Tools for Growth in Our Afric Communities

TAN - Networks The Afro News Joy OH Joyeux !

The hope of building a better future occupies many individuals, families and even companies at the new year often starts with taking stock of the past.

Remember. Adapt. Change. Heal. Progress. Below, a possibility for our potential shared by TAN’s U.S.A. contributor, Frank T. Scruggs.

The Afro News respectfully introduces this piece and asks readers to consider its content across time, as well as across the waters. We continue to remember the incredible upheavals and to look forward to the rebuilding of Haiti as one of the key pieces in the matrix of both the Afric world and the global context.

 Tools for Growth in Our Black Communities

Frank T. Scruggs

Community can be a specific country, neighborhood, town or city but

for clarity, Black Community here means the psycho-cultural or spiritual collective of African people throughout world. The issues which should concern us are those of human rights and the effort to overcome and to grow beyond the devastating results of colonialism and effects of racism.

Our survival as African peoples depends on us remaining vigilant and astute in seeking to construct a continuously healthy community. One that offers security, strength and well-being from this moment and to far points in our future. We must ensure that our national leaders and international organizations are responsible for securing our human rights which include but are not limited to protection from genocide in whatever form or shape; protection in actuality rather than merely reported news or academic studies. Assuring a future for our children means freedom from modern enslavement and prostitution from those individuals and transnational crime organizations involved in human trafficking. Yes, many world communities of every hue are concerned with immigration and migration, food security and fresh water, economic security and cultural security. We know, as the world’s black community we now have the tools at hand to start securing the right to better lives and working through these concerns.

Our community is called on to continually better our ability to respond by obtaining the necessary education, job skills, training and other legitimate means to improve our own human capital. We are also well advised to come together as a community to practice the principle of Ujima, or collective work. This naturally evokes the responsibility to demonstrate that we need not fear being overtaken by corruption by adoption of Ujima guiding principles.

Maulana Karenga has stated that, “Ujima, as a principle and practice, also means that we accept the fact that we are collectively responsible for our failures and setbacks as well as our victories and achievements such a commitment implies and encourages a vigorous capacity for self-criticism and self-correction.” Another Afro centric value that needs to be mentioned here is Ujamaa, or cooperative economics. Ujamaa stresses sharing wealth and working to achieve a measure of wealth that is evenly distributed. When Karenga discussed the principle of Ujamaa, he said; “[Ujamaa] grows out of the fundamental communal concept that social wealth belongs to the masses of the people who created it and that no one should have an unequal amount that it gives him/her the capacity to impose to impose unequal, exploitive or oppressive relations on others.”

Looking ahead at a future in which African people will forever have a presence in the world effort necessitates being an active part of the equation within and outside of our own community. Sharing information with one another is a start.

Interested in further exploration? Looking at organizations such as the United Nations helps us to understand complex issues such as human rights issues at www.un.org . And www.humanrights.com issues of slavery and human trafficking can be researched and explored at www.interpol.int. The tools for growth begin with understanding our issues and then seeking education of individuals in all aspects important to building healthy communities. In this way the fruits of our efforts will always be felt collectively. Keep the conversation going and share your thoughts and comments with each other and me too…Contact me at frankt.scruggs@live.com