The Viable Alternative

First off, before I even begin to get on my soapbox, since I know people today love to look for ANY reason to get offended, and also people LOVE to jump to conclusions, let me explain myself.

I am in no way in any shape or form a “racist,” (if a Black person can even be a racist since really we have no economic power nor control the corridors of power), nor am I bigoted towards White people in any way. I’m the epitome of a native New Yorker, having grown up around different ethnicities all my life, from the neighbourhoods I lived in to the schools I attended.

Bigotry comes from ignorance, and since I’ve always been exposed to a wide variety of people, there’s little room to be ignorant about them on my part. As a matter of fact, I have a few White friends who I grew up with from infancy, and frankly, with the exception of my immediate family, and about two people in my extended family, if I had to pick whose life I’d save between them and any other person on this Earth, Black or White, I’d save their lives.

Hey, it is what it is.

Also, I’m not one of those militant Black people from the Black Consciousness community like that “character,” Umar Johnson, who says that he can’t respect a Black man who marries a non-Black woman. Gimme a friggin’ break. I’ve dated women of all shades, colours and ethnicities, and if you heard I was dating someone, you’d have to ask where she was from because with me, she could be either Asian or Latina, Black, Indian, Biracial, White, etc.

As such, I have nor problem with interracial relationships. I have no problems with marrying a White woman if I felt she was the right person for me, though she’d have to be European, not American (sorry, I can’t do American, White or Black, because though I love this country, I think the mentality of people here is just messed up, and I just can’t with people here who have deep roots in this country) In fact, with me personally, I can’t imagine anything more boring than sticking solely to your own kind because your “community” says that you have to.

Screw that. To me, variety is the spice of life.

I also don’t like to sit and complain about racism. To me, racism is an obstacle just like everything else. Your obstacle could be being overweight, having a learning disability, coming from an economically deprived background, having low self esteem due to emotional abuse from your parents, dealing with a language barrier, or having some sort of physical disability. It’s not the obstacle in your way but how you respond to it. If you REFUSE to let racism be an obstacle, you’d find a way around it. I refuse to be a victim and let any man dictate to me what I’m allowed to aspire towards.

Lastly, before I begin, despite what some people may think, I’m not one of those people who think that Black people should be segregated from everyone else. That’s just retarded. This is a global economy, where different people engage in business with one another, so it’d be downright foolish to just cut yourself off from everyone else.

I”m not an advocate of segregation, nor am I against integration, my beef is with assimilation, which leads to the subject of this blog – BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Hide your kids! The Negroes are getting restless!!!!

Hahahaha! 🙂

Seriously, the words “Black Economic Empowerment” tends to rouse suspicion in people because they associate it with the phrase, “White Power,” but what they don’t understand is that these two phrases come from two totally different contexts.

White Power, whether said directly or indirectly over the past 500 years, meant White upliftment at the expense of others, and as history has shown, the “expense” was paid in the form of slavery, genocide, mutilation, rape, stealing of lands, mass incarceration, oppression, medical experimentation, economic sabotage and every other horrible thing you can think of by non-White peoples.

It was within this context that gave rise to phrases such as “Black Economic Empowerment,’ which means upliftment in the face of oppression and subjugation, eliminating economic dependence on the majority economic group, self determination, and self pride. This is not at all racist, if anything, it’s a healthy, proactive response to racism.

So, now that you hopefully understand where I come from, now let me get on my soapbox.

Sadly today, we THINK that we have integration between Blacks and other groups, but instead what took place in the 60s and onwards was assimilation.

You see, when the Jim Crow laws were still legal and Blacks were shut out of “mainstream,” i.e. White society, Black people had their own banks, insurance companies, sports teams, race car associations, movie theaters, bus lines, etc. However, because of the inferiority complex that was instilled in Blacks for hundreds of years, and also because you usually want something you’re forbidden from having, Black people always had this mentality that “White is right” and in terms of choosing whom to do business with that “White ice is colder.” Because of this, when segregation became illegal, Black people abandoned their own houses they built and ran en masse to the White man’s house, happy because they were finally “accepted.”

However, what took place was assimilation, NOT integration.

Integration is when two or more sides, each with their own resources, meet together on EQUAL terms and decide how to pool together what they each have to build something bigger. That didn’t happen with Black people. Black people didn’t think what they had was worth sh*t, so they abandoned what they had and came begging to be accepted into the house of the White man. Then, when they were assimilated, started complaining about how they were being treated in someone else’s house and tried to rearrange the furniture.

How the HELL do you enter someone else’s house and think for a moment that you’re going to be treated as fairly as the children of the original owners of that house?

This is why, in this day and age, you see high Black unemployment which is a direct result of low Black business ownership, because frankly, people rather hire their own. You cannot give others the responsibility of doing for you what you refuse to do for yourself. White businesses prefer to hire other White people, Chinese businesses prefer to hire other Chinese, Jewish businesses prefer to hire other Jews, and then you have Black people complaining about other businesses discriminating against them when they at the same time refuse to start their own businesses to hire their own.

This is also why in other non-Black communities, the dollar circulates anywhere from 16 – 24 times before it leaves the community, while in the Black community the dollar leaves in only a few hours.

This is why when you see a Black person who’s successful, there’s usually a White person holding the strings to his success, that can be cut anytime. If you have any doubt about this, just look at Black celebrities in sports or entertainment, where you find the highest concentration of Black success. The reason why they’re successful, it’s because some White corporation gave them the opportunity, and if they stepped “out of line,” or pissed the wrong person off, that string is cut and their success is gone. An NFL or NBA player could be cut from the league, a Hollywood actor could be blacklisted, a person working at a high position in a company could be fired.

This is also illustrated when you hear of Black accomplishment that have Black people beaming from ear to ear in pride, you hear words such as “appointed,” “named,” “hired,” “chosen.” Who’s doing the choosing, appointing, hiring, and naming?

Again, it’s some White corporation, and Black people get all giddy about it not realizing that their economic fortunes are tied to the whims of another group. This group can un-choose, un-name, fire or de-appoint them at any time.

That’s neither success nor power to me when your fortunes are controlled by someone else.

Lastly, this is why you hear Black people claiming they want a seat at the table, or a piece of the pie, or that they’re being left behind generation after generation.

This is where Black Economic Empowerment comes in.

Black Economic Empowerment says instead of begging for a piece of the pie, make your own recipe and bake your own pie. Instead of begging for a seat at someone else’s table, get your own table and get something going on that if other groups wanted to partake, they’d be invited to sit at the table as partners not as your superiors. Instead of complaining that you’re being left behind, you learn the economic game so that you can teach to your kids so theirs and future generations can not only catch up to the other groups that are ahead, but eventually surpass them.

Black Economic Empowerment is Black people building their own businesses and institutions the way that other groups do. It means Black people producing their own Elon Musks, Jeff Bezoses, and Bill Gateses that employ people of all colours just like other groups do, instead of sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else play. It means Black people producing a product or platform that has the same effect on the world the way a Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, or Twitter does.

Is that racist?

I think not.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love