Dr. Rick Wallace

Presents

The Blueprint for Black Community Empowerment 2.0

 

Over the past 30 years, I have devoted a significant amount of my energy and resources to developing a lucid perspicacity of the plight of African Americans. While I have always been intrigued about the plight of my people, it was a beautiful black woman by the name of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing who set me off on my search for clarification about who I was, both physically and intellectually. I saw Dr. Welsing for the first time in 1985 on the Phil Donahue Show. What she boldly stated on this show would challenge the paradigms that guided the way that I approached life. Through Dr. Welsing, I would discover Neely Fuller Jr., and from there, Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannon, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Amos Wilson, Dr. Na’im Akbar, and a number of other black intellectuals, both formal and organic.

I was introduced to a narrative that I had never read or heard before. I was exposed to the possibility of greatness — a greatness that is directly linked to my heritage as an African descendant. But, as much as all of this information gave me in the way of identity and hope, it still left me with some unanswered questions. There was still far too much ambiguity surrounding the current state of Black America. With a “people” having such a rich history, how had we ended up at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder?

I was determined to discover the answer, and one of the elements that was consistently present at every new discovery was perpetual poverty. The black race had been economically castrated, and it was obvious that it was the result of a systematic effort on behalf of someone or something. During my search to understand the economic impotence of the black race, I came across one of the most brilliant minds of this era, Dr. Claud Anderson, and his book, Black Labor, White Wealth, which explained how whites had used the free and discounted labor of blacks to amass exorbitant amounts of wealth while leaving blacks with an accumulated wealth that represented less than one-half of one percent of this nation’s aggregated wealth — which meant that the black race had not advanced its position in the social structure in more than 130 years (at the time of reading the book, it has now been over 150 years). Was this lack of progression due to blacks lacking intellect, being lazy, etc., or was there something far more pernicious at work?

But, economic castration was not the only issue that blacks were facing.

I have written a number of books on a number of different issues that plague the black community, including The Invisible Father: Reversing the Curse of a Fatherless Generation (Plus the sequel, The Invisible Father: Legacy, When Your House is Not a Home, The Mis-education of Black Youth in America: The Final Move on the Grand Chessboard, and Born in Captivity: Psychopathology As A Legacy of Slavery. And while it seemed that the issues were being addressed, it appeared that I was only scratching the surface. I had to dig deeper. I decided to use the quest for my second doctorate to examine the black reality from a psychosocial perspective. In my dissertation, entitled, The Influence of Cognitive Distortions on the Social Mobility and Mental Health of African Americans, I took the time to look at each element of suppression, dysfunction, and impotence to determine how our subconscious thoughts impacted our responses and behaviors, the development of paradigms and our mental health. During the process of researching for this dissertation, I was able to dissect White Supremacy Racism to understand its vulnerabilities — developing comprehensive strategies that have already been proven on some level. What the Black Empowerment Blueprint represents is an open-ended solution that can be implemented immediately and corrected progressively. The expanse of this enigma that we find ourselves in, our contributions to it, and the complex nature of the external influences moving against us create the need to be flexible and responsive enough to make adjustments on the fly, but what we have now is more than enough to get us on our way.

I do not claim to be the mastermind of all of these strategies. The truth is that many of them have been out there for years, but we have failed to adopt them and implement them. Some simply needed the dust knocked off to be ready, while others needed to be tweaked to consider all of the forces at play. The role that I have played is bringing all of these ideas to one place, anatomizing the intricacies of these strategies, and refining them to address certain complex components that I believe may have been missed or ignored. There are great minds out there who have the ability to add to this, and I hope that they will come forth. My heart is 100 percent committed to this, but my ego has been checked at the door.

I am currently working to put this comprehensive strategy into an easy-to-understand distributable format that organizations, activists, teachers, pastors, parents, psychologists, and doctors can use.

Following is the basic outline of what you can expect from this blueprint. Keep in mind that we are battling a number of demons that will make the work ahead intense and sometimes frustrating, but we have all that it takes to emerge victoriously.

The Blueprint

 Economic Empowerment

• Understand and implement Dr. Claud Anderson’s economic blueprint set forth in his book, PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America, building the edifice of power. I also integrated Garveyism into the equation because Marcus Garvey was the most successful at actually building a collective, collaborative enterprise, which I will refer to here as a cooperative enterprise.
  • Build an economic power and a wealth base through the practice of group economics on a vertical scale.
    • This has to be done on a number of levels, including the use of the Black church as an institution of implementation. Currently, the Black church is the most solidified and complete infrastructure, having the capacity to teach and implement many of the strategies necessary to build economies. We must hold any church that rests within the boundaries of the Black community responsible for investing in that community. If churches do not invest in the community in which they reside, they will no longer be allowed to thrive.
    • Here is where Garveyism comes in. We must create a unified and cooperative enterprise entity through which the Black collective can take ownership. In other words, it will be constructed and operated like a public company, except the only ones allowed to have ownership are those within the black community. I propose that we use an unincorporated business trust as the model for this enterprise. You can research the benefits. It is also known as a Massachusetts Trust.
    • This cooperative enterprise will reflect our culture, interests, and the specific needs of the community. As revenue is generated, profits will be reinvested in the Black community in the areas of renovation (residential development), educational development, support of the poor, and business development.
    • The goal of this cooperative will be launching local businesses in black communities to provide for the needs and cultural interests of the Black community — including African history and cultural centers in every community. It will also be used to ensure that everything we need can be provided and sustained by us. This enterprise will work hand-in-hand with the re-centered church to implement all programs and strategies of empowerment in all areas, including rebuilding the black family, building and owning our own media outlets, developing alliances with external entities, holistic education of our youth, racial socialization of our Black males (a right of passage program) and more. I have designed and launched the Black Men Lead Rite of Passage program.
    • Another goal of this enterprise will be to function as the central catalyst for the development of an international Black economy that will underwrite the liberation and empowerment of the entire African diaspora.
  • Use the wealth that is created through group economics to Lobby for specific, efficacious agendas on the political front. It is not the vote that matters the most; it is the ability to lobby that allows any group to represent their interests and agendas. When we do vote, we must vote in blocks so that our vote carries weight in the political arena.
  • Use financial strength and national political influence to influence local politics, policing policies, and the justice system that is currently negatively impacting our communities through mass incarceration and the senseless slaughter of black men and women.
  • Invest in media acquisition and development so that we can control the message that is being disseminated to our people and those throughout the globe.
  • Build our own educational system to ensure that we have the capacity to effectively and holistically educate our youth.
• Develop a focused spending agenda that is conducive to our general agenda — abandoning our proclivity for materialism and consumerism.
• Reindustrialize the black communities in the top 10 largest cities in the nation where more than 70 percent of the African American population resides.
• Create our own financial institutions so that we can control where our banked money is invested. Currently, black churches, businesses, and residents earn or raise $500 million+ weekly — nationally — but then go in on Monday and deposit that money in white banks that subsequently deny loans to black residents and business owners. We must control how our money flows completely.
• Dominate all industries of enterprise in which we dominate spending (If we dominate spending, we must also dominate ownership.). This will call for the implementation of certain marketing and distribution strategies that will allow us to invest in business vertically, meaning retail, distribution, and manufacturing all facilitated from within the black enclave. This way, we protect ourselves from being priced out of the industry.
• Emphasize the importance of building enclaves that encapsulate and protect us from outside infiltration and influence.
• Investing in the ownership of real estate in vital areas, especially in areas in which there is a concentration of African Americans, in order to protect the community against gentrification and other forms of structured serial displacement
• Teaching black group economics — practiced on a vertical level
• Developing and training our youth on the importance of black ownership in the business world — setting up training programs to prepare blacks to own their own business, where they will hire and mentor their own people so that they will be able to do the same.
• Developing Financial Literacy programs for every age group. Teaching children and parents how to invest and own instead of spending on non-asset items.
• Finally, while building businesses in the Black community is important, we must also develop products and services that appeal to non-Blacks. When the products and services are of the highest quality, they will spend with us. This is how we extract money from their economy, never to return it. This is what has been done to us for more than 50 years, and it is time to return the favor.

The Restoration of the Black Family[1]

• Redefining the Nuclear Family
  • In defining the black family, we must be sure to set boundaries on what type of behavior threatens the family — dealing with issues such as sexual promiscuity, which can completely undermine the entire social structure of the family and the community.
    • Another issue that we must address is the perils of having children out of wedlock. Not only does this behavior devastate the rebuilding of the black family, it will also economically castrate us as a people.
    • The fear of commitment and the failure to honor commitment in relationships must also be addressed.
    • Eliminate derogatory, abusive, and misogynistic language; it undermines the value of our people.
    • Negligent parenting has to be addressed intensively and extensively. Failure to adequately parent our children directly contributes to their failure.
    • The culture of ignorance has to be obliterated, and the mindset of intellectual empowerment must be embraced.
    • While emphasizing the importance of intra-racial marriage, we must also address our proclivity to participate in intra-racial discrimination. This is a practice and behavior that is rampant in our communities, and it is deeply embedded in the psyche of a large portion of our people.
• The attack against blacks has been executed on an institutional level, and we must have the capacity to respond on an institutional level, but it will be virtually impossible to accomplish on a grand scale without the black family as the anchor. The black family is a core institution through which values are developed and taught. It is where information is first disseminated. It is the foundation upon which the child’s self-image is developed, and their identity is affirmed. However, we know through a wealth of empirical data that when both parents are not in the home, the lack of balance creates problems for the child. One of the deadliest cancers in the black community is the broken home and children born out of wedlock. It is financially destructive, spiritually draining, and emotionally overwhelming.
• Because of our current situation in which we have men who have fathered children in multiple households, we will have to redefine the nuclear family, and we will have to establish specific guidelines on how a man is to perform his responsibilities when he has multiple children by multiple women. The children and the community must be considered first. This is an absolute requisite.
• We will need to work to prepare for the breach of trust between the black man and the black woman.
• We will need to clearly define the roles of the family and how they will be carried out.
• The Black Family must be successfully socialized into the community
  • This can only take place when we build communities that support black male unity and leadership. Black men must be able to hold one another accountable for being what our communities need.
  • Families must see the bigger picture of the community being greater than the individual and live accordingly. Blacks suffer from a strong dose of individualism, which leads to poor decisions that weaken the collective.
• Black children must be successfully racially and culturally socialized in order to ensure that they have the emotional and psychological stability to navigate the labyrinthine corridors of a social construct that is designed to identify and assault them on every level. They must be trained not only to survive but also to thrive.
  • Socialization is a term that is used in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, and education, and it refers to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, standards, customs, values, and ideologies that provide an individual with the skills and habits necessary to successfully acclimate and compete in the world that encapsulates them (Persell, 1990). Racial socialization is the second most prevalent influence, indicator, and predictor of African-American adolescent male violence next to the “Respect Factor.”
  • The “Respect Factor” is a component within the African-American culture that refers to the immense gravity placed on respect and the response of African-American males, especially those in adolescence, to the feeling or perception of being disrespected (Wallace, 2015; DeGruy, 2009). The feeling or perception of being disrespected is the most prevalent influence on African-American adolescent male violence in inner-city communities (DeGruy, 2009; Wallace, 2015; Stevenson, 1999)

Holistically Educate Our Youth

• Include certain sciences in the curriculum that are not currently included, such as:
• Reinforced identity
  • According to the Association of Black Psychology, television is the primary socializing mechanism of African-American Youth, not the parents or school teachers. Basically, we are allowing television to establish the identity of your youth. Proper and positive racial socialization is immensely vital to the empowerment of our race, and it begins at home at the moment of self-awareness.
• Stop placing so much gravity on college when so many of our youth are graduating in debt while being unable to find employment. Those who have a natural proclivity toward industrial skills, such as plumbing, electrical, carpentry, etc., should be formally trained in those areas. There are more jobs in those areas, and not enough skilled people to fill them, and these skills can also be parlayed into entrepreneurial endeavors.
• Confront Mass incarceration by reducing the dropout rate, which will become easier as we continue to build our own educational systems and abandon the public school system altogether.
  • Mass incarceration plays a significant role in the perpetual degeneration of our communities and family structures.
  • We must educate blacks on the pernicious mechanisms in place, such as the school-to-prison pipeline, deteriorating public schools, special education programs, the war on drugs, disproportionate sentencing and arrest, aggressive policing, and more.
  • Bring more black men into the educational experience as teachers on an academic level.
  • Erase incarceration’s social, political, and economic stigmas, especially those associated with non-violent drug offenses. White men don’t deal with these same stigmas in their enclave, at least not at the level of black men.
  • Developing Bold and Aggressive job programs that are funded and supported by black businesses, meaning that our men will not have to depend on the government or external enemies for support when they exit prison — reducing the recidivism rate.
• Teach them that it is okay to celebrate themselves and it is necessary for them to write their own story.
• Teach them about the importance of community and family
• Teach to the strength of our youth, allowing their natural gifts to be magnified and developed
• Work to develop a positive self-image in our youth from the point of self-awareness
• While structuring our economic system in a way that will autonomously fund our own school system, we must develop homeschool networks so that we can educate our own
• While our youth are still exposed to the public education system, we must work to cut the suspension rate, something that has an immense impact on the long-term success of the student.
  • This will call for more direct and active involvement by parents and community leaders, especially our men.
  • Our children must have the utmost confidence that we will be their most committed advocates — fighting for them and protecting their rights and their interests.
• We must work to close the achievement gap between our youth and non-black youth.
• Develop a mindset that education encompasses more than the attainment of academic skills; it represents the entire experience of attaining the skills and the knowledge necessary to successfully compete in a world that is hostile toward blacks.
  • Agricultural Science
  • Nutritional Science
  • Political Science
  • Financial Literacy
  • Family development and management
  • Social engagement and conflict management

Code of Conduct

• It is imperative that a lucid code of conduct is developed. At present, we have no black communities. We have a bunch of black neighborhoods, but on the basis of true community, we gave that up for integration. According to Dr. Claud Anderson, there are three things that are absolutely necessary to create a community. There must be an economic infrastructure in place that allows the community to function autonomously without the assistance of any outside entities.
• Code of Conduct
  • No black person is to commit a crime of any kind against another black person. Although criminality is not condoned in any form, a special emphasis must be placed on criminal acts perpetrated against our own.
  • No black person is to behave disrespectfully towards another black in any way. Respect for other blacks must be held in the highest regard.
  • Support black-owned businesses with a history of pouring into the black community whenever possible. Not every business that is owned by a black is for the black cause.
  • Every black person must find an organization that is active in the black struggle and offer their support financially and through direct involvement.
  • All black fathers must be actively involved in the lives of their children to the greatest extent possible. This will definitely be a work in progress. With many factors involved, the actions of the fathers will initially be relative. For instance, it is impossible for a father who lives in another city to spend the same amount of contact time with their progeny; however, they are still required to maintain involvement through phone calls, letters, text messages, etc. Financial support must also be provided to the extent possible. (Also see The Black Man’s Creed below.)
  • All black mothers must refrain from using the child support system as a leverage mechanism to control and break their exes. It is imperative for the black community to resume the reigns of its social structure, including the family nucleus. We must seize power from entities that promote the destruction of the black nuclear family. This means fathers and mothers find a way to work together for the best interest of the child.
  • Family first, above all else.
  • Each one teaches one. We must develop a mindset that encourages blacks to reach back and pull someone else up as they progress.
  • We must fight to assume the roles of educators for our youth. It is time out to demand that the public school system provide an effective education for our children. This is, and has always been our responsibility!
  • Never insult another black because they fail to share the same views as you. Each person is on their individual journey of consciousness, and this means that each of us is at different stages. Respect the journey of others and offer your assistance and knowledge through love whenever possible.
  • Increase the focus on history and heritage — meaning that reading and research must become a requirement. Every black adult is required to read at least four afro-centric books per year — one per quarter. Every child over the age of eight is required to read at least three afro-centric books per year — one each school semester and one during the summer.
• Political influence, which takes us back to economic empowerment
• Black Man’s Creed
• Reduce Violence in the Black Community
  • Address the pathology of violence
  • Use positive racial socialization
  • Work to reduce victimization of youth, which has been proven to increase the proclivity towards violence while lessening exposure to violence.
  • Work to minimize the daily urban hassle rate in inner-city communities.
  • Make use of both the racial socialization scale and the African American Respect Scale to better predict youth who are more inclined to perpetrate violence. These tools have been well-tested and validated but are grossly underused.

Mental Health

• We must address the multitudinous issues that are the result of generational trauma passed down from slavery. This is the elephant in the room that most don’t want to talk about, and others want to pretend it doesn’t exist, but the evidence is undeniable. The truth is that so much of what we do and how we behave is directly associated with those distorted cognitions that are the result of trauma and external influence. How we view property, work, relationships, and more are a direct result of erroneous thought processes that have manifested themselves in every area of our lives. When we master our thinking, we will inevitably master our problems.
• Self-hatred must be replaced with self-love.
• The inferiority complex must be abandoned for the sake of embracing our greatness in every area.
• There must be individual and collective healing.
• The unwillingness of African Americans to honestly assess and address the prevalence of both depression and bipolar disorder and its impact on the high level of dysfunctionality, suicide, and violence within the collective has to be holistically engaged.

Physical Health

• We lead the nation in heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and a number of other health conditions that shorten our lives and reduce the quality of our lives. We must develop healthier lifestyles that include improving our nutritional intake and increasing activity through fitness and sports programs.
• African American women are the fastest-growing population in HIV diagnosis, and we must make a conscious effort to reduce these numbers.
  • Some of the efforts set forth in other sections will help address this issue, such as reducing promiscuity in the black collective.
  • Also, increasing efforts to properly educate our people on these issues is necessary. It should be a required course at the high school level.

Emphasize knowledge of our history.

• Although this also falls under education, it must also be viewed under the responsibility of culture and socialization.
• Redefine the meaning of racial justice.
  • One of the ways that the civil rights movement stumbled is that it did not have a clearly defined understanding of racial justice, and it became consumed with social acceptance in the form of integration, which came with no economic power of opportunity.
  • We must be clear on what we are seeking and then develop strategies to allow us to go out and take it.

[1] Mastering the family dynamic is essential to mastering our environment. The dynamic is physical, emotional, and spiritual. It is my assertion that we, as a race of people, will only get as high as our women can lift us spiritually, and we will only get as far as our men lead us physically.

Over the past 35 years, Dr. Wallace has invested more than 75,000 hours of research into understanding the scientific implications of white supremacy and how they have directly impacted African Americans in all nine areas of human activity, which include economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war. He has spent a substantial amount of time attempting to answer the question of why blacks seem incapable of overcoming the barrier of racism despite the fact that the solution has been placed before them.

The preponderance of the evidence that Dr. Wallace has examined has provided him with a lucid perspicacity of the complex dynamic at play — a dynamic that includes psychological, sociological, economic, and political oppression that is executed through multitudinous pernicious machinations. He has used this information to develop what he calls The Black Community Empowerment Blueprint 1.0. This blueprint is a comprehensive strategy that addresses every area of concern for the black collective in great detail. Dr. Wallace has also disseminated his findings in a number of literary works, including his latest book, The Mis-education of Black Youth in America.

Currently, Dr. Wallace is moving into the second phase of his research, transitioning from inductive research to deductive research for the purpose of advancing and introducing certain scientific theories associated with the African-American experience. To this date, Dr. Wallace’s research has proven to be immensely valuable as he develops social programs to counter external influences, lectures to African Americans across the nation, and develops a comprehensive blueprint capable of facilitating the complete elevation and empowerment of African Americans, as well as the complete diaspora in time, but the cost of research can be quite exorbitant, especially when he is investing between 55-85 hours per week.

To this point, all funding has been covered by Dr. Wallace himself. He is currently seeking research funding, but due to the specific focus of his research, traditional channels, such as government, academic, and private grants, are not an option. While he currently has a couple of interested sponsors, both of them are non-blacks, which speaks volumes. While Dr. Wallace has committed to proceeding at all costs, the support of the community and the people he is fighting for will prove highly beneficial in multitudinous ways.

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