Ujamaa (oo-JAH-mah)
Cooperative Economics
"To build our own businesses, control the economics of our own community and share in all its work and wealth. The Fourth Principle, Ujamaa, is essentially a commitment to the practice of shared social wealth and the work necessary to achieve it."
I conceptualize Ujamaa as our pre-integration condition. Pre-Integration Black Americans supported our own; our own businesses, our own schools, our own banks, doctors, lawyers, insurance companies, communities and Families. We even had our own hotels, in the form of the Negro Motorist Green Book. We revered our teachers in our one room schools with hand me down and defaced books and honored them and their craft in our commitment to learn! We were thirsty and sought only our own approval and acceptance. Thriving Black communities were a reality and a goal, not an anomaly...
Post integration, we abandoned us. In our quest for "integration" and our rejection of "separate but equal" we got lost. We, even the best, most accomplished and most confident of us, got caught up in acceptance and approval of others, we became fixated on emulating other people's lives, other people's values...
Like unloved children we longed for acceptance from parents who had abused and rejected us, no matter our loyalty, no matter our forgiveness. We wanted so much to be in their presence, in their good graces, showered with their love, our loyalty reciprocated. We wanted to go to their schools, eat at their restaurants, shop in their stores, sleep in their hotels, live in their neighborhoods, so on and so on... So much so that we forgot about the brilliance of US...
We had already learned to shine in our own right. Despite inhumane and what might have been for others, insurmountable odds, we made a way out of no way, a meal out of oatmeal... We were, we are, survivors. Other folks knew it, know it, never forgot it. And in this capitalistic society, capitalize(d) on it.
Still they do not want us in their schools, neighborhoods, places of employment, etc. but they love our brilliance, our magic, our uniqueness and our dollars. They love that we are not committed to ourselves, our principles, our values, our survival and that no matter how they treat us, STILL we long for their acceptance, STILL we think their ice is colder, their grass is greener, STILL we continue to step over our folks selling the same product or service to bring them our hard earned dollar even when they don't respect us, don't hire us and take us and our dollar for granted...
Sadly, our lack of faith and failure to practice Ujamaa, the fourth principle of Kwanzaa is not unique to Blacks in America. I have seen the same mindset at play in the Motherland and throughout the Caribbean; that which others bring to the table is somehow better than that which we bring... Maya Angelou wrote that we have "Africanisms", traits and behavior common to all of African descent no matter the land we call home. While some of us are more aware and conscious than others, collectively we are not immune. Collectively we are vulnerable. Collectively we suffer...
Recently I read that perhaps we glorify those days of old as a means to soothe the reality that we actually lacked choice on where to live, where to work, where we were educated, etc... I request in 2018, that we PLEASE make a concerted and conscious effort to return to our "deluded" selves, that we return to glorifying those days of old, that we resume supporting OUR own and our collective selves not because we HAVE to but because we WANT to! I'm Just Hopin'...
Happy Kwanzaa Folks!
Ujamaa!!!
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