I’m not sure because INTEGRATION was never implemented... Only Assimilation & Indoctrination 🤨

The problem for our community, I humbly submit, is that we did not properly negotiate the terms of our integration. 

The pride that Dr. King’s father instilled in him is lost for millions of youth who are being educated by people who don’t care about them.

Integration, for the most part, was simply prolonged assimilation, like moving into someone else’s home and giving up the keys to your own. 

You are happy to be moving into a bigger house, but soon realize that you can’t go into someone else’s house and move around the furniture. 

Also, while you’re renting a room, they are paying the mortgage, which means that their kids (not yours) are going to own the house when all the hard work is done.

Many of us see the golden carrot of a higher salary without understanding the risk that is inherent in allowing your family to depend on the descendants of your historical oppressors. 

Even the most educated among us are raised to sell our services to bidders who extract our best and brightest like oil being lifted from the soil of Nigeria.

I argue that integration didn’t work in our favor because there is a difference between giving up a portion of your economic sovereignty in exchange for a true partnership vs giving up nearly everything to allow yourself to become an occupied state. 

For example, if I were to give up my business and “integrate” myself into the management of a large company, I would probably be a very different (and more highly paid) man from the one you are hearing from right now. 

In fact, I’d probably be speaking a different political language altogether because few majority White institutions would allow me to speak the way I do in public.

So, the conclusion is not that integration is always a bad thing. 

Integration can be a wonderful thing, since White Americans have hoarded most of the nation’s resources (due to our oppression), and integrating gives us an opportunity to have a piece of the American pie. 

But integrating in such a way that makes you dependent on others can put your socio-economic security at risk!

An excellent analogy would be Monopoly: Once America was invaded and colonized a game of monopoly began, Black people were allowed to watch, but not play. 

After over 400 years of playing the game and amassing generational wealth; black people were then told you can play now and you have the same opportunity as everyone else... Keep in mind they own the board now 🤬

Years after achieving the “dream” of integration, we have seen our poisoned and misguided financial chickens coming home to roost. 

When the 2008 economic crisis hit America, Whites took a small hit and soon recovered, but Black wealth dropped by over half.

Black unemployment hit levels that we haven’t seen in over 30 years. 

The young men who should be heading our families are filling up the jails and prisons, and our public schools have become prisons with training wheels. 

There is nothing pretty about this form of integration, where even our best, brightest and strongest are in no position to help those of us who are struggling.

The fact is that we must critically assess the extraordinary work of Dr. Martin Luther King while simultaneously realizing that his work was not complete. 

He died at the young age of 39 years old, and was speaking boldly about the importance of economic sustainability as a critical component to achieving true equality in a capitalist society. 

We must embrace educational excellence as if our lives depended on it, but ensure that our children are taught Black history and family values that they are not getting in class. 

We must target our spending to Black-owned businesses whenever we can, and embrace the importance of saving, investing and ownership. 

Finally, since many of us spent $200 last month at Walmart without blinking, this means that we can certainly seek out and spend Black-owned businesses!

It’s time for a new way of thinking as it pertains to money and education... It's all about practicing Group Economics!

Ownership, wealth-building and self-sufficiency should be part of the consistent Black national discourse. 

By re-inventing ourselves in a productive way, we can turn our darkest hour into one of the greatest periods in Black American history. 

The time for us to do this is NOW!

 I GET ANGRY WHEN I THINK OF HOW WE GAVE UP OWNERSHIP FOR ACCEPTENCE, WHICH EVEN IN 2018 IT STILL DOESN'T EXIST (Equality or Equity)!