7 Layers of Division

from Greg Dragon from the Hall of the Black Dragon a site that I found through a chain of blogs (you can read the entire article here), this has been on the web for a while, and I wish I we had have seen it sooner, but here goes:

  1. Bourgie vs. Ghetto
  2. American vs. Immigrant
  3. Church vs. Cynics
  4. Racially Scarred vs. Racially Ambiguous
  5. Light vs. Dark
  6. Huey vs. Uncle Ruckus
  7. Men vs. Women

but I want to examine the ending paragraph:

So will black people ever “unify” and appear as together as our fellow minorities? I don’t think so and after seeing the 7 layers that we would have to overcome, you can understand why.

I think the author is perhaps being a bit defeatist. Anything that can be done, can be undone. Of those seven layers there are things that are not so much because of the “condition” of being black but also being black in a capitalist society that was built upon racism, not just intrinsic to the sons and daughers of slaves. Religion has its opponents everywhere, we live in a country where the rich hate the poor (which in itself could be a remnant of slavery) and men and women are always going to have differences because we are different.
But for one to believe that these divisions can be overcome is incorrect. The thing that allowed slaves to free themselves was the ability to read. Access to knowledge was the key, and this bit of knowledge has started a conversation on this site, and those that read this will hopefully look at themselves and recognize where they can improve and as each one looks inward to grow, the results will be felt outwardly. This will reach from themselves, to their family, to other people, to the community etc… remember it wasn’t that long ago when the Black community as a whole valued education, faith and hard work above and beyond everything else.

One thought on “7 Layers of Division

  1. Excellent insight into this post my fellow Scholar! You are correct, not too long ago as a community we were “on a roll”, but we have allowed ourselves to become both complacent and distracted by the things that should not matter to our communities, and it is because we are not doing research and taking advantage of the knowledge and opportunities available to us. We have a long way to go and though it may be an arduous journey it is not impossible. These 7 layers are deep and we have opened up the lines for some meaningful dialogue about how they affect our communities.

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