BlackEconomics.org®
For those who celebrate the traditional Western World Christmas, did you receive a desired gift this past Wednesday? What did you do to enjoy such a fortunate outcome? Requested the gift verbally or through prayer? Used mind power to materialize it? Produced the gift yourself or shopped and purchased it? Not to worry, the key point is that you received what you desired!
On the other hand, should we not give just a little more consideration to the foregoing questions and outcome? Should we consider the scenario in light of our (Black America’s) plight in the good ole US of A? BlackEconomics.org is just one of a multitude of sources that beat the drum incessantly on economic inequality and that analyze reasons for it. At the same time, recognize that some of the most powerful voices against economic inequality and the most prolific scholarly researchers of the topic have little-to-no experience suffering the vagaries of economic inequality. Besides, many scholars benefit tremendously from the persistence of conditions about which they expound.
We will not venture here to examine the thought about what is required to know a topic completely. And while we value the admonition to “study the ant,” a wise one will know that no matter how much we accrue in “ant knowledge,” we will never fully comprehend the nature of ants.
However, it is very worthwhile to consider the “Why” and “How” of getting what we want. We will undertake these one-word questions below, but we invite you to introduce yourself to, or refamiliarize yourself with, our June 2023 commentary entitled, “We Get What We Accept.”
A salient portion of the just-mentioned commentary relates:
Until we (Black Americans) comprehend fully that we must first reject completely acceptance of {the status quo} our unrightful place (at the bottom) in the US society, decide what and where we want to be inside or outside of the US society, and then move systematically, determinedly, and expeditiously to reach our rightful place, then we will continue to get what we have gotten.
While truthful and consistent with our intent, the statement is presumptive and fails to ask or answer a very pertinent question: “Why do we accept the status quo?”
Given the title of the current commentary, the inferred answer to the latter question is that we accept the status quo because it is what we desire—what we want. “Really?” You ask. “Yes really!” We respond.
Returning to the beginning of the June 2023 commentary, Ye was, and is, correct. We have choices. In fact, as we reminded colleagues recently, we have no choice but to make choices. The creation, if anything, reflects duality in its oneness: A twoness; male and female; right and left; up and down; hot and cold; etc. Therefore, we confront choices everywhere we turn.
When considering the case of Black America’s unfavorable position “at the bottom” of the socioeconomic hierarchy, recognition of being at the bottom is coupled with recognition of the possibility of being at the top or elsewhere in the hierarchy.
This commentary is to remind us that it was, and is, our choice to be at the bottom (individually or on average—collectively). If we really, really despise the status quo, then we have intellects that can enable us to engineer an alternate outcome. The latter statement is not to convey the warmed-over spit labeled “bootstrap economics.” A wise guardian advised us often years ago: “Everybody ain’t able.” That is, every individual is not capable of rising (bootstrapping themselves up) alone. Rather, Black Americans must confess that we, too, not just the “White man,” may speak—intentionally or unintentionally—with a “forked tongue.”
We may ruminate and pontificate vociferously about being at the bottom, but we must want to remain there. On a sweltering day, it can be pleasant in the shade at the foot of an old oak tree with wide branches. It can be comfortable to the point of motivating the suppression of ideas about working and suffering in the heat of a blistering mid-day sun to lift ourselves from the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy. And there is the thought that sacrifices required to capture materialism should not be made because materialism is not “the best answer for resolving very important mystery-of-life questions.” Yet, if we accede to the latter notion, then why proclaim that we desire a different outcome—i.e., to not be at the bottom?
Returning to the outset of this commentary and recalling the questions that we posed and the answers that surfaced in your mind in response, we certainly know how to get what we want. In combination, we can deploy the spoken word (vibrations from our heart), the power of the mind, and brute force effort (violent aggression if necessary) to get what we want.
We (Black Americans) should discontinue our self-deceit. If we did not know before, we know now. We get what we accept, and we know how to get what we want (by any means necessary) if we really want it. Now we add a correlated postulate: “We accept what we want!”
Hence, we are all charged now with informing new and coming generations of these life realities no matter the starting point in the socioeconomic hierarchy. We should teach them the truth and help prepare them to tackle life and to make wise choices about what they really want. We should not be surprised when they surpass our expectations in getting and accepting what they want by any means necessary somewhere in this world.
©B Robinson
12/27/24