Was Integration a Good Thing........ Probably Not........ MLK

                 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

                    Today Mark tha Anniversary death of M.L.K......I reached back into tha lyfe of Dr. King to understand what made him great, and what we must do to continue tha extraordinary work that he and his colleagues began so many years ago. As I sat on my porch, I closed my eyes and imagined his views that carrying him threw. I wondered how many Sundays tha family sat on that they porch after dinner, and how many days Dr. King spent wondering if it might be possible for him to fulfill his dreams and personal ambitions.I also thought about integration. I carefully studied the old pictures of Auburn Street, where Dr. King was born. I saw images of proud black business owners, in their finest clothes, driving fancy cars. Of course not everyone was doing well, but we were certainly better at making our own money. I read about how Martin Luther King Sr., Dr. King’s father, maintained a disciplined household, where education was tha highest priority and protecting tha family unit was paramount.Most importantly, I walked away convinced that one of tha most valuable things that Dr. King’s father gave him was pride. Martin Luther King Sr. taught his son at an early age that inequality was entirely unacceptable, and that tha terms of integration should be such that you are able to engage in fair trade without allowing yourself to be subjugated.So, years later, we have achieved at least half of Dr. King’s dream of integration: We can shop where we want, eat where we want and get almost any job at tha big fancy corporation down tha street. Many of us earn more money than we could have in a segregated society and are given opportunities that are more consistent with our chosen skill sets.Tha problem for our community, I humbly submit, is that we did not properly negotiate the terms of our integration. Tha 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 tha 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 tha furniture. Also, while you’re renting a room, they are paying the mortgage, which means that their kids (not yours) are going to own tha house when all tha hard work is done.Many of us see tha golden carrot of a higher salary without understanding the risk that is inherent in allowing your family to depend on tha descendants of your historical oppressors. Even tha most educated among us are raised to sell our services to bidders who extract our best and brightest like oil being lifted from tha soil of Nigeria. People with six figure jobs are living paycheck-to-paycheck, further heightening tha economic dependency that makes you impotent when it’s time to stand up for your rights. Like an intelligent woman who marries a wealthy man, you must ensure that you still have something to hold onto in tha event that your relationship turns into an abusive one. Sadly, however, many of us have thrown economic caution to tha wind.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 tha management of a large company, I would probably be a very different (and more highly paid) man from tha 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 tha way I do in public (just ask BD BioScience, where I put my academic freedom to tha test).So, tha conclusion is not that integration is always a bad thing. Integration can be a wonderful thing, since Americans have hoarded most of tha nation’s resources (due to our oppression), and integrating gives us an opportunity to have a piece of tha American pie. But integrating in such a way that makes you dependent on others can put your socio-economic security at risk.Years after achieving tha “dream” of integration, we have seen our poisoned and misguided financial chickens coming home to roost. When tha 2008 economic crisis hit America,Rich wealth took a small hit and soon recovered, but Poor wealth dropped by over half. Also,  unemployment hit levels that we haven’t seen in over 30 years. Tha 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.Tha fact is that we must critically assess tha extraordinary work of Dr. Martin Luther King while simultaneously realizing that his work was not complete. He died at tha young age of 39 years old, and was speaking boldly about tha importance of economic sustainability as a critical component to achieving true equality in a capitalist society. As a Lyfer myself, I am hopeful that we realize that this was probably tha most significant part of Dr. King’s vision, and that it is tha conscientious and intelligent allocation of economic resources that ultimately serves as tha key to many of your most fundamental rights as an American.As a community, each of us has a responsibility to teach our children entrepreneurship as an important part of their long-term economic survival. Learning to run your own business is as important as knowing how to grow your own food. We must embrace educational excellence as if our lives depended on it, but ensure that our children are taught their history and family values that they are not getting in class. We must target our spending to Mom's and Pop's -owned businesses whenever we can, and embrace tha 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 afford to give $15 to our favorite organization.It’s time for a new way of thinking as it pertains to money and education. Ownership, wealth-building and self-sufficiency should be part of tha consistent black national discourse. By re-inventing ourselves in a productive way, we can turn our darkest hour into one of tha greatest periods in American history. Tha time for us to do this is NOW.

Was Integration a Good Thing........ Probably Not........