The more the African American community tries to analyze how to pull itself up from the grips of despair, the more it opens itself up to greater criticism. It’s is more difficult to have a public conversation without those who either exploit black crisis or enjoy commenting on the state of the black crisis, as some form of catharsis for why such problem continue to persist. The racists come out every time public intellectuals assert that the historical social construct has contributed to the problem. America stopped talking about race because it could never win a conversation about race and the nation’s complicit involvement in the creation of a race caste system. The emergence of classism and the persistence of poverty has crossed color lines and makes it difficult to assert race as a primary source of the problem. And that’s a problem. American society created the problem, but wants no responsibility in correcting the problem. Economic suppression is so great in poor communities that it is nearly impossible to escape from the social ills created by economics alone. Complicate this by poor education, poor health, poor family structures and poor values (choices), and you have a situation that black people can’t escape from.

It’s a situation that, while not hopeless, leaves many feeling helpless. And where can the African American expect to get help from? America cut Black America loose twenty years ago. By the end of the Reagan Revolution, the separation, economic/social/political, was complete. We’ve spent the last twenty years looking for something that just isn’t there. But unlike other races and cultures who turned inward to cultural values and community support systems, black communities have turned on each other and there are few support systems to be found. That’s a problem. Many in our community continue to be exploited by consumerism, gangsterism, and popular culturalism that undermine intelligence, morals and discernment. This creates level of sophistication (or unsophistication) that makes it difficult for African Americans to relate to each other. Other cultures have generation gaps. The black community has millennium gaps. 

These gaps only empower others more than they otherwise would, and de-empower our communities in ways that are unbearable. How do we escape the realities of our communities throughout the country—that are no worse than slavery or segregation—but not give the oppressors of the nations more power than they should have? How do we escape the problems that are now becoming more than generational but intractable in how we see each other and how others see us? Only we can answer these questions. Questions like, why are so many black men out of work (or the labor force)? Why are so many black men in jail? Why are we the only race of people where the majority of families are headed by females? And if one more white person asks me, “Why can’t black people ‘get it together’?” If I knew the answer, I’d be richer than Bill Gates. Certainly, if others wonder this about us, we certainly wonder it about ourselves. It can’t be the issue of being poor—black people have always been poor. It’s can’t be the issue of education—black people were once barred from education. It’s can’t be the separation issue—black men often went away, often-to find work, to escape the Klan, to escape the law, and the family survived. What makes 21st Century problems so difficult to escape? And what makes many in our society bask in watching the despair of black America? Maybe they know that the social construct set up to work against Black America has finally engulfed it. Or that the disparities created by the construct to disadvantage black America has finally consumed it. Or the frustrations over the injustices waged against black America has caused it to turn on itself. Of course, the racists will say, “Nobody made them do it.” Or, “if they’d just get off their lazy…or spend their money on homes and education instead of cars and bling-bling…and you see how it goes on and on. They say us as the problem, we see us as the problem, and nobody is prepared to solve the problem.

One thing we have to acknowledge, though. This new iteration of slavery, of segregation that promotes a new form of social control, by remote control, that is just as effective as its forerunners. Black America knows there a problem. They just can’t escape it. And that’s a problem. When do we turn to ourselves for the answers? There’s no problem in turning to ourselves. Once we find ourselves…damn, that’s a problem too. Where’s the escape?

Escaping the problem is now Black America’s biggest problem.

BC columnist Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of the upcoming book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is www.AnthonySamad.com. Click here to contact Mr. Samad.