Adversity Sometimes The Fuel Of Personal And Collective Growth

The images of racist assaults, both phys­i­cal and ver­bal tak­ing over every nook and cran­ny of America are evi­dent every day. Unfortunately more and more, those who are sup­posed to pro­tect the peo­ple are indeed the worst trans­gres­sors against the very peo­ple they are sworn to pro­tect and serve.

Economic Power The Fix To Racism In America

Yet my response to some of the instances where these inci­dents occur is not alarmist as some oth­er folks might be. I cer­tain­ly would not encour­age any­one to approach me with any form of racism.
Nevertheless. in every tragedy there are oppor­tu­ni­ties. As I said in a recent arti­cle neg­a­tive things forces us to adjust and adapt to changes and events for our own survival.
Those of all species which refus­es to adapt to the ever-chang­ing dynam­ics of our plan­et even­tu­al­ly become extinct.

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The dis­re­spect of black folk con­tin­ues. And it con­tin­ues to be cap­tured on video. A black woman in Oregon was alleged­ly called out of her name and assault­ed by a food truck own­er, all because she tried to pay for her food with change. According to Willamette Week, Carlotta Washington says she was called a “nig­ger” by Islam Elmasry after she tried to pay for her lunch with quar­ters (not pen­nies, mind you).

In a short video pro­vid­ed to the out­let by a bystander, Elmasry can be seen telling Washington to “get the fuck out from here” and call­ing her a “stu­pid bitch,” after throw­ing a Gatorade bot­tle at her for con­fronting him.

In a por­tion not cap­tured on video, Washington says Elmasry sprayed her with sriracha chili sauce, which was con­firmed to the news out­let by wit­ness Rachel Good, who said she found Washington’s shirt, face, and shoul­ders cov­ered with the Thai hot sauce. “It was in my eyes and all on my skin. It was burn­ing ter­ri­bly,” Washington says. After Washington asked that police be called, Elmasry was booked into Multnomah County jail on charges of mis­de­meanor harass­ment and assault. Bail is set at $4,000. 

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Adverse sit­u­a­tions are sup­posed to force us to make changes in our lives. We are sup­posed to learn new ways of doing things, “when one door is closed many more is opened”[Robert Nesta Marley]
Those doors, how­ev­er, gen­er­al­ly gets opened when we go knock­ing because you can bet your bot­tom dol­lar that the doors will not come look­ing for you.
The process of adap­ta­tion of which I speak requires a par­a­digm shift in the way we see our­selves deserv­ing of respect and dignity.

Once we have arrived at the point where we rec­og­nize that we are the mas­ters of our own des­tiny, we begin to rec­og­nize that if we are to sur­vive we must take on the respon­si­bil­i­ties which guar­an­tee not just our well­be­ing but our very survival.
We will not have full auton­o­my over all aspects of our lives, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a coun­try in which we are a minor­i­ty but we darn sure can begin the edu­ca­tion­al process of self-preser­va­tion through self-empow­er­ment, That self-empow­er­ment begins with edu­ca­tion for our chil­dren, sav­ing our mon­ey, start­ing and sup­port­ing black busi­ness­es, and ensur­ing that we teach our young­sters the val­ue and impor­tance of good mon­e­tary stewardship.

The harsh treat­ment met­ed out to black peo­ple at Starbucks cof­fee shops, waf­fle-hous­es, food trucks and oth­er places in which blacks strug­gle to be treat­ed respect­ful­ly should be a moti­vat­ing fac­tor for all of us to get our house in order. What is stop­ping African Americans from hav­ing their own cof­fee shops and waf­fle houses?
In the video above the man in the food truck clear­ly came to this coun­try and has learned not to respect blacks. From the sound of his accent, he clear­ly is not too long off the boat but he already has a busi­ness going. And what do you know blacks are there bleed­ing their money.

Look, it is your mon­ey spend it where you want to, but under­stand that when you do that what you are doing is hand­ing over your pow­er. Is it lazi­ness, lack of ambi­tion, or is it igno­rance, Could it be all of the above? What would hap­pen if Blacks retained some of the 1.2 tril­lion dol­lars we spent last year. Better yet where would we be if we spent a small por­tion of that mon­ey on new star­tups, or even send­ing our chil­dren to college.

Look around you Black America, in your clos­ets, in your garage, around your necks, on your fin­gers, on your feet, on your backs and gen­er­al­ly around that apart­ment you are rent­ing did you real­ly need that new pair of expen­sive over-priced sneakers?
Did you need all of that junk you spent your pay­checks on, or do you think that maybe, just maybe you could have saved a few hun­dred of those dol­lars you squandered?

The few dol­lars blacks spend at black bar­ber­shops and at black hair­dress­ing salons is mere peanuts com­pared to the over one tril­lion spent last year. The sad truth is that those monies are gen­er­al­ly spent as part of the prepa­ra­tion so that black peo­ple may go out to clubs, restau­rants, hotels, and oth­er places which are gen­er­al­ly not black-owned.
I love all peo­ple, nev­er­the­less, we have to look after our­selves first, empow­er our­selves instead of beg­ging oth­ers to accept us and treat us well.
Seventy-eight (78) years after they kicked Marcus Garvey out of this coun­try for teach­ing this mes­sage the need is just as great, and the task just as urgent.
The ques­tion is whether or not this mes­sage will seep through to Black Americans and in a col­lec­tive way they will begin to digest it?. Only time will tell.