What We Get Wrong About Integration

With Martin Luther King Jr. Day around the corner I figured now was the perfect time to write an article about racial integration. More specifically, what we get wrong about integration.

Again, as I did in my article Why the Black Militant is the Foundation of Progress for Black America, I will preface this article by saying that I am mixed with a white mother and a Black father. My goal with this article is to explain what we as a society get wrong about integration not to make a case for segregation or separation.

The main issue that I have noticed with how we approach integration as a society (at least in America) is that it too often dissolves into the NEED to integrate into white America for access to resources (financial, access to quality education, healthcare services etc). The issue with this approach to integration is that forces the hand of ethnic and cultural minority groups to sacrifice a part of their identity simply to partake in the “American Dream” and this sacrifice too often comes with negative consequences.

Part of the insidious nature of white superiority is the understanding that every aspect of modern life in America must run through the social expectations and value structure of “whiteness” in order to achieve access to a “piece of the pie”. The issue with this paradigm is that when “whiteness” is used as the barometer for access to resources it excludes cultural and ethnic minority groups who are unwilling to sacrifice any part of their culture or ethnicity (rightly so).

In my previous post: Why the Black Militant is the Foundation of Progress for Black America, I made the argument that the Black Militant (an individual unwilling to concede any aspect of their psyche to the notion of white Superiority) was the basis of Black Progress because any progress within Black America must start from a position of complete autonomy in order to ensure the complete and healthy development of the Black psyche.

Similarly, here is my opinion on integration.

I believe true integration can only occur by CHOICE. In other words, self-reliance WITHIN any racial or ethnic minority group (let’s call it INTRA-RELIANCE) must precede the need to rely on integration into white America (which we will call INTER-RELIANCE).

What does this look like? It looks like Black accounting firms hiring Black accountants to handle Black money. It looks like Black dentists and Black architects and Black engineers and Black coffee shops and Black restaurants all existing within a single community. Basically, it is the creation of a space where Black people can be paid and exist in a financial surplus WITHOUT any reliance on white infrastructure.

Once a space exists where Blackness can comfortably maintain a quality of life that promotes the healthy development of future generations then the OPTION to integrate into white America becomes a true choice. Think of it like this.

If a Black accountant working at a Black accounting firm making $65,000 a year, with a mortgage, a retirement fund and savings for his/her child’s college education gets an offer from a larger white accounting firm, the choice to take the new job may be more financially appealing but conditions don’t NESSESITATE him/her taking the job in order to live a comfortable life. In this way the accountant can evaluate the situation for more than simply financial stability/viability.

Too often the financial pressure exerted upon minority groups expresses itself as a NEED to integrate, not a choice, which can lead to the instillation of concepts such as white superiority and/or the sacrifice of cultural, racial or ethnic identity. Put another way, if a Black person HAS to conform in any way that suppresses his/her cultural or racial identity in order to be an accountant at a white accounting firm, what they have gained in financial benefit is offset by the loss in cultural expression. This is dangerous on a societal level because over time cultures are lost and destroyed under the constant financial pressure of exerted upon them by mainstream white America.

There is already a model for this concept of integration as a CHOICE versus integration as a NEED.

The Asian community has done an incredible job of maintaining is autonomy by way of creating sustainable jobs and wealth within its own community FIRST and then using that leverage as a basis for the establishment of even more wealth by integrating into white America as a choice.

How can Black America accomplish this goal? The answer is by the pooling of resources into community INFRASTRUCURE. In an attempt to keep this article bite sized I will write another separate article about the importance of creating infrastructure and what that looks like so be on the lookout for that.

For now, try to start understanding the difference between INTRA-RELIANCE and INTER-RELIANCE and look for ways that you can support anyone attempting to create or sustain a life outside the context of mainstream white America.

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