Ardain Isma
CSMS Magazine
This year’s Black History Month was commemorated nationwide as if it was a national funeral—for Black America that is. It’s been fifty years already since a single bullet struck down one of the most powerful speakers in American history. While we must acknowledge there have been some improvements in the lives of African-Americans, we must admit the core of MLK’s dream remains largely un-realized. Fifty years later, Blacks by proportion still lag their White counterparts in almost all aspects of society: Education, Economic prosperity, Sociopolitical advances… Institutional racism is undeniably the root cause of the ever-widening gap between Blacks and Whites.
They WALL levied against Blacks on the road to success is far stronger and steeper than the one built for white Americans. Today, if you’re black in America, to make it to the mainstream, it’s not just enough to be average. You must stand out in your field of study. You must be the one, the inevitable one, the one they can’t do without.
The justice system
There is no mercy for young men of color. Nearly one million African-Americans have been incarcerated, leaving children to be raised by single mothers or sometimes by a grandparent. This is a national tragedy.
Cornel West, one of the most influential African-American scholars, says the race issue renders Black’s misery invisible, for it camouflages the true reality and provides cover for reactionary wealthy black Americans to play the “Victim” card whenever they feel their dignity has been compromised.
W.E.B. Dubois on his speech in 1960 explains the fight for the American Negro is not just a struggle for desegregation, but also a fight for economic prosperity which can only happen through equal opportunities for all. This helps explain his opposition to Booker T Washington who had agreed to limit Blacks’ intellectualism in exchange for relative tolerance which, in essence, solidified the American Negro as a second-class citizen. Watch the video below.
Note: Ardain Isma is a novelist and editing manager at CSMS Magazine . He heads the Center for Strategic and Multicultural Studies. He also teaches Introduction to Research Studies at Embry Riddle University. To see his books, click here.
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