Black People : "Poverty & Black Liberation"

[Metaverse]

Most Black Men I know want to work. Most of them will work hard for what is promised them. If certain jobs require certain skills they will learn those skills. If certain jobs require certain levels of education they will seek that out also. They will assign themselves to do pretty much whatever it is society requires them to do in order to gain the employment and basis for their survival.

But many of us fall into a different category. We will do the impossible and the dangerous to ensure that we never ever fall below the poverty line. And sometimes it's those acts that lands us in prison or even worse.

Black America as a collective of people are so diverse that if we had to nominate a "Queen Mother" to represent us we wouldn't know where to start.
But be certain there is a name that comes to mind.

If Black America had Oprah's money would we be concerned about Black Liberation? Well, technically we have much more than that- what we don't have is the organizing power to arrest our nearly $900 billion dollar annual salary away from Non-Blacks.

But there is a grim connection between poverty and liberation nonetheless. Is our desire to be liberated as simple as freedom from poverty?
Has there ever been a poor people that have been liberated?

Let's ask ourselves a very honest question. "If I had all the money I need would I be concerned with Black Liberation?"

When we speak about "Reparations for Slavery" while the movement is valid we must remind ourselves from whom this payout is being sort. The US Government. Right. The very same Government we pay our money to in the first place. Huge metropolis cities like New York City sneeze $300-$400 million dollars per day just from tourism. In which city does the largest body of Blacks live? NY. In which city does the largest number of Black live in poverty? NY. What is one of the richest cities in America? NY. So now let's ask this one. Which city could just as easily afford to pay out Reparations to well over 3 million Blacks living in NY based on it's earnings? Naturally again- NYC.

NYC is one of America's batteries. Some might say it is "the" battery. And on average the category of Black Men that try the impossible and the dangerous to survive live there. This is by design. Because the wealthy and upperclass thrive at the very outskirts of NY's Ghettos, suggesting the same here as it does for New Orleans' lower 9th Ward- that the rich have constructed it that way.

Some of our Black minds will tell us how poverty is by design, they will tell us about White Supremacy, they teach us about it's effects- Black Men killing Black Men, unwed Mothers, babies having babies- and what they have to say will be so filled with compassion- that once again we surrender to a suffering without a solution. They can point out the problems without implementing any successful plan, because guess what- they are just as broke as you are- even more so.

We should wonder what would come out of their mouths if monies were in their pockets. How concerned would they be? As concerned if you didn't purchase their book, dvd or fund their movement with a monthly check?

Think about the day you got that bonus, or that lottery payout, or when you cashed out a 401K, a bond, a CD, or sold that House for a huge profit. What was Black Liberation to you then? Were you concerned at all about what was happening on CNN? Or were you more concerned about repairing at least some of the damages this life has punished you with so far?

Some of the poorest countries in the world have some of the richest "individuals" and that is by design. If we are seriously looking for Liberation it will not be through poverty unless we can covert poverty into a means of creating organized wealth.

The truth perhaps is that poverty begins in your mind first. How many homeless native Africans have you seen laying down on the streets of America? Are we unable to see the problem of poverty and liberation lies within ourselves? It is we that have accepted the architecture for our suffering? So many thinkers have already pointed out that these things are by design based on systems that are constructed for us to fail, yet we continue to feed these systems instead of calling on the Gods of Chaos to bring them down?

How else do you plan to reverse the system if not through destruction?

By nature we are all rich, but we are confined to poverty. Therefore by nature we are all liberated but we are confined to slavery. It is only fair that we realize the truth about our poverty and slavery?

 

[MasterDJ]

This post is so profound I don't even know where to begin. When I first read this it seemed as if it was a one sided view but after reading it again I really see how revolutionary and "Gangsta" this really is. I like this perspective because I think it speaks to the desires of nearly all of the Black community, no matter what angle you look from. If I say understanding of the problem is most important it speaks to me. If I say we already understand it and pull ourselves up by our boot straps it still speaks to me. If I am pro or against reparations it still speaks and what I believe you have done, Meta, is developed a synthesis which refutes any antithesis that can be developed logically. Great post!

 

[Omowale Jabali]

This post is so profound I don't even know where to begin. When I first read this it seemed as if it was a one sided view but after reading it again I really see how revolutionary and "Gangsta" this really is. I like this perspective because I think it speaks to the desires of nearly all of the Black community, no matter what angle you look from. If I say understanding of the problem is most important it speaks to me. If I say we already understand it and pull ourselves up by our boot straps it still speaks to me. If I am pro or against reparations it still speaks and what I believe you have done, Meta, is developed a synthesis which refutes any antithesis that can be developed logically. Great post!

Yeah bruh I aint even gonna try to argue a point against anything expressed here and will leave that to others. A synthesis which refutes any antithesis that can be developed logically. Right on point with that statement. "How else do you plan to reverse the system if not through destruction?" Deep brotha Meta, very deep. Had me goin back to about 1976 on that one thinking about the Soweto Uprising in South Africa.

 

[Metaverse]

The "On Point AWARD" for the day goes to Bro. OM.



A candid discussion in Soweto, South Africa after an uprising over housing and facilities.

How the "working poor" are classified:

 

[Metaverse]

What would it really take to liberate Black folks? Everyone seems to have somewhat of an idea, but what is the most practical? If we are able to gain our basic survival needs as well as dreams effectively then that should be a sign that we are no longer chained to Massa's barn right? So again that idea points to money. We need money and lots of it. Enough to fix the problems of the poor, working poor and middle class. Enough money to give us the same head start that Whites have over us, and enough money to balance our needs against our wants. Or so we think.

What most of us who seek Reparations for Slavery don't know is that filthy Rich people in the past during the early 50s have set up programs that tried to experiment with the poor and working poor by giving out millions of dollars to see if it would have an effect on their level of poverty. It didn't. Such experiments have been conducted all over the world from Germany and even Russia. Having lots of money has nothing to do with keeping someone rich, especially if this someone has no system that generates their wealth.

The very same skit that Dave Chappelle did on his show concerning Reparations has already played out many times over all around the world in real life. With a payout weighing over billions of dollars we would simply run right back to White folks and hand it to them because collectively we have no system in place to generate our own wealth.

Whites have a system in place to generate their wealth.

They can throw a Dollar at any Prison system in America and get thousands of dollars in return. It's an investment.

So in a nutshell what happens when you give a poor person a million dollars?
The same thing that happens when you give a young person from the hood a record deal or an NBA contract. They go broke. Well, because they have never developed an healthy attitude and self control when it comes to money.

Now that takes training.

There was a case where a Man was awarded around a million dollars and he spent it all in one month and was back to square one. When asked how it was possible to spend that amount of money in that little time. He said so many people kept coming to him asking him for money and he just couldn't say no.

Does that story sound familiar? Now how can a Man with his own doll go broke? By not creating a stable system that generates his wealth and by not having the financial self control & discipline to protect the wealth that he has amassed.

Black Liberation through Reparations you say? Yes for some of us that might be very true, because some of us have enough self control and poverty has not stained our soul....but what shall we do with the other 98% of us?

We can fight for proper housing, clean running water, food to feed the hungry, clothing etc. And it's true that a good majority of Black America are not interested in being rich at all, just financially stable enough to relax. We must realize that we are fighting a system that is equipt to put up with our style of fighting for generations long after we are dead and gone. And this is why we haven't seen true Liberation. It's like throwing stones at an Army Tank, All it does is make noise.

And what we see happening is that when most Black folks "make it" meaning when they come to a place where serious money is being made and all their desires are easily satisfied, there is rest, peace and traveling whenever they need too- they are concerned only with immediate family perhaps, but the concerns about the struggles in Black America take a backseat.

Especially now that their money has earned them another crowd and group of friends, people that have progressed just as they, people who make money because of how they "think" not because of what they do. People who make "making money" look easy. And so this is why they say what they say to their old friends, the working poor- "You can make it just like I did." They've realized it's not about what you know but who you know, and anyone with good sense would invest in friends that had a healthier outlook about money rather than friends and family that continued the cycle of negative ideology concerning currency they need to survive.

How the rich get rich is by design, and how the poor stay poor is by design as well. The rich help to create the systems that keep the working poor and lower class poor, and to add to it- the poor invest in self-defeating ideas that keep them unable to break free from the design.

Your "Prosperity Pastor" might tell you the same thing, but he will not tell you that most religions keep us looking forward to our "riches" in heaven just so that we never feed the desire to create the systems that generate our wealth right here on Earth.

One word keeps the outside world of commerce afloat- "trade." Funny that we know nothing about trade but everything about illegal trade when the streets are concerned. The entire wealth of the world is distributed by trade.

So how would go about destroying the systems that keep Liberation from us?
If we are indeed looking for a way to free ourselves from "the White Man's world" or "White Supremacy" then stop trading with them.

And if you can't stop trading with them then you can't become free from their world. Simple Math. We have to stop trading our bodies, our minds, our ideas, our future- with them. Pull away from it entirely and create different systems that serve our sole self interests.

All systems of wealth hinder on interdependence not independence. It is based on an organized effort. Black Liberation also will have to be an organized effort, that is if it is to liberation "Black people" as a collective. Now we might be fine with individual liberation too. Why want for the masses to wake up to the obvious? Figure out your own solutions and apply them to your own life.

There is no Black Liberation without self Liberation?