeavor to enlist the nation itself, in its own unidentified struggle for its own self-esteem, and that of the African American, I submit the follow perspective.
The Plan of Sustainability for Black Low Income Ghettos
No one is poor in America because he or she is white; this is not to say that there are no poor white people in America. I am from Appalachia, the area of the country responsible for President Lynden B Johnson’s declaration on “The War against Poverty.” And, it was abundantly clear to me as a youth that there were a numerous groups of poor whites. While the corollary to this statement is almost an axiom; the Black experience is an economic struggle of bare existence due to discrimination and “Institutionalized Racism.” The exit to this plight has been prescribed to be education. But we know where you live determines the school which you will attend, where you go to school determines the job that you will obtain, and the job, work, determines where you will live – also, how well you will live, under what conditions you will live, and how long you will live. This is almost prescriptive, if you are Black and live in a Black, low income and encrusted Ghetto.
You will not learn in school, if you are Black, anything about your heritage, nor the fact that Africa is the mother continent of civilization. While school is a beginning place for Blacks to gain a sense of self-esteem, sadly, it is the very place that youth receive confirmation of the stereotypes and mythologies about themselves that others have of them. It is in school where they realize that they have little or no value in the narrative, or their contribution to this planet and civilization. One can vividly see how far down the mystical road of school a Black youth will travel in order to find the answer to his/her self-identity or self-esteem, that this potential fulfillment of self-esteem portends. This loss of self-esteem has been a steady and circuitous journey for Blacks, on the continuum from slavery, over the rugged terrain of “share cropping,” to our present new statuses in the numerous disguises of desegregation. The quasi freedom of Public Accommodations, under the U.S. Civil Righters Order of 1965, has given more exposure to possibilities, but no more assurance that they will occur, even from a fluid flow of talent and skill. The modern “camouflage” of hiding Blacks at the bottom of the heap in the new “social dispensation” called “Diversity,” whereby Blacks are horizontally stratified, but not vertically lifted up, in upward mobility to the heights of equal stature of all. “Diversity” is likened as the mixture of oil and water, shake it up, let it sit for a short while, they separate from one and another, because they are not socially congruent. Blacks, like water, consistently settle at the lower level in this experiment.
For a reminder of the significance of the new status of this new recognition of “Diversity” is to simply observe that the first Black President of the United States, in his office of the Presidency, has been treated with greater disrespect than other American President holding such office. Lest anyone would like to believe that the issue of our time is not race, one only need to follow the news on the differential of race, and they will see that my own home region, Ferguson, of the St Louis, Missouri, Metro area, is the “epicenter” of the definition of this differential treatment.
Incidentally, all of these forms of separation, economically-socially-politically, by any definition, either structured, or “Institutionalized Racism,” has always been a wake-up call, and a roll over, or simply a “ho-hum” exercise for Blacks. This new pattern of “Institutionalized Racism” has made it blatantly clear that the African American is forced to take a major role to establish his/her own life support in the economic stream of income for his own internal betterment. Income sufficiency is essential for the necessity of economic and cultural survival of A REJECTED PEOPLE. Cultural acceptance of all ethnics of equal self-esteem, or embracing multiculturalism, is essential for the uplifting of America to its greatness and avowed promise, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for all. The uplift of any people is measured by its economic and entrepreneurship posture and prowess, and not services dispensed to them exclusively. “Social Work education and practice,” I submit, will lose the war in the trenches when services are exclusively the wholesome weaponry of our arsenal.
As we currently proceed in our affairs in America, It is clear to me that the door to an integrated, multicultural, equal opportunity society, will remain closed with the pretense that it is ajar, and given time, along with this oft time assurance, is the promise that the door will swing wider later, next time, with this given patience.
Therefore, until an impact is made in the larger society, that Blacks are amassing their own resources and working towards their own quasi sustainability, as any other racial--ethnic group does for its own, and for the future generations coming along, they will not be taken seriously as a people, with serious demands and rights. This is not amassing resources for the purpose of the separation within America, but for the evidence of capability, and the ability to bargain, negotiate and honestly petition to live equally, and competitively, in the land of the free. Just the assurance that one is on the road in this direction will heighten Black self-esteem. It served such a purpose in the past, The Civil Rights Movement, but patience now is a very hard commodity sell to Black youth.
This is the only way that Blacks can be fully invited into America, on a peer and par level. Blacks must come to the bargaining table with ownership of real property –lands, transformed into viable economic production. These cannot be individual entrepreneurial pursuits, but must be orchestrated into a collective combine. Further Blacks must have demonstrated that they can adequately police their resources within their own economic reservoirs, businesses and depositories. The basis for understanding this lesson was the Montgomery Bus boycott, the “sit-ins” previously held at “white only” lunch counters, and “kneel-ins.” The economic boycott made it clear that to get to the conscience of America was to simply know that the business of America is business, and pressure applied there, in any manner, is the most sensitive target to touch to obtain a negotiable response.
This is the preface of my paper. This is my introduction to the fact that a people, all over the world, who are in Diaspora – shut out of a society by “Institutionalized Racism” – cannot hope to achieve self-esteem in a rejecting society, unless they plow and seed their own “wastelands,” as owners and become healthy competitors rather than merely consumers. Not to know this fact is like being welcomed into a game of “Monopoly,” which Blacks have been “silent observers” for years, and hours after the game has begun, they are given some “play” money to participate, and then are expected to catch up and hold their own in equal status. To become “perpetual receivers” of services as a way to gain entry into America and to gain adequate self-esteem, is tantamount to attending one’s own “wake,” and to have the “wreath” overhead read - R I P- “Rest in Poverty.”
To accomplish such a goal as quasi self-sustainability, there must be serious planning and organizing. The people must be encouraged to buy into the community process, they must recognize that the goal that they seek is fully focused, and that the avenue to achieve this “coveted thing,” equal self-esteem to all, is accomplished through, Black integration, togetherness, and sacrifice. In such a pursuit there can be no denying of self-esteem to Black youth
The process is difficult because it, shockingly, causes Blacks to realize that they are a composite of many people, who are not integrated into a group, just because of color. Blacks are not monolithic, and many among them have not been “vetted” into doing that which is in their best interest of their own ethnicity, fearing and believing that this self-effort may be viewed by some, whom they may believe, that they may need in the future, and fear that such individuals would be offended, and see their effort as “racism in reverse.” Black integration, is understanding the first echelon of business of a people in diaspora, who are excluded, and lack status, and acceptable social self-esteem, is due to the lack of ownership and control of land and major businesses, and other resources. This is primary and essential if an invitation of acceptability, and an appreciation of full self-esteem is to be offered to a people, who were previously considered to have such a lagging deficit in either regard.