Black Lives Matter – A Missed Opportunity?

Jul 26, 2020 Features / Columnists, News

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By Dr. Glenville Ashby

As Black Lives Matter takes on pop culture status, black lives are being snuffed out in a spate of reckless violence. Amid calls to defund, and in extreme cases, dismantle the police, there is growing frustration and fear in black communities, not of law enforcement, but of emboldened criminal elements.

Still, we search for the good of the past as a compass for the present and future. Storied tales of black achievements are surfacing like never before. One such illustrious picture that speaks to the grit of a people is that of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the 1920s. Black Wall Street evoked envy and, ultimately, a pogrom. Today, we recall this stupendous and tragic chapter of black history to confirm America’s racial sins. But never have we stopped to consider the qualities that produced black entrepreneurship and self-reliance amid Herculean adversities. Liberal America and Black Lives Matter refuse to entertain such a discourse.
Black America is rooted in conservative values, not unlike those in the Caribbean. Religious orthodoxy and the family had defined the black construct during Reconstruction, Jim Crow and Segregation.
Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman’s ‘Time on the Cross’ expounds on this intriguing dynamic without ignoring the reality of forced separations.
The Civil Rights Movement hinged on religious values, and it was the institution of the family that gave the movement an august, austere and impenetrable tone. No lesser personage than psychiatrist and author, Dr. Cress Welsing, stated that there was a mystique, a solemn pride during the marches of resistance. She called it one of the most dignified moment in black American History.
But something went horribly wrong with the criminalization and effacement of the black male (fatherless homes), warehousing of people into already beleaguered districts, government dependency, failed schools, gangs, drugs, sexual profligacy and a wanton disregard for the unborn black child. In fact, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2011 Abortion Surveillance Report states that “of the over 44 million abortions since the 1973 Roe vs Wade Supreme Court ruling, 19 million black babies were aborted. For a minority group (13.4%) of the United State population, it is an alarming statistic that must be viewed within the context of the black family. Only recently, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York disavowed Margaret Sanger, its founder, over her eugenic ideology and her overtly racist values. The tragedy must not be lost on the black community.
While pointing the finger at institutional racism is arguably a start, it is not the solution; neither is tossing monuments into lakes, silence in the face of looting and violence, and blaming law enforcement and authorities for every ill, perceived or real. Sometimes we have to look within for answers.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s ‘The Negro Family: The Case for National Action Report’ (1965) emphasized the importance of the black unit in healing the wounds of the past. This was challenged as blaming the victim. Many scholars focused on institutional change. Whitney Young, then executive director of the National Urban league saw “family instability as peripheral,” and that the problem was prejudice. This binary conversation on the state of black America is very much alive.
Surely, both viewpoints are worth exploring.
But introspection is far more taxing. It is far easier to project our anger at each other or those we are told are our oppressors. Maybe, many of our problems are as much psychological as they are sociological. I examined this theme in my book, ‘Conflict of Identity: From the Slave Trade to Present Day,’ where I argued that violence in the inner cities and the use of the N-word among blacks speak to a wounded psyche, a kind of unconscious self-hatred.
As most Black Lives Matter activists call for defunding the police (as opposed to reforming the institution), black children continue to be victimized by lawlessness and lack of educational freedom (poor kids are unable to attend a school of their choice). I recall the indelible words in the 1991 movie, ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ “Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood.
Black on black crime is not a deflection. It is a sad reality that has numbed inner cities. Any activist organization in good conscience must address this pathology. As an oppressed minority, we have so little room for error. Minority groups within a large body politic do not violently feed on each other. That’s a rule. History has proven that much. Yet, it persists in black communities.
Surely, Black Lives Matter will rather keep us focused on those that died at the hands of police. Tragic as it is, it pales when compared to the mounting gun violence in some black communities. Peddling fear and guilt to advance a myopic, self-serving agenda is disingenuous. The time is rife for real change and not for perfecting the fascist tactic of cancel culture to silence dissent. Not a word has Black Lives Matter uttered on the thousands slaughtered on the streets of Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia over the last decade. Not that this movement is financially hamstrung. Corporate America has pledged millions to Black Lives Matter Global Network; and not much can be said for transparency.
Black Lives Matter is at the crossroads, at the cusp of success or failure. The present awaits. This movement must disengage itself from fringe groups riding its meaningful, populist message. How do Black people benefit from autonomous zones established by anarchical outfits as we saw in Seattle and now Portland?
For starters, Black Lives Matter must recalibrate its message to include transformative initiatives that promote education, mental health, self-reliance, business, and justice reform. Only self-worth will engender genuine respect and admiration of a people. Short of that, we are condemned to repeat the self-defeating sins of yesteryear and be at the receiving end of scorn and derision, masked as they might be.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Feedback: [email protected] or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby.

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