Celebrate Kwanzaa In View of Rebuilding Unity in Our Community

Photo Courtesy Bob Tynes (RIP)

Kwanzaa isn't a replacement for Christmas or any other Holiday. It focuses on 7 Principals. The 1st principle today is Umoja or Unity. The biggest hindrance to progress for our people isn't lack of uniformity many advocate, but is lack of unity of purpose on larger issues.

The reason our community suffers isn't primarily because of any various ill informed religious or ideological perspectives IMHO. The reason we struggle is because we don't look beyond our differences and unify with a Kwanzaa inspired concept of Umoja.

Tribalism or using our differences to turn each other against others in our community is how slavery, Jim Crow, and racism are maintained i.e. Willie Lynch theory.  The Black community has some very serious problems going into 2015 including:



1. the perennial problem of police brutality;

2. increasing militarization of the police forces in our community;

3. the growth of the prison industrial complex producing profits off of criminalizing Blacks and other Americans

4. intransigent racism in the media, popular culture, and society,

5. income disparity

6. Lack of more community economic development;

There are more Black men with
College Degrees than in Prison

For instance It was recently reported in new research that a Black man with a college degree is about as employable as a white high school graduate. The average Black household makes $20,000 less a year than white household.

Over a 40 year work career at a 6% compound interest if we invested in stocks, bonds, or a business that is 3.5 million dollars African Americans are losing per family.  Only about 32% of whites have college degrees.

Therefore, all the current income disparities aren't because of Blacks having less education.  This just isn't the case because 82.7% of Blacks have a high school diploma just like the majority of whites.

Therefore if we were to calculate that just 2 million out of the 9 million Black families were loosing this type of income due to unexplained social favoritism or racism, that would equate to over 7 Trillion dollars less income over a 40 year period! 

Can you imagine the amount of wealth Blacks could create with 7 trillion more dollars or more?  This is one of the reasons we have the incredible wealth difference between Blacks and whites in this country.

To overcome this tremendous income and wealth disparity we will have to 1st start by supporting each other in business.  If we could increase Black businesses to just 3% of total business receipts in the US we could employ all unemployed African Americans.

This would mean we would have to increase our patronage of Black businesses from the current 7% to about 25% of our spending patterns.  Moreover, this means we need more Black businesses to support in our essential spending like food, shelter/housing, and clothing.

In order to get more of these types of business we will need to come together in unity of purpose and start strong financing institutions for Black businesses like:

1. credit unions

2. micro-finance organizations

3. crowd funding platforms

4. angel investor groups

5. venture capital funds

6. shadow funding and...

7. take more of our businesses public in the stock markets.

It is easy to complain or chide others about our lack of economic opportunity.

But the question is do we have 1st the will and unity of purpose with a plan to get more economic empowerment in a global economy?  And more importantly do we have any other viable choice?

Being Black going forward will either "make us or break us. The Kwanzaa Concept of Ujoma or Unity is a step in the right direction to overcome our challenges. Unity or Umoja is hard to obtain but necessary to move forward in increasing strength.

©2014 Kamau’s Kwanzaa Qu!ps

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