“We have more millionaires, and a few billionaires and more members of the Black middle class, yet the masses of our people are slipping further and further behind and are deeper and deeper in the valley of poverty and want,” -Min. Farrakhan
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| The Great One's |
There have been many "Great One's" whom have come among us and we as a whole do not reflect the lessons they have tried to teach us. We have dropped the ball of our collective growth and development economically, socially, spiritually, and morally as a people. For every step of progress we have made over the past fifty years or more, it seems as if we have taken ten steps back, sort a like a free fall. Today we are being forced to take a razor sharp focus and laser sharp approach at looking at our collective selves. For one to stop and say that the African American community is in peril today would not be an understatement. It is quite obvious and there is no doubt and one does not have to go into grave detail or provide significant statistical evidence. Because all you have to do is look around you and see "What's Going On," as the late great singer Marvin Gaye suggested.
Our level of of cultural, moral, and spiritual discernment as a people has suffered significantly over the past thirty years or so. We have allowed the ills and vices of this world to literally destroy our advancement(s) as a people. In every area of human life we are currently at the bottom or very near the bottom. The current context of our existence cannot continue down this path. It is time we put an end to the madness that is plaguing our communities. We have had several opportunities to make things right over these years but we continue to drop the ball. As noted earlier we have made some progress. We have more African Americans in positions of power and influence than at any other time in our history, here in America. But as a whole we do not reflect that progress that the few have had.
When one enters the Black community today a number of factors are very noticeable as to why we are in the peril we are in. The one that has been most devastating is that we control and own very little in our own community. Every other ethnic group is presently doing business, commerce, and earning a profit in our community besides us. We have become the minority in our own neighborhoods when it comes to business, commerce and earning a profit today. And it is nobody's fault but our own! Our dollars do not even reciprocate among us--not even once! The Harvest Institute
(www.harvestinstitue.org), a Washington, D.C. Black think tank that addresses how money circulates in various communities noted:
•Money circulates in the White Community unlimited times
•Money circulates in Jewish Communities over 12 times
•Money circulates in Asian Communities over 9 times
•Money circulates in Latino Communities over 6 times
•Money circulates in the African-American Community 0-1 time
Sure forms of discrimination and disenfranchisement still rear their ugly heads but we have always faced obstacles in our path towards progress. So there is no excuse especially in today's context where we have some of the brightest and smartest people, that our race has ever produced. Problem is we have been hit in our "Umoja" and "Ujima" heads resulting in us forgetting our collective obligations as a people.
When will the sleeping giant awaken to claim what is ours? As suggested earlier we are being forced to rise now and do for our selves. Things are are not getting any better under this current system of things as a whole but in particularly for Blacks and Latinos. A paradigm shift is urgently needed. We have to get up off of our collective bottoms and go for self.or else we will slip deeper into the abyss. We have to awaken from the amnesia of our moral, cultural, and spiritual discernment in order to save ourselves and our community. In this war, we have to be ready to accept that everyone will not want to come along or, further more can be saved. There will be casualties and collateral damage--this is just a fact we will have to endure. But the good news is that we can achieve our collective goals as people if we are untied for the common good.
We have to get off of the baby milk of our individual and basic progress as a people and set our systems up to accept the whole nourishment of our collective advancement. We can do this by supporting initiatives like
Empowerment Experiment,
Less Talk and More Action Empowerment Tour, and
Three Year Economic Savings Program. All of these can be achieved but the question remains are we going to continue to take forever in do so. We are indeed in perilous times and we must put our best foot forward to make a change. We must rely on our God first then ourselves to help us to "See It Through."
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| Study Torah, Injeel, and Quran: Three Course Meal |
On a spiritual note, we must honestly question ourselves and not be afraid to go into much deeper spiritual discourse and discernment when looking at our plight as a people. We have to put down the basic notions of our collective needs like continuing to advocate for "jobs and justice," or looking for reparations. It is apparent that we need jobs and reparations but we must begin to create the jobs we need for ourselves versus expecting and putting the sole onus on the federal government, to do so The onus is on us now for the economic repair, growth, and development, that we seek.
We have to study the history of the Scriptures in both the historical and contemporary context. Especially the story of the "Children of Israel." We cannot simply be satisfied with basic scriptural truths and then run from or dodge the more deeper and difficult scriptural truths. We show a lack of spiritual maturity and discernment when we do this--which are offensive and disrespectful to God. Furthermore our lack of spiritual maturity and discernment under-develops our faith and convictions in God and His Christ, and our ability to make proper choices and decisions. Hence, which is why we have been asleep and not been awake on our post of active and consistent advancement as a people. As noted above one can tell our spiritual condition and age upon entering our community. We have been wondering in the contemporary proverbial desert trying to find our way into the "Promised Land." The responsibility of feeding ourselves proper spiritual food and doing for self cannot continue to allude us. To continue down this path will keep us in the abyss of spiritual weakness and inability. Resulting in us continuing to look towards someone else to provide for us the things we should be providing for our selves. As the great Hon. Marcus M. Garvey declared "Up you mighty people! You can accomplish What you will!"
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Scriptural & Literary Support:
You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” -Deuteronomy 4:6 NRSV
They are a nation void of sense; there is no understanding in them. If they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern what the end would be. -Deuteronomy 32:28-29
Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. -1 Corinthians 2:6 NRSV
until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. -Ephesians 4:13-16 NSRV
About this
b we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
-Heb 5:11-14 NRSV
Therefore let us go on toward perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and faith toward God, instruction about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. -Heb 6:1-2 NRSV
and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. -James 1:4 NRSV
And He will teach him the Book and the wisdom and the Tavrat(Torah) and the Injeel(Gospel). -Surah 3:48
And when he had attained his maturity, We gave him wisdom and knowledge: and thus do We reward those who do good. -Surah 12:22
This is of what your Lord has revealed to you of wisdom, and do not associate any other god with Allah lest you should be thrown into hell, blamed, cast away. -Surah 17:39
And (as for) Lut(Lot), We gave him wisdom and knowledge, and We delivered him from the town which wrought abominations; surely they were an evil people, transgressors; -Surah 21:74
And when he attained his maturity and became full grown, We granted him wisdom and knowledge; and thus do We reward those who do good (to others). -Surah 28:14
He it is Who created you from dust, then from a small lifegerm, then from a clot, then He brings you forth as a child, then that you may attain your maturity, then that you may be old -- and of you there are some who are caused to die before -- and that you may reach an appointed term, and that you may understand. -Surah 40:67
“What is the purpose of education? Are we just in school to get an education so that we can go out and get a job and make some money, ride in a car, live in a nice home, abandon the ghetto and leave your brothers and sisters behind and think that we’ve made progress in the world? Is this what God intended when he asked us to go after knowledge from the cradle to the grave?” -Farrakhan
