“The Black Community.” I’ve been hearing and using that phrase since I was a young buck, but recently, I’ve been seeing things that make me question whether there even is such a thing. Now, in order to really look at the terminology, we hafta make do a little mathematics and make sure we’re using like terms. So when I say “community,” I mean ‘a group of people who is working collectively towards a goal.’ Now, bearing that in mind let me return to my assertion. I don’t know that there is such a thing as a Black community. I think that in certain times and places, there has been, but I think that’s a function of the confluence of time and space. Bearing that in mind, I’ll say this: while I don’t think there is a Black community writ large, I think there are several Black communities, plural at the macro scale. Let’s break it down.
Now really, under the definition of community that I’m working under, some elements of the Black community wouldn’t really qualify as a community. That is, there is no organized goal for which they are reaching. So think of the thug dudes around your way (or if there aren’t any around your way, think of the ones around my way; I could loan you some if you need them): in one sense, you could make the argument that they are working towards the goal of community entropy. However, they are not consciously working towards that goal. Entropy is just the cumulative effect of their individual activities. Now, if you wanna break it down further, you could say that certain groups of people (read: gangs) act as communities, but those communities are not based on Blackness per se.
Now a couple weeks ago, Cobb broke down the points of contention within “the Black community.” I think those lines of demarcation could actually act as points of differentiation between the Black communities plural. For instance, I might say there’s an education-as-a-means-of-elevation community, and then there’s the poor-as-untouchable-victims-of-…everything community, which I would say isn’t even actually the people themselves, it’s the academics who advocate “for” them. One limitation of my definition is that it doesn’t really allow for any sense of spontaneous generation, which is really how community works. I would say that most communities don’t really operate under a charter or any formalized, agreed-upon goals, they just kinda work in a way that leads them towards those goals. Or at least, such is the case for vernacular community, but if there is such a thing as a Black community it would have to be vernacular.
One limitation of my definition is that it doesn’t really allow for any sense of spontaneous generation, which is really how community works. I would say that most communities don’t really operate under a charter or any formalized, agreed-upon goals, they just kinda work in a way that leads them towards those goals. Or at least, such is the case for vernacular community, but if there is such a thing as a Black community it would have to be vernacular.
All that is just to say that I think a big part of the hand-wrangling over what the Black middle class is supposed to do is because of the presupposition that there is a debt to those on the lower quintiles of the socioeconomic scale for the sake of “the community.” If there is no “the community” however, or if, more accurately, “the community” you’re in is the one you’re already a part of, how does this change the dynamics of how we handle our problems? Or maybe even more fundamentally, it raises the question of who is actually ‘our?’
For me personally, even though I can break it down at a linguistic level, and to a certain extent logically, I’m still not sure if I can behave according to what I understand. That is, even though I could look at some people actin’ ignorant (in whatever way) and say that they don’t represent me or reflect on me, there’s still a level at which I don’t completely believe that. To quote my man, Duval Clear:
As I walk through the valley of one eighty-seven land
No matter what state, what city, what town
I can see there’s no place to run, no place to hide
I could be in the crosshairs of somebody, somewhere
I wanna ask why…
But I ain’t got time for that
I gotta keep movin on
Or be the next one to die
I walk through the valley of no-man’s land
Sayin peace, slappin fives and holdin up those two fingers
To the many nine millimeter automatic pistol toting young men
that roam everywhere
I wonder what will be the next small incident
That will cause one of them to pull out
And spray bullets recklessly in every direction
Will my grandmother be on her way to the store
For a loaf of bread and a TV Guide at that very moment
As I walk through the valley at night
I’m thinkin, “I don’t know that brother walkin across the
street in the black hoodie, so he may be a threat to me”
He’s thinkin, “I don’t know that brother walkin across the
street in the blue hoodie, so he may be a threat to me”
What’s goin through out minds
as we reach down into our waistlines
And pull out the tools, the heaters, the scraps
the biscuits, the gats
the jammies, the grips with the clips
All placed there purposely by them
“Here niggaz, sixteen shooter made specially just for you”
What goes through our minds at that moment
when a brother’s at the other end of our barrel
About to catch a hot piece of steel
And take his last breath
What goes through our minds
What’s goin through our minds
As we walk through the valley
Even if we’re not in the same community specifically defined, many times we are in the same neighborhoods and face some of the same challenges, both internal and external. That might be a goal that we’re all ostensibly working towards, even if some of our methods are counterproductive.
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