Wishful Thinking
or
Idealism Could Be The Death of Us
by Earl Dunovant
Copyright © 1995

There's no doubt that there's a vast amount of talent, intelligence, skill and good intent in the Black community. There's also no doubt there's a lot of pain, miseducation, anger and hurt in there. We have done everything possible to do, it seems…volunteers abound, programs proliferate, special studies, meetings, leaders come and go…Yet the troubles in our family seem as intractable as they ever were. There's the feeling outside the community that we are destined for destruction, and the fear inside the community that those on the outside are right.

Of course, we've been in worse situations. Historically speaking, we're pretty well off, even those who are in a self destructive mode. But we don't have the share of America, of life, that we've earned.

Normally people go down a list of problems and a list of possible solutions. They say "This is what we should do, this is what they should do," with all confidence that they actually understand the problem. The results of these efforts are proof that the problem has never been understood by most who would solve them. Oh, some have been brilliant; Du Bois' "dual soul" formulation encapsulates the start of the situation cleanly and eloquently. He, and others like Carter G. Woodson and Harold Cruse set forth the causes well. But there has always been confusion (yes, I think that's the proper word) about how to use that knowledge when your efforts are actively resisted…and worse, passively denied. I think we need to pause and look at, not what should be done, but what has been done…by us, with us, and to us. In my own investigations, I find that all that has been done was done based on hope, on idealism (even that which was done to us was done based on the hope/wish/belief that we actually are inferior).

We have idealized the life that white Americans live because they seem to have so much fun living it. We have idealized what it will be like when we can do everything they can, but have we thought out what happens when we not merely can, but do? We think we know, just like the person who claims winning Lotto won't change them, not a lick, thinks they know how suddenly coming into (for all practical purposes) unlimited wealth will affect them. But very few Lotto winners who declared they would continue working at their old job if they win Lotto actually do so. And in New York there are Lotto winners whose annual payments go directly to their creditors. These are people who assumed their newfound wealth was truly unlimited. These are people who, after living within their means for their whole life, didn't realize how the availability of all those material niceties would change them.

Think about that.

We are not African. We are African American, I have to recognize that. Yet there's still much of Africa in us. We had constant infusions of Africa as our ancestors were brought in decade after decade. Consider that Christian church that folks say is the white man's religion. We were given a god. We were given a bible. We were given an interpretation. But we were not given the way we worship. The song, the rhythm, the oratory, the passion, all came straight from the heart of Africa. We shared from necessity. We supported each other because there was no other way we could survive. Our culture became an extended family, we accepted each other for what we were forced to become.

Think of what we have always been. Think what happened to us when we tried to become what white America is. White America is now saying that the problems we've had accelerated when the civil rights legislation became law. This is true. They are also saying that the civil rights legislation is responsible for the acceleration. This may be indirectly true, because the law wasn't the only thing that changed. Our goals changed. Our goals were to get each other over and now our goal is to get over ourselves. Our methods also changed. Once our methods were to take care of our own. Now our methods are to take care of ourselves. And these changes were made possible by our beliefs about what integration and the civil rights legislation meant.

We changed, when we should have grown. This is the result of our efforts to become fully American. It worked, sort of. We became American in the same way that those Lotto paupers became rich. But unlike those Lotto paupers, we're not bound by law and contract to be what we are. We can reject the changes we made, we can make new changes. As long as we live we can grow…and if they haven't killed us yet, I don't think they can. But that may be idealism on my part.