Black Civics
By BaBa Omowale Eng
BaBa Omowale Eng
Civics is social engagement in a way that serves the collective interest of those who comprise the social order. In the Black community, that means the development of those attitudes, values and beliefs which support the idea that our community has worth and value. It means that each of our worth as individuals contributes to the worth and value of each of us, as Black people.
It means that if you do your job to the fullest, to the absolute best of your ability, after you have developed your ability to the highest level possible then that contributes to the well-being of everybody else because that makes other people know that they have to be the best at their jobs as well.
Just think of that. If everybody who had a job in our community were really inspired to work as hard as they could at being the best that they could be in serving other Black people in our community. For example, a brother fixes your car and does a spectacular job on your car so that the word goes out that he provided a better service than any other provider in our area. Then a sister at the hospital treats you in a way that makes you feel really special and healed. Then a farmer at the farm grows the best and most beautiful fruits and vegetables imaginable. A teacher teaches our children as though they are her own and they excel and that experience is joyfully spread. A grocer or a butcher provides the best possible goods and services to you and you in return provide the best that you can do in whatever job you perform. Imagine that kind of world and community.
That is real civics based on the idea that when all of our needs and interest are served together then everyone in our community benefits and conversely when our interest are not served then that also effects everybody.
The reality of real civic begins when we begin to intentionally undo over four hundred years of miseducation that caused us to treat ourselves and each other as less than. Real civics is when we begin to recreate the kind of conditions in our community that show love of ourselves manifested in the best way we treat others who look like us. Real civics is Black people being intentional in our concern for each other’s well-being and advancement into the future. When we, Black people, intentionally, redevelop our social relationships with each other that form the foundation from which we know how to interact with the outside society that are specifically aimed at empowering our people, Black people, to take control of our own destiny, socially, economically, and politically.
That is Real Civics.
When we use the American political system t