I am Oscar Gowie.

I read your article ‘How to Empower Black Communities and Address Social Justice Issues.’
I agree with the concept of your article. However, I have some ideas that I think are necessary to incorporate in an article with an objective like yours, to materialize said objectives. I will now randomly list them.

First, The Black Community, we really do not have Black communities. Black people are scattered throughout the country, and although we may be a majority in a few localities, they are not communities in the sense of the administration and governing of said communities. Nor do we have common ownership of the said communities in terms of land, labor, and capital endowment. And we do not manifest the feeling of fellowship with each other, in terms of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. But I do concur, we need to address the interests of the underserved (be they Black, White, Blue, Brown, Yellow, or whatever).

Next is the ‘Educational Empowerment among the Black Community.’ This, my dear good Sir/Madam, is the central and most important drawback to our advancement. Want proof, just look at all educated Black people, they have progressed out of the abject poverty which we frequently refer to as the Black Community, as if Black people have inherent rights to poverty.

You are on the right track with this one. However, for it to be successful, you need to incorporate the following thought, without which, we will not make any headway in this direction. Here it is:

While Black people are the major recipients of prejudice and discrimination, and while we are good at highlighting the actions, attitudes, and behaviors that must be changed by those who are the purveyors of prejudice, hate and discrimination, we fall dismally short in highlighting the changes that we are to make to assimilate and function in a less hateful society. The sad thing is, without this change, we will not achieve significant progress that it will make a positive impact on us Black people.
I am referring to our need for a Black Cultural Renaissance. We need to stop, reassess, change direction, and start again. This time with a new collective perspective and vision. We need the educational opportunities you mentioned in your article, and more.

Black people need to have a yearning for education. We should practice this wanting until it becomes our culture and handed down from generation to generation. Too many of our young ones are just aimlessly wandering about the malls, and finally in violation of the criminal code. We see them on news casts every evening either running away from the police or being shot, or mauling another person, in an act of burglary. Every time I see this, part of me succumbs in shame, and I must look inward for the remedy. Every time I look, I see a failure on our part. Failure to have proper direction in their formative years. Failure in parenting. There are some things which we cannot go on forever blaming on Slavery/discrimination. We must take the initiative to vision where we are, where we want to be, and whether we are going there, and what corrections we must take. Personal ambition, self-ambition, and collective ambition are not within our realm of thinking. We need to bring this into focus. No educational program will be successful without this concept.

In short, we need to look at ourselves through the eyes of a third person. We need to pay attention and adjust ourselves accordingly.
Glorious it will be when each Black parent is not only educated but wants her/his child to be even more educated than he/she is.
This is how we beat poverty/generational poverty. Government can only set the stage for equal treatment without impediment. We must want to be something. Those of us who have overcome this handicap are testament to its authenticity.

Your literary prowess and your access to the masses can serve to bring this concept home to Black people. Forget African American – we are Americans. Forget slavery, we are going to make sure through education, Arts, science, and technology, that we will never again be enslaved. Do not forget that it was our African counterpart that sold us in the first place. Do not give them or anyone the chance to do it again. Our children will listen to us if we speak to them in such a manner that they realize we have their best interest at heart. This is true for all aspects of human endeavor, from staying out of drugs to becoming a neurosurgeon, an astrophysicist, a writer, a teacher, a plumber, an auto mechanic, or just doing nothing and hang about. We have been having a lot of the ‘just do nothing,’ more than our fair share. Even though community colleges offer a tremendous amount of career programs, our Black youths take no advantage. They claim that the government does nothing for them. They will give a million and one reasons why they cannot attend these career programs, but at the same time they find time to traverse the county in the effort of doing nothing.

Instead of the silly reparation argument that is being flaunted by some our our so-called leaders, I would be happy to see us asking for upgrading the resources of our Historically Black Colleges, bringing up to scratch with the top universities of the day, and enlarging their physical capacities and amenities, as well as upgrading their faculty and curriculum, and offering top notch career programs.

Yes, we Black people are not taking advantage of the educational opportunities available to us; we need to start doing so, with deliberate speed.
Yes, we Black people need to adjust our own view towards racism. We need to respect ourselves and everyone around us.

We need to realize that we must see our future generations thriving in everything we think, say, and do. And this is just the beginning. This then, will put us on the threshold to having a Black Community.

And, I have heard enough about bloody slavery and enslavement. I think that we have respectfully grown up and we should regulate such activity to the historians while we concentrate on being the inventors of the item that will obsolete the iPhone, take us to space and back safely and securely without contaminating the environment, find a cure for sickle cell, find the remedy that will eradicate the common cold and all its derivatives, including covid. Make Nuro-surgery a common and safe non-precarious act. And many more ideals in arts/fine arts, medical arts, music, and sciences.

Are Black People ready, or do we just want to continue the way we are going, and ending up exactly where we are?

The only solution for African Americans is complete and total separation from Racist white men and white women who are infected with the disease of madness, insanity, insecurity, fear and the shortcoming of having small private parts for which they black people for their short falls. Black men and Black women should only allowed black doctors and nurses to attend to their medical needs, We must also send all our children to black owned private schools and HBCU’S to protect them from the onslaught of discrimination at the hands of white people, Asians, Hispanics and the untouchables.

We are wasting our time hoping and praying to the white man’s religion known as the Religion of the Slaves aka Christianity, which was use a a tool to control African slaves in the past and it still continues to control and make docile our entire african American community. The black men and black women of America pray to a white God and a white bible to solve their problems; while, the white men and white women prayed to their banks, businesses and to other white people to remain at the top and to continue putting their boot on our neck, so we could never rise above that of an entertainer singing rap music of death and destruction or playing basketball and football to make the white men rich and successful.

in Conclusion, African Americans must separated and organized into a community that is control by us for us. We need to invest in our community and our safety by having our own black police department, black fire department, black hospital, black banks, black passenger airlines, black distribution centers, black stock market, and every thing that we have and owned should be control by black people for black people. it is time for black people to wake up and realize that there will never be equality in America as long as their are racist white men and white women been envious and jealous of a strong black men and black women.