Institutional Racism against African-Americans no longer exist

Well woven within the fabric of American life is a thick thread of racism. We are a melting pot, no, a tossed salad of different cultures and ideologies layered with a dressing of supremacy complexes. So what. Individuals can not hold a people back. Every person has some adversity, even if it is laziness inbred by rich daddy giving me everything I’d ever want, or guilt because I never had to struggle. So regardless of the few people who stand in your way, you are not unique. If you have twice as many hurdles to jump, get to jumping.

The power to stop a targeted group lies within Institutional racism. Where there is a systematic rejection of opportunity. I will prove that this power does not exist as an adversary of African-Americans.

The key to understanding is how these groups or institutions are established. In order to defeat your enemy, you must first identify him. Look at the things that he actually does to hold you back. Understand his perspective, where he is getting his information from, and where his true alliances are. Once you see this you’ll be in a better position to realize what he is really trying to protect.

If you find that his establishment or source of power comes from his own hard work and sacrifice, you must respect that. If you find that his group is not the only group that has amassed a decent amount of security by way of controlling assets or industries, then you’ve got to respect them as well. Are those other groups advocates, adversaries or indifferent to African-Americans? Remember we are identifying the who, why and the how.

With this thought process you start to realize that capitalism is a team sport. There is no individual that does it all alone. Immigrant groups come to this country and they concentrate in a particular geographic region or neighborhood. They discuss how to maintain their culture, assimilate into the mainstream and how to engage in enterprise to bring in capital. They may start out as workers, then owners who hire their own people. They may unionize and eventually fight for better conditions. They may pay lobbyist so their voice can be heard. They may fund additional education for their new immigrants or young children. The groups that are successful at this are successful overall. How are these groups affecting, assisting or interrupting the African-American assent?

The next thing we must look at is the African-American as a group/culture. With the new found information from above, we compare what African-Americans are doing to each other,  for each other and with each other on the street, in the home and intergenerationally. We look at if they are embracing the healthy aspects of their culture while diminishing the negative. We look at if they are playing into the stereotypes or are they actively defeating them with contrary representation.  Are the successful African-Americans doing all that they can to promote and create a path for others to follow? Are they effective in assisting others in overcoming the shortcomings of their community? Or are they exploiting, assimilating, marrying outside of their race and half-hazardly giving money to causes just to satisfy their guilt?

The point is, post civil rights, post affirmative action, and during the Obama era, if you are discriminating against yourself, you can not complain that others are treating you the same way you are treating yourself. Why get outraged when a police officer kills one black male, but say nothing when 500 are slain by other African-Americans? In America, the opportunities are only where YOU make them. If you don’t do that, you have no one to blame but yourself…but remember this is a team sport.

It may be difficult for African-Americans to get admitted to some Universities in this post affirmative action era. But we have 105 historically black universities in the United States. It may be more difficult for an African-American to obtain loans, even with the same credit score as a counterpart. But African-Americans (people in certain zip codes) historically have more volatility in their income due to being subject to relationship fluctuations, employment terminations and longer bouts of unemployment between jobs.   Which are partially caused by African-Americans reluctance to go above and beyond to do more than “just enough”, play the political game, or better yet start their own enterprise and hire their own people all while being competitive.

The industries that African-Americans dominate are ones that are driven by emotion and passion, such as the arts. Even within our successes, we find a way to assist in our self-oppression by perpetuating and glorifying the negative.  Yet in the industries that require less emotion and more focused intellect and politics such as Math, science and sales, African-Americans don’t fare as well.

Institutional racism no longer exists because African-Americans have failed to build their own institutions. No one needs to hold a man down that is unwilling to stand up.  What do you think?