Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

Ignored in the U.S.
Jerry Henderson, the election expert just back from Bosnia, sent in a few press clippings appearing in the European press.  In his accompanying letter, Jerry notes, AIt is interesting that the issue of slave labor is now on the front burner in Europe.   You may want to do something with these articles in relationship to the research you did for the articles on reparations.@   Following Jerry=s suggestion, we give you this:

From The International Herald Tribune, September 13, 1998 p.18. AVolkswagen establishes $12 Million Fund for Nazi-Era Victims@ (Los Angeles Times) Berlin – With its announcement Friday of a $12 million Private Relief Fund, automotive giant Volkswagen became the first German company to accept a moral obligation to compensate Nazi-era slave laborers. VW, Europe=s biggest car maker, cast it decision as a voluntary humanitarian gesture rather than a legal obligation, saying it was Amorally called upon@ to redress the wrongs of the company=s World War II forerunner.  Last month, Holocaust survivors filed two lawsuits in New York seeking back wages for wartime slave labor from some of Germany=s leading industrial giants, including VW, Siemens, Daimler-Benz and BMW.  AWe are satisfied with this decision, as it should accelerate other out-of-court settlements@ between German companies and their surviving wartime slaves, said Klaus von Muenchhausen, who represents 150 Nazi victims with various claims against German companies. Von Muenchhausen has pressed and won claims in district courts in Bremen and Bonn on behalf of other slave laborers over the past two years.  He contends that those cases established a legal precedent that companies that used workers enslaved by the Nazis individually are obliged to make restitution even though the German federal government has paid out 100 billion marks, or about $59 billion, in war reparations. AMany companies have said they would pay if a general fund was created,@ said Von Muenchhausen.

(From The Wall Street Journal Europe, September 16, 1998 p. 10 excerpted from  Eric Peters= column.)  AThe industrial companies of Germany played and integral role in the Holocaust,@ said Mr. Fagan (an attorney) whose suit also names Daimler-Benz, BMW, Audi and five non-automotive corporations.  AThey masterminded and implemented with the Nazi regime a conspiracy to purposely enslave and exploit Holocaust victims and to profit from the Holocaust.= All of that is true enough.  Just as the Confederate States of American practices chattel slavery, just as the U.S. government repeatedly abrogated lawful treaties made with sovereign American Indian tribes and stole their land.  But that was a long time ago and the principals are all dead. What happened was indeed tragic, cruel, and grossly, maliciously iniquitous.  But what has that to do with people born years after the fact-or companies whose only connection to their predecessors of half a century ago is a name on a corporate logo? The Volkswagen of the Third Reich died with Hitler in April 1945.  Its factories in Wolfburg lay in ruins….It=s one thing to demand that Swiss banks-intact corporate entities before, during and after the war-be made to account for their activities during the war. (OTP emphasis)  But as for VW and the other German industrial concerns of today, their sins died with the empire they served.@

And finally, this from the January 1998 issue of Our Time Press:

 AStolen Land Stolen Labor -The Case
for Reparations: America=s Real Debt.@

By 1856 the advertised prices for European-owned African-Americans on one document of that time ranged from a high of $2,700 for Anderson, a ANo.1 bricklayer and mason,@ and $1,900 for George, a ANo. 1 Blacksmith,@ to $750 for Reuben, even though he was labeled Aunsound.@  (See Railroad Contractor=s Credit Sale document of a choice gang of 41 slaves.)   The average cost for this lot of people was  $1,488.   As a second reference for this number, we can look at the chart for the cost of Prime Field Hands, and find that it is pretty accurate.   By multiplying the census count of slaves by the average advertised price, we arrive at a value of $5.3 billion ($5,327,079,968).    This may not look like a lot of money now, but compare it to other figures of the day.  The National Wealth Estimate for the entire nation in 1856 was $12.3 billion ($12,396,000,000).  [Note:  All figures, come from Tables in the cited U.S. Bureau of the Census publication]  Total Bank Savings Deposits in 1856 was $95.6 million.  Manhattan Island, Land and Buildings, was worth only $900 million dollars, less than one-fifth of the value invested in African-Americans.  The 1855 total capital and property investment in railroads was only $763.6 million dollars.   Why the $5 billion dollar investment in slaves?   In 1859, the total private production income was $4,098,000,000 ($4 billion).  Of this total, labor-intensive industries like Aagriculture@ and Atransportation and communication,@ accounted for $1,958 million (1.9 billion),   Almost one-half the total private income… The money earned from this investment found its way into a variety of banking institutions, which increased from 506 in 1834 to 1,643 in 1865.  Many of the names remain familiar to this day:  The Bank of New York Company, Inc. – founded 1784,  Fleet National Bank – 1791, Chase Manhattan Corporation – 1799, Citicorp/Citibank N.A. -1812 , The Dime Savings Bank – 1859.    As banks in King Cottons= Achief American market, that of New York,@ it is inconceivable that these institutions, and through them the nation, did not benefit from the profits made on a slaves= wages.   Their business then, as it is now, was to be a source of funds to build empires in a variety of industries, across the continent, to make land purchases, upgrade equipment, save to send children to college, etc.   Railroads could be built using a combination of slave labor and loans taken at banks that held money on deposit from the cotton/slave industry.   Money was also paid to a variety of people who, while not slave-owners themselves, were Ain the loop@ of payments for goods and services.  Thus were assets being used to develop the country for the benefit of Europeans and their heirs.  The nation as a whole benefited, and that=s why the nation as a whole should pay.
 
If Mr. Peters of the Wall Street Journal Europe, supports the notion of Swiss banks being accountable because they remained corporately intact through the holocaust and beyond, then perhaps he also supports the notion that the banks just listed be held accountable for the monies earned from chattel slavery.  After all, Slavery only ended 75 years before the Holocaust they speak of here.   
Additionally, unlike wartime corporations dying and new ones springing up here in the States, many corporations can be found that directly owe the building of their foundations to the work of slave labor.   The push for reparations for the African American community must go forward.         DG

The good news is that African-American Brooklynite architect/businessman Carlton Brown of Full Spectrum, was named developer of the $85 million Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) cultural district’s residential tower and dance space in Downtown Brooklyn on land owned by NYC.  Full Spectrum’s Brown has crossed the real estate divide, which has excluded NYC’s  people of color from big-league real estate development participation. This is a quantum leap!  Construction of the BAM tower begins next spring.
Last month’s landmark announcement about the Brown/BAM project had lots of chefs stirring the pot:  the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, NYC Housing Preservation and Development,  NYC Councilwoman Letitia James  and a constellation of Brooklyn groups advocating for a Brooklynite developer as opposed to Manhattan moguls who monopolize most big  NYC real estate deals.  The history of the  $300 million Downtown Brooklyn renovation is long and rife with political undertones and bureaucratic stagnation. The announcement begs more than a few questions. Who is Carlton Brown? What is Full Spectrum? How did Brown’s Full Spectrum team, whose original proposal was rejected in 2006, eclipsed the competition.
Co-founded in 1988  by Carlton Brown, COO, and Walter Edwards, CEO, Full Spectrum is a Harlem-based, African-American-owned sustainable real estate company which focuses on the development of mixed-use, mixed-income green buildings in emerging urban markets.  Brown, architect and green leader, says,  “Full Spectrum’s two Harlem condominium buildings, at 1400 Fifth Avenue and the Kalahari Harlem, on West 116th Street, under construction, exemplify our mission.” He adds: “1400 Fifth,  which was first occupied in 2004, is our flagship mixed-income residential green building,  and it gave us lots of national visibility to do something different and helped broaden our client business base, which now includes Jackson, Mississippi, where Full Spectrum has an office, and where it is developing 4500 homes and in New Orleans, Louisiana, where we will  develop 275 hotel rooms, 200 condos and 200 homes.  Our out-of-town business is directly related to our philosophy and strategic approach to work, something to which  municipal leaders across the country resonate.  All  of our buildings will be green and cost-effective.”
Full Spectrum, along with a variety of partners, is becoming a household word, which  has developed  both residential and commercial real estate properties from a facility upgrade at the UN Plaza Hotel to project management at Jacobi Hospital and at the Trenton Town Center in New Jersey. We were a consultant to  The Solarium in Battery Park City, Manhattan, best  known as one of the nation’s first environmentally sustainable residential buildings.
The Full Spectrum’s management philosophy and practices are indistinguishable from Carlton Brown’s. An affable, scholarly, pragmatic manager, Brown is the ultimate multitasker who can conduct an in-office interview while teleconferencing in another city and mapping real estate strategies for yet another city.  A 30-year-plus Brooklyn resident who is married with children, Brown is a member in good standing within  the borough’s  rich, vibrant African-American cultural community. He chairs the nonprofit ARTS 651, a local organization which focuses on art produced  by descendants of  enslaved Africans, lectures at Pratt Institute, and in 1990 led  a multidisciplinary group which developed an approach for sustainable development projects for Cape Verde, a West African nation.
Born in Charlotte, NC, Brown  was raised in  Jackson, Mississippi, where his parents were professors who taught chemistry and choreography at Jackson State University, an HBCU and  who were active in the civil rights movement.  “Our family engaged in the world of ideas beyond the reality of  Mississippi in the 50s and 60s,” says Brown. He graduated from Princeton, where he majored in Architecture and city planning and wrote a thesis on “Neo-African Architecture,” about the historic impact of 400 years of European dominance of African  peoples and Black architecture imperatives, which should be more African referential and less duplicative of Western influences.
In 1976,  ATT hired Brown as a district manager for its NY real estate group, where he acquired experience in  corporate planning, site acquisition, facilities development, project design and leasing for high-performance labs, data centers and office facilities. During his decade-long  ATT tenure, he directed the development and construction of more than $2 billion in real estate property for the corporation. He also studied real estate finance at NYU.
When Carlton Brown, former American Institute of Architects board member, starts talking about architecture, he gets an adrenalin rush. He defines himself by his Africanness, saying, “That’s who I am and that’s how I process words.”  He insists that most people misunderstand architects.  “Architecture,” he concedes,  “is about the power of the elite and the ruling classes and their ability to finance buildings and erect monuments to themselves.” He laments that Blacks in general do not enjoy that access. He says:  “Architects are not just designers, as some conjecture who are on steroids, we are the stewards of the earth’s resources, stewards of environmental health,” which would explain his attraction to greening. He admits that architecture is about pattern, color, shape and texture. “For the  Kalahari Harlem, we hired African-American architect John Travis who deftly introduced numerous African references to the design model such as Adrinka and southern African symbols. He enthuses, “We wanted a distinctive building which would introduce pattern and color in a way unusual for NYC.”
Brown  is ecstatic about being named developer of the “jewel in the crown” portion of   the rejuvenated BAM  cultural district project, its residential tower,  which encompasses 187 units of mixed-income housing, half of which are designated for low-to moderate-income tenants. Full Spectrum will work with two architectural groups on the BAM residential tower, the Germany-based Behnisch Architects and the New York-based Studio MDA. In explaining the  tower’s architectural  design scheme, he recommends “envisioning Downtown Brooklyn as a horizontal community turned on its end, 5 cantilevered blocks of apartments which allows natural light and abundant air to circulate.”  He adds, “We haven’t  determined which African design scheme will interplay with the basics.”   Brown’s  big challenge is securing financing for the behemoth  Downtown Brooklyn real estate project.  He allows, tongue in cheek,  that being named developer was the easy part, phase one of a multilayered process.
It appears that Full Spectrum has much to celebrate as it approaches 2008, its  20th Anniversary!

(Editors Note: For a future issue, Our Time Press will be asking many downtown Brooklyn developers, how their contractor/workforce profile measures against the local standard of the Community Benefits Agreement with Forest City Ratner.)

Many Black “leaders” decry the lack of massive support when calls go out for community action. They wonder why outrage is not spontaneous and ubiquitous. Black leaders actually vocalize their wonder when the masses go about their business as if nothing is going on.
What most Black leaders miss are these facts: the leaders are Black men, the issues revolve around Black males, those expected to engage in community action are Black women, and issues related to the well-being of Black women and children are ignored.
Under normal circumstances, male leadership stands for the well-being of the entire community- men, women and children. In the Black community, male leadership are generally concerned only with themselves, and other males. The well-being of women and children, in the community and the home, do not seem to be of paramount concern. The low rates of stable marriages among Blacks, and the doubling of Black children in single-parent families (from 35% in the 1960’s to 70% at the beginning of the 21st century) are two examples of the absence of “operational unity” in the Black community.
During the Civil Rights Movement, with Black men in leadership roles, Black women and children were the backbone. Rosa Parks’ courageous defiance was the spark of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Black children were at the center of integrating Little Rock High School. Black  male leadership strategically used Black children as fodder for water cannons, dogs and filling jail cells during Civil Rights marches. What did Black women and children get for their efforts? Dismissed.
Years of sustained action  culminated with the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom which led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act in 1965. The March on Washington was organized by A. Phillip Randolph (international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters), Whitney Young (president of the National Urban League), Roy Wilkins (president of the NAACP), James Farmer (president of the Congress of Racial Equality), John Lewis (president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Bayard Rustin (organizer of the first Freedom Rides).
Black women played the central role in a wide variety of Civil Rights organizations and actions, including Daisy Bates (president of Little Rock NAACP who recruited the Little Rock 9), Pauli Murray (lawyer and feminist who had staged the first sit-in at a Washington restaurant during World War II), Dorothy Height (president of the National Council of Negro Women), Diane Nash (student leader and organizer of the Freedom Riders in the South), Jo Ann Robinson (college teacher who worked with a group of middle-class Black women to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott), Ella Baker (acting director of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, advisor for Black college students who formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and Rosa Parks (long time activist and catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott). Despite the sacrifices of these and other Black women, the organizers of the March on Washington refused to let even one Black woman speak.
Black women thought the Civil Rights Movement included our well-being, in spite of Black men marching with large placards tied to their torsos declaring in huge black lettering, “I AM A MAN.” Black women thought we were included when we got arrested at protest marches side by side with Black men. It was our children who were strategically used as human targets for water hoses. But when Stokely Carmichael (who appropriated the term “Black Power_” from Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.) was asked the role of the  Black woman in the movement, he slipped up and honestly (from his point of view) retorted, “On her back.”
Popular culture was sometimes not much better. A classic Parliament Funkadelic line: “Stupid Jill forgot her pill, and now they have a son,” as if Jack, who had no concern for the well-being of Jill or his son, was not responsible for the situation he created. Blaxploitation movies glorified “pimpin” and being a “playa” at the expense of Black women, nurtured children and stable families. Gangsta rap is no better when it tells the world Black women ain’t nothin’ but hos, not wives.
Last season’s Survivor: Cook Island graphically illustrated how casually Black female opinion is dismissed. The 16 participants were divided into 4 teams- Black, white, Asian and Latino. The Black team members, Sekou, Nathan, Sephanie and Sundra were asked to make a decision. Without thinking, Sekou grabbed Nathan’s shoulder, stepped forward and conferred for a decision. Left out of the team process, Stephanie and Sundra looked at Sekou like he was stupid. Later, it was no surprise that Sekou was voted out. Sekou’s analysis of the vote was that the team made a mistake by voting him, their leader, out. It never occurred to Sekou that a true leader takes into account the gifts and opinions  all team members bring, including Black women.
In spite of this and other increasingly public and private indignities, our love for Black men has kept hope alive.
For decades, Black women have been the backbone of community action. Interestingly, when many of these same women (who are members of any number of community groups) ask for development of  community action around issues related to the well-being of Black women and children, they are told they are being “divisive”. Many Black women, not wanting to be “divisive”, have dropped  their inquiries and calls for action. This has been going on for years.
Who are really the “divisive” ones? When Black male  leadership chooses “Black issues”, why are they (with few exceptions) limited to support for Black male challenges with the criminal justice system? Could it be that addressing the well-being of Black women and children would require Black men to look at and amend their selfish male privilege instead of myopically focusing on white racism?  The greatest risk to the well-being of Black women and children is not racism or police brutality. The greatest risk to the well-being of Black women and children is the behavior and attitudes of Black men.  Consider, for example, the large numbers of Black children on welfare and the family and community instability attendant with Black women begging for food stamps to feed Black men’s children as if it is a glamorous lifestyle. Why has no Black male leader called for a rally at the welfare center demanding that Black men get their children off welfare? Why has no Black male leader held a march in support of children who feel threatened when they are sexually harassed while walking to school?
There are a few glimmers of hope. Tamika Mallory has led the National Action Network’s Decency Initiative in challenging denigrating lyrics in Hip-Hop.  Girls For Gender Equity, under the leadership of JoAnn Smith, gives young teens tools to deal with street sexual harassment. Kevin Powell has been hosting monthly men’s meetings after his successful Black and Male in America conference. Byron Hurt produced Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary look at misogyny in popular Black music. Taharka Robinson recently organized a march against domestic violence.
In the meantime, Black women need to speak up, even at the risk of being called “divisive” by “divisive” male leadership. The survival of the Black community is at stake.

By Linda Armstrong
2007: The Year in Black Theatre
The year 2007 was quite amazing for Black Theatre. We saw the late August Wilson’s final play in his 10-play series chronicling Black life in America, presented at the Cort Theatre on Broadway. Radio Golf was an amazing production to behold, with an outstanding African-American cast.
This past year was also phenomenal because it was the important 35th Anniversary of the AUDELCO Awards. This organization recognizes the work and accomplishments of Blacks in Theatre and Black Theatre companies. AUDELCO is an audience development non profit group that bestows VIV Awards on actors, directors, playwrights and all those associated with Black theater productions that are off-Broadway. This organization not only celebrated its landmark 35th Anniversary, but shared the spotlight with several other organizations that have been around for at least 35 years, including the H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players, the Billie Holiday Theatre, the Black Spectrum Theatre, the Negro Ensemble Company,  the Frank Silvera Writer’s Workshop, the Nuyorican Poet’s Caf‚, New Federal Theatre, Richard Allen Center for Culture & Art (RACCA), AMAS Musical Theatre, National Black Theatre, and Roger Furman New Heritage Theatre.
There have been some delightful productions in 2007, by Black Theatre companies. One production that had a short run but a huge positive message about African-American men was Black Man Rising presented by the National Black Theatre. Audiences enjoyed a lot of laughs at the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn while watching Sassy Mamas and were entertained by The Desire. The Black Spectrum Theatre in Queens had Five Guys Named Moe. New Federal Theatre did Moon Over A Rainbow Shawl. Classical Theatre of Harlem did an intense production of Electra. Nilaja Sun continued to do her production of No Child, a piece she wrote to expose the issues in the New York City Public School System.
When I heard that Fantasia Barrino was going to play Celie in The Color Purple I didn’t know what to expect, but she easily proved herself to me and to anyone else, that she was not only able to be Celie, but was able to make the role her own. Her performance was so impressive it won her a Theatre World Award.
Imagine being a playwright and having your work done in one theater. What a thrill that must be, so Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Suzan-Lori Parks, must have been beside herself in 2007 when over 300 of her plays were performed in theaters around the country in a project called “365 Days/365 Plays” and it was just what its title said, a play a day.
2007 was a year that saw positive things for David Lamb, the writer of Platanos & Collard Greens not only is the show in its fifth year but it was joined in December by Auction Block to Hip Hop. In January, both plays can be seen at Florence Guild Hall on E. 59th Street.
Productions that showcased the talents of some marvelous Black performers included 110 In The Shade, which had Audra McDonald; A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Keith David in a lead role; Ella Joyce in her one-woman show, The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement; Glynn Turman in his one-man show, The Movin’ Man and Melba Moore in her show Sweet Songs of My Soul. Lisa Gay Hamilton was on stage in Ohio State Murders. Andre De Shields had everyone captivated and amused as he starred in the Classical Theatre of Harlem musical production of Black Nativity.
A very sad note to 2007 was the passing of Larry Leon Hamlin, the founder of the National Black Theatre Festival that is held in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Hamlin founded the festival to make sure that Black Theatre professionals get their due.
There are several shows to watch out for in 2008: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is going to be presented on Broadway in a landmark all-Black production featuring James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Terrence Howard and Anika Noni Rose and if that wasn’t awesome enough, the show is being directed by Debbie Allen. The Disney production of The Little Mermaid is going to showcase the talents of quite a few African-Americans, such as Norm Lewis. While The Color Purple will lose Fantasia, it will gain Chaka Khan and Bebe Winans in the roles of Sophia and Harpo.
Whatever you do in 2008, make sure that you support Black Theatre Groups and Blacks in productions.

Many Black “leaders” decry the lack of massive support when calls go out for community action. They wonder why outrage is not spontaneous and ubiquitous. Black leaders actually vocalize their wonder when the masses go about their business as if nothing is going on.
What most Black leaders miss are these facts: the leaders are Black men, the issues revolve around Black males, those expected to engage in community action are Black women, and issues related to the well-being of Black women and children are ignored.
Under normal circumstances, male leadership stands for the well-being of the entire community- men, women and children. In the Black community, male leadership are generally concerned only with themselves, and other males. The well-being of women and children, in the community and the home, do not seem to be of paramount concern. The low rates of stable marriages among Blacks, and the doubling of Black children in single-parent families (from 35% in the 1960’s to 70% at the beginning of the 21st century) are two examples of the absence of “operational unity” in the Black community.
During the Civil Rights Movement, with Black men in leadership roles, Black women and children were the backbone. Rosa Parks’ courageous defiance was the spark of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Black children were at the center of integrating Little Rock High School. Black  male leadership strategically used Black children as fodder for water cannons, dogs and filling jail cells during Civil Rights marches. What did Black women and children get for their efforts? Dismissed.
Years of sustained action  culminated with the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom which led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act in 1965. The March on Washington was organized by A. Phillip Randolph (international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters), Whitney Young (president of the National Urban League), Roy Wilkins (president of the NAACP), James Farmer (president of the Congress of Racial Equality), John Lewis (president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Bayard Rustin (organizer of the first Freedom Rides).
Black women played the central role in a wide variety of Civil Rights organizations and actions, including Daisy Bates (president of Little Rock NAACP who recruited the Little Rock 9), Pauli Murray (lawyer and feminist who had staged the first sit-in at a Washington restaurant during World War II), Dorothy Height (president of the National Council of Negro Women), Diane Nash (student leader and organizer of the Freedom Riders in the South), Jo Ann Robinson (college teacher who worked with a group of middle-class Black women to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott), Ella Baker (acting director of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, advisor for Black college students who formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and Rosa Parks (long time activist and catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott). Despite the sacrifices of these and other Black women, the organizers of the March on Washington refused to let even one Black woman speak.
Black women thought the Civil Rights Movement included our well-being, in spite of Black men marching with large placards tied to their torsos declaring in huge black lettering, “I AM A MAN.” Black women thought we were included when we got arrested at protest marches side by side with Black men. It was our children who were strategically used as human targets for water hoses. But when Stokely Carmichael (who appropriated the term “Black Power_” from Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.) was asked the role of the  Black woman in the movement, he slipped up and honestly (from his point of view) retorted, “On her back.”
Popular culture was sometimes not much better. A classic Parliament Funkadelic line: “Stupid Jill forgot her pill, and now they have a son,” as if Jack, who had no concern for the well-being of Jill or his son, was not responsible for the situation he created. Blaxploitation movies glorified “pimpin” and being a “playa” at the expense of Black women, nurtured children and stable families. Gangsta rap is no better when it tells the world Black women ain’t nothin’ but hos, not wives.
Last season’s Survivor: Cook Island graphically illustrated how casually Black female opinion is dismissed. The 16 participants were divided into 4 teams- Black, white, Asian and Latino. The Black team members, Sekou, Nathan, Sephanie and Sundra were asked to make a decision. Without thinking, Sekou grabbed Nathan’s shoulder, stepped forward and conferred for a decision. Left out of the team process, Stephanie and Sundra looked at Sekou like he was stupid. Later, it was no surprise that Sekou was voted out. Sekou’s analysis of the vote was that the team made a mistake by voting him, their leader, out. It never occurred to Sekou that a true leader takes into account the gifts and opinions  all team members bring, including Black women.
In spite of this and other increasingly public and private indignities, our love for Black men has kept hope alive.
For decades, Black women have been the backbone of community action. Interestingly, when many of these same women (who are members of any number of community groups) ask for development of  community action around issues related to the well-being of Black women and children, they are told they are being “divisive”. Many Black women, not wanting to be “divisive”, have dropped  their inquiries and calls for action. This has been going on for years.
Who are really the “divisive” ones? When Black male  leadership chooses “Black issues”, why are they (with few exceptions) limited to support for Black male challenges with the criminal justice system? Could it be that addressing the well-being of Black women and children would require Black men to look at and amend their selfish male privilege instead of myopically focusing on white racism?  The greatest risk to the well-being of Black women and children is not racism or police brutality. The greatest risk to the well-being of Black women and children is the behavior and attitudes of Black men.  Consider, for example, the large numbers of Black children on welfare and the family and community instability attendant with Black women begging for food stamps to feed Black men’s children as if it is a glamorous lifestyle. Why has no Black male leader called for a rally at the welfare center demanding that Black men get their children off welfare? Why has no Black male leader held a march in support of children who feel threatened when they are sexually harassed while walking to school?
There are a few glimmers of hope. Tamika Mallory has led the National Action Network’s Decency Initiative in challenging denigrating lyrics in Hip-Hop.  Girls For Gender Equity, under the leadership of JoAnn Smith, gives young teens tools to deal with street sexual harassment. Kevin Powell has been hosting monthly men’s meetings after his successful Black and Male in America conference. Byron Hurt produced Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary look at misogyny in popular Black music. Taharka Robinson recently organized a march against domestic violence.
In the meantime, Black women need to speak up, even at the risk of being called “divisive” by “divisive” male leadership. The survival of the Black community is at stake.