In 2017, a stunning report warned that Negro American median wealth could hit zero by 2053. While the prediction made headlines, most in the Negro community remain silent, many still are unconcerned that it can actually happen, the most disturbing thing for me is that seemingly few dared to ask: How in da hell did we get here?
We Have Done Better
The causes are layered—historical, systemic, and, in my most humble opinion, today, is mainly self-inflicted. But if we want to reverse this trajectory, we need to confront all of them. If we truly want to solve the problem, the Negro American, and our community as a whole, must first recognize that we have a problem – a BIG PROBLEM. That means looking not just at “racism” and governmental policy failures, but we must start by looking at the man and woman in the mirror, looking at cultural norms, family structure, and taking internal accountability.
From the various historic “Black Wall Streets” across the U.S.A., thriving centers of Black enterprise, wealth, and self-determination in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Communities such as the Greenwood District – Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1906–1921, is one of the most famous Black business districts in American history. Home to over 300 Black-owned businesses, including:
- Hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, barbershops
- Law offices, newspapers, doctors, and real estate agencies
Entrepreneurs like O.W. Gurley and J.B. Stradford helped create a self-sustaining community where money circulated within the Black economy. Gurley and Stradford created an economic ecosystem in Greenwood where money circulated 30–100 times before leaving the community. There were 600+ Black-owned businesses, 21 churches, 30 restaurants, 2 movie theaters, a hospital, a library, and numerous law offices and doctors. But the one thing that he failed to create was a law enforcement department. In the Hayti District – Durham, North Carolina, 1890s–1950s, known as “Black Wall Street of the South”, it had a large Black middle class. And more recently, there was Sweet Auburn Avenue – Atlanta, Georgia, 1920s–1950s, once described by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as “the richest Negro street in the world.” Home to Atlanta Life Insurance Company, founded by Alonzo Herndon, a former enslaved man who became one of the first Black millionaires in the South. Unfortunately each one of the phenomenal and extraordinary economic American cities and communities were destroyed from mainly the outside in by government “urban renewal programs and highway construction that inexplicably had to be driven to split the prosperous districts and communities, and then there was the impact of desegregation of the late 1960’s that gave the Negro governmental recognition to be able to socially integrate equally with the Caucasian, but not economically. It needs to be recognized that these economic feats occurred in the South during the most socially challenging time for the Negro.
The Negro American family and community during the 1800s and early 1900s—though battered by “slavery”, segregation, and in many ways were not allowed to partake in all of the benefits of being an American—was remarkably resilient, structured, and morally grounded. One may not believe this due to the view of the American Negro and it’s family of today, but the early Negro American family was often more intact, industrious, and unified than it is today. In too many urban communities, academic success is mocked, not admired. Being smart, speaking proper English, or working hard in school is seen by some as “acting white.” This self destructive narrative has had devastating and multi-generational effects on the American Negro communities—particularly in urban America—by attacking the very values that once built strong families of our forefathers and mothers, that provided upward mobility, and community wealth.
Stupid Is The New Cool
In too many inner-city schools, the Negro has created a culture of self intellectual mutilation by suffocating academic efforts, the willful rejection of speaking Standard English, and labeling excelling in class as a betrayal of one’s “racial identity.” High-achieving students often face social isolation, bullying, or ridicule from peers while the gangsters, hoods, drug pushers, and the “easy money” lifestyle is exalted, praised, celebrated, and dreamed of by young minds of mush. Meanwhile, Negro intelligence is often punished or downplayed, leading many to purposefully under perform just to fit in and look “cool”. The long standing cultural thrive for excellence in manual labor, trade work, long-term professional careers, having a high work ethic, driven to be better than the White man in many cases, are increasingly replaced by laziness, severe lack of respect for one’s self, an it’s-all-about-me mentality, and a culture obsessed with instant success.
I can remember growing up a watching sitcoms the showed us the Negro as not just entertaining and funny, but that we can be educated and successful in careers, and with well-balanced families, morally based, and women and men dressing and acting like ladies and gentlemen, in shows suchas, the Cosby Show, Living Single, Rock, A Different World, Good Times, The Jeffersons, etc,. There weren’t Negroes depicted as mindless and over-sexed creatures, disrespecting, hurting, nor killing eachother just for breathing like one can view on nearly any TV and streaming channel today. This is the image that is being broadcast mostly to the world today. And in too many cases, this grotesque depiction of the American Negro is being offered and promoted by other Negroes seeking to hop on the economic gravy train. Just as there were Negroes who took advantage of the exploding economic vehicle of slavery in owning slaves. History doesn’t just repeat, but too often rhymes.
A Solid Family Is The Foundation Of A Strong Community
The explosion in single-parent households and the loss of a moral compass have dramatically flipped the American Negro family from what it was in the 1800s and early 1900s. What was once the envy of the world, a sanctuary, and the strong foundation of marriage, family cohesion, and multi-generational wisdom and wealth, has degenerated to today, where many urban Black communities suffer from family breakdown, out-of-control youth, and cultural disintegration. Despite the popular notion that the Negro family has always looked like it does today and that it has to do with the slave era, call BS on all of that. The truth is, as the great Thomas Sowell has stated, “The Black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of discrimination. But it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberal welfare state.” In the first half of the 20th century, despite segregation and racism:
- Most Black children were born to married parents,
- Crime rates in Black communities were far lower than today,
- Two-parent families were common, especially in working-class Black neighborhoods.
He argues that this shows the demise of the Black family was not caused by slavery, but by governmental policy changes, headed and instituted by the Democrat Party, and cultural shifts in the post–civil rights era. Generally speaking, two-parent households typically accumulate more income and assets, provide more financial stability, model budgeting, saving, investing, and property ownership. With fewer intact families, the Negro community has less generational wealth to pass on, and more financial starting points at zero—or worse. The acceptance of government financial benefits and aid has created a hence before unacceptable cancer of governmental entitlement- government dependency. Sowell has stated, “The incentives of the welfare state led to the erosion of the family, not only among Blacks, but particularly among Blacks who were already poor and vulnerable.” The 1960s Great Society programs tossed a live grenade into the Negro community that exploded in welfare programs that discouraged marriage, encouraged dependency on the state and Man, instead of self-reliance and God, as well as the surrendering of self-responsibility and discovered the economic benefit of victim-hood. This disincentivized and marginalized fatherhood and eroded traditional values among Negro families. The explosion of single-parent households and government-surrogacy by the Negro woman gave rise to over 70% illegitimate childbirth by 2020, up astronomically from below 20% and having nearly every child being born in a traditional family in the 1940’s. Let’s not forget the grandparents. Elders played a critical role. There was NO backtalking to elders by the youth, the community adhered to the Biblical tenet of respecting one’s mothers and fathers. With the loss of the teachings of life experiences, lessons, and wisdom of the elders, the youth and those who have followed have dramatically gone astray and lost into the darkness, woefully ignorant.
Growing up in single-parent households—particularly in low-income areas—has been linked to:
- Higher rates of child poverty
- Increased dropout rates
- Greater likelihood of incarceration
- Emotional and behavioral challenges
- Less access to generational wealth and guidance
It must be remembered that prior to “the New Deal” and “Great Society” there was a time when Negro Americans had lower crime rates than Whites in certain parts of the country and many Negro families took on the philosophy of Booker T. Washington that emphasized education, thrift, faith, and discipline, we had higher marriage rates than Whites, and wait for it, wait, hold on to ya pants tightly, were rising into the middle class without affirmative action.
We Are Not All Going To Make It
Due simply to the incredible high rate of single-parent households in the Negro American community—currently over 70% of children born to unmarried mothers—the shear economic implications that will likely worsen by 2053 if we don’t wake up-FORTHWITH. If this situation is allowed to fester and continue to be the acceptable norm it will perpetuate generational poverty, severely cripple wealth creation, and virtually erase our foundation for generations into the future.
It must be recognized too that there is a small, but powerful, segment of the Negro population that is profiting from the denigrated condition of the American Negro community. As Booker T. Washington stated, “There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs—partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays.” And then, just as in any community of free-willed individuals, there will be those who will see the course correction too strenuous, too difficult, and not worth the effort. And then, there will be, sadly, those who just refuse to see the need to change or are just blind and distracted to the storm that is coming just over the horizon.
But I believe that the majority of us do see the deformed condition of our people, morally, spiritually, and culturally, and know that this situation is not sustainable and that we must work to change ourselves. For starters, we, as a community, must recognize and admit that we have a SERIOUS problem. The long-term resolution to the decline of the Negro American family and economic future requires a cultural enema and reformation, political realignment that detaches us from the Democrat Party, the Party that created 99% of the governmental policies that have debilitated our community, and become reattached to God and taking pride in ourself and ownership of our actions. We must once again reattach ourselves to the belief that marriage, between a man and a woman, is the norm, not an exception. Reestablish the qualified male’s role and position at the head of the home and family as providers, protectors, and moral guides, to properly and effectively govern over his domain. Reestablish the preference for positive role models for the youth and those seeking guidance economically, morally, and spiritually. Know that our current condition is not our natural condition and that is a learned condition that can, and must be, unlearn. Reeducate ourselves to know that we were not all brought to this land in chains and by force, learn our true history, and that we as a people have aided and benefited this country and the world immensely outside of sports and entertainment, and that our history is rich, great, and very, very, very long. And last, but certainly not least, we MUST have a spiritual revival that is rooted in God’s tenets and teachings to recalibrate our compass to know where due north is.
We did not get here overnight, and it will take some time to correct our situation, maybe generations. But the correction must start. At the end of the day, it is up to us to correct our direction away from the economic abyss.
Project Third-Eye Opened
Project Third-Eye Opened