A Solution For Socio-Economic Impotence

By H. Jerome Williams, II

Urban communities in American are being destroyed. Poverty, ignorance induced-mental atrophy, crime and violence has penetrated, permeated, and obliterated what were once culturally enriching and economically viable areas. The reasons for this deterioration are many-fold. Economically, urban areas lack the commercial infrastructure to support economic growth and vitality. In nearly all urban communities, commerce beyond food, guns, alcoholic beverages, illicit drugs, hair care, and entertainment is virtually non-existent. Financial institutions in most urban areas are limited to check cashing facilities, tax return storefronts, and high interest charging pay-day lending "institutions."

Educational opportunities are limited at best. In most urban areas, less than fifty-percent of the majority population of African Americans and Hispanics are homeowners. Additionally property tax values in urban areas are ten to thirty percent less than property tax values in the suburbs for comparable housing. This disparity contributes to the lack of adequate funding (tax dollars) for schools in urban areas, which directly affects the quality of education in urban areas. Employment opportunities in urban areas are scarce as businesses have left/are leaving and relocating to the suburbs only to return when urban areas go through the process of gentrification.

Many African Americans from academia, religion, and politics have discussed and continue the discussion ad infinitum, of "what to do" about urban America. As they talk (and posture I might add), the problems in urban areas get worse. A few organizations and individuals have actually developed successful programs to combat the lack of education and economic opportunities in urban areas. Unfortunately funding issues hamper many of these programs and severely limits their scope of operation and outreach.

As our educators, clergy, and politicians continue to discuss, preach, have meetings, and attend seminars pontificating about the problems that exist within our communities, African Americans continue to die, continue to be incarcerated, continue to be abused, continue to be under-educated, and continue to live in poverty stricken and systemically violently communities. If hot air was a commodity, our so called black leaders would be some of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Unfortunately for our communities, hot air is less effective and worth less than cheap air freshener in a greyhound bus station bathroom.

What we need is less talking and more action focused upon eliminating the causes and effects of poverty. This can be accomplished through cooperation and collaboration among groups and individuals from academia and business at the community level. One needn't look no further than the web to see the effectiveness of a group engaging in actions that are focused in solving issues to reach a common goal. The world wide web is an excellent example and a direct result of (mostly) voluntary based cooperation amongst large groups of people. Common Based Peer Production is a term used to define this type of cooperation. In the PDF formatted book "Common Based Peer Production and Virtue" written by Yochai Benkler and Helen Nessenbaum, "the hallmark of this socio-technical system is the collaboration among large groups of individuals...who cooperate effectively to provide information, knowledge or cultural goods without relying on either market pricing or managerial hierarchies to coordinate their common enterprise."

Paraphrasing Mr. Benkler and Ms. Nessenbaum, the hallmark of addressing the socio-economic and socio-technical disparities (if you will) found within our urban communities will be the collaboration among groups of African American educators, technophiles, entrepreneurs, and clergy, and motivating them to cooperate effectively to provide information, knowledge, funding, and goods and services to our communities without relying upon traditionally ineffective black leadership and group think hierarchies to coordinate their common enterprise.In other words, we must disengage ourselves from that which has proven to be ineffective and embrace a system of cooperation and collaboration that relies upon the unfettered dissemination of knowledge, goods and services.

We cannot continue to support the so called black leaders and organizations that are ineffective in addressing and fomenting solutions to eliminate poverty within our urban communities. They've had forty years to "talk" about solutions. African Americans communities need tangible solutions now! Quite frankly, I'm tired of watching the impotence exhibited of our so called black leadership. We have the resources, financial and otherwise to bring change to our communities and it is time we put those resources to work for the betterment of our communities.