If there is any good to come out of the results of Election 2024, it will be that Blackfolk have finally awakened to the only viable path forward for our well-being—self-determination.
CENTURIES-OLD DEBATE
Lord, have mercy, we’ve had this centuries-old debate about which route would best serve our collective needs. Should we fully commit to seeking entrance and acceptance into the larger U.S. society—a path some reduce to the term “integration”? Or, should we “go hard in the paint” building our own path, our own table, our own institutions—a route referred to as “nation building,” “self-reliance” and/or “self-determination”?
Some have labeled that second option as “separation.” But in this land, Black people have not been the instigators of separation, separation has been thrust upon us in every century and every corner of society. We didn’t erect those “White’s Only” signs above water fountains, restrooms, and entire communities. We didn’t make in law that cemeteries and hospitals had to be segregated. We didn’t make it illegal for healthcare workers to use “Black” blood to save white patients in need, and vice versa.
It hasn’t been our votes that okayed savage inequalities in educational resource allocation and the medical apartheid that still exists. It wasn’t us who fashioned the two-tiered justice system that over-polices, over-arrests, over-punishes, and over-incarcerates Blacks, while whites commit the same crimes at the same rates or higher.
WHICH WAY FREEDOM
That said, in-house, Blackfolk have been engaged in this discussion forever. It can be summarized as “Which way is freedom?” Though much more complex and nuanced than we’ve made it, we have symbolized this debate as Malcolm vs. Martin, Booker T. vs. Garvey, WEB vs Garvey, and the NAACP vs the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.
But the conversation goes back even further. In fact, we can see both sides of the debate in one person: David Walker.
In 1828, Walker published a book that, at the time, could get you beaten, tortured, jailed, and/or killed if it was found in your possession. Today you can purchase it for a couple of bucks online. The book: “David Walker’s Appeal” (the actual title is nearly as long as this article).
In that book, Walker makes a four-pronged argument why enslaved and “freed” Blacks need to fight for their collective freedom “by any means necessary.” He advocated for self-determination—doing for self rather than standing around or kneeling, begging others for acceptance.
This was a radical shift from Walker’s previous position as an abolitionist. Abolitionists stood against the institution of slavery but believed the only way to tear it down was within the confines of the law. The only problem was, slavery WAS the law. Walker wrote about ending slavery and gave speeches on the topic from that abolitionist position. Then, he realized that going that route, we’d be begging others for acceptance for the next 400 years while they debated the merits of our position. God did not create us to be enslaved, so we need to stop acting like it and take what is ours—the freedom God birthed in all human beings.
That’s the untold story of how slavery came to an end—it was spurred on by the ongoing, never-ending revolts of enslaved Blacks who weren’t waiting around for acceptance into a slave society.
WE’VE NEVER FULLY TRIED SELF-DETERMINATION
Black people calling for change may want to change their strategy to one of self-determination. Credit: Getty.
But since then, every generation has faced the question of how we, as Black people, improve our lot. And every time, most of us chose to fight for entrance into U.S. society over building our own.
The only times we “chose” to build our own (Rosewood, Seneca Village, the multiple Black Wall Streets, etc.) were when we were kept out of the “larger society” by the force of law and white violence. Ironically, whites hated when we tried to gain entrance to “their” institutions, and they hated even more when we built our own.
But each time we had this internal debate about “which way freedom,” we invested the lion’s share of our time, effort, ingenuity and dollars into accessing our piece of the American pie. And why not? We Blackfolk have time and again shown ourselves to believe in the Constitution, Bill of Rights and rhetoric of American democracy far more than whites. They, however, have shown just as consistently their belief that they are the only “real” Americans.
LESSONS FROM ELECTION 2024
This last presidential election was a tripling down on that position by white America and her white-identifying, off-white allies.
One Black theologian, Bishop D. Kimathi Nelson, recently described Donald Trump’s 2024 election as the official end to America’s second Reconstruction. He argued that the first reconstruction (immediately after slavery) was a period of expanding rights for Black people—a happening that went on from 1865 to 1877. He further suggested that the second reconstruction, which started in 1965 and ended in 2024, was another such period of expanding opportunities and possibilities of Black people.
However, as with the end of the first Reconstruction, which brought a halt to Black progress, a rollback of rights and an exponential rise in violence against Blacks, this second Reconstruction’s end will be just as jarring.
It is clear that Blackfolk were never really considered members of the “We” in “We the People.” However, because we thought we were, for all those many decades, we invested heavily in shoring up our positions in a society that never fully embraced us. Now that society is openly rejecting us, many are feeling shocked, hurt, angry, confused, and grief-stricken.
With promises to keep Blacks out of positions of real power and influence, the only viable approach to forward movement is via giving self-determination a try. Self-determination involves a hard, dangerous, challenging collective effort to build the institutional network needed for people to feed, clothe, house, educate and employ themselves. Though such a reality may seem daunting, it stands to have more of a chance of succeeding than Black people collectively begging to be included in a MAGA universe that literally voted to keep us out.
Plus, for 400 years, we’ve chosen the other route to mixed results at best. Why not give self-determination a try?
