Why the People Marched through River Oaks in Houston

 ‘Why march through River Oaks’ in Houston, Texas, they ask? Because the Trayvon Martin case has awakened something within justice loving people as Emmitt Till’s murder did some 58 years ago. Critics of the recent march in River Oaks say ‘they (River Oaks) didn’t have anything to do with the death of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman’s acquittal’ in Florida. Wrong, dead wrong! The same corrupt judicial system that acquitted George Zimmerman after he racially profiled and murdered Trayvon Martin in Florida operates in same manner in the City of Houston, Harris County, and the Southern District of Texas in the Federal court system of the United States. If it looks like a duck…well you know the rest.

Nothing written herein is meant to negate or denigrate the great civic, philanthropic, and humanitarian contributions of the River Oaks community to our city, state, nation, or world. Without their generous support of the arts, education, poverty eradication, disaster relief, and good governance, this city would be worst than it is. However, the good takes care of itself; together we must correct the wrong. No amount of charity absolves those who choose to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the injustices taking place in a system that protects and benefits River Oaks. Honestly, can anyone name a candidate for any federal, state, county, or at large city elective office of both major parties that doesn’t seek and receive some financial support from River Oaks?  Simply put, River Oaks funds many of our tormentors and upholds the institutions that mistreat us. How should we respond?

Not all, but too many, in River Oaks and other affluent communities in Houston have allowed themselves to fit the unfair stereotype of a sushi eating, Galleria shopping, Caramel Macchiato (hold the whip cream) drinking, jogging in the park, and walking the poodle down beautiful tree lined streets carefree people - while the police profile, beat, and kill us, the criminal courts railroads us, the civil courts rob us, and the family courts take our children unjustly. We imagine you enjoying life at the county club while your neighborhood captains of industry de-industrialized America sending our jobs overseas and your political operatives weakened our state and federal environmental laws thereby destroying the once pristine Texas environment. Bond referendums notwithstanding, state and county government has built more prisons and jails in Texas than neighborhood public schools with your permission. You have also “gamed” the tax system to escape paying a fairer share of taxes despite having the privilege of living in the most prosperous state and nation on earth. Is this fair?

 

River Oaks, why did you sit back and watch Wall Street gut our 401K’s, home equity, and pension funds while your wealth increased tenfold? Why have some of you sat silently while the American middle class was hollowed out as honest hardworking people toiled 40 or more hours a week without receiving a living wage, healthcare, and having to collect food stamps? Why when we have in Houston, Texas the greatest medical center in the world, do the poor have to sit at Ben-Taub for 5-6 hours to see a doctor? Why let the poor and working class people wait at 8,000 METRO bus stops without shelter in triple digit heat, cold, and rain while our transit agency’s “General Mobility Fund” is siphoned off by cities and the county for non transportation purposes and so that you can drive your fine automobiles? Is this neighborly?

Why is River Oaks seemly indifferent to the rising cost of higher education in Texas and the lack of jobs waiting for poor and blue collar children after getting a degree and accumulating a mountain of debt? Did you know that poor children with better grades than the less intelligent sons or daughters of River Oaks have less of a chance of finishing college and receiving a job? We thought Houston was a meritocracy? Why no outcry as the Voters Rights Act of 1965 is being gutted and voter suppression laws are passed without so much as an editorial or rally on your part? Your silence on these issues is deafening and borders on immorality. Should we remain silent just because you choose to?

Do you know why, despite the dire predictions of the socialist and revolutionary communist in the United States, this country has yet to devolve into apocalyptic class conflict? It’s because through both economic depression and recession there has been a tacit agreement between the rich and the poor that is as follows: If the rich will use their capital to create decent paying jobs, keep open the pathway to the middle class prosperity in the form of consumption with reasonable access to credit, then, the poor will allow the rich to collect large bonuses and live “the American Dream” without disturbing their peace. That’s the deal - and you who pull the strings, not government, broke it. Now, fix it!

The glue that held our society together is now seen as a mere illusion of inclusion, which is: if the poor worked hard, played by “the rules,” offered their sons and daughters to fight, bleed, and die in foreign wars to defend American “freedom,” and pursued a “good education,” then they too would be treated fairly by “the system” and have their bite at the apple of prosperity. This particular line of thought has been sold to two generations of Black people in America for the last 50 years. Although some have done well, the condition of the masses of Black people and the poor has gotten worse. This cannot be laid at the foot of River Oaks or anyone else. Our problem is disunity, distrust, allowing River Oaks and downtown to fund our politicians’ coffers, and our refusal to pool our own immense economic resources to create jobs and decent neighborhoods for ourselves. Do for self and stop blaming rich white people for that we can and must do for ourselves. This is our challenge, we must correct the wrong. Pharaoh has let us go; it’s time for us to let him go!

 

Now back to River Oaks! Hear us -we don’t want anybody to give us anything, just open up the door, we can get it ourselves. We are not marching in River Oaks and elsewhere for a new government program, a hand out, your sympathy, or out of envy over your prosperity. We are marching for JUSTICE and restoration of the tacit agreement between the rich and the poor with an added enforcement clause. That clause reads: “If there is no justice, there will be no peace or business as usual in the City of Houston.” This is not a threat-it’s a solemn oath. Oh, by the way, please stop wasting your time and money buying guns at gun shows, pressuring politicians, law enforcement, and so called “respectable” Black leaders in our community to do something about “those people.” There is nothing in the universe that can stop an idea whose time has come and a people backed by God who are determined to bring that idea into fruition. It would be like trying to stop a tsunami with a Dixie Cup.  It’s up to you River Oaks and Houston to join us as we seek life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness for ALL and justice for the Trayvon Martin’s of the Houston, Texas and the world.

Robert S. Muhammad is a Student Minister in Houston, Texas and serves as the Southwest Representative of the Nation of Islam. He is a radio talk show host, Urban Planner, and candidate for PhD in Urban Planning and Environmental Policy. He can be heard on KPFT 90.1 FM each Wednesdays at 3pm CST and followed on Twitter @dotsconnector

The New Stewards of the Earth (Part II)

Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

In the Holy Quran 3:190, Allah (God) revealed: “In the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day, there are surely signs for men of understanding.” The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Saviours’ Day 2013 keynote address ushered in a new phase in our present 25,000 year cycle of history. What the Minister brought forth in his talk to us and the world regarding Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint was on time and exactly what must be done. Do we grasp the magnitude of the duties and responsibilities the Minister and the Two that back him have put before us?

            Reflect on his words. “Now, it’s clear that their [wicked husbandmen’s] stewardship is what has led to the condition of the earth today, and it demands a new steward…if God gives us [the] kingdom, and makes us stewards over creation: what kind of stewards are we going to be?” Again, the Holy Qur’an 7:34 says: “And every nation has a term; so when its term comes, they cannot remain behind the least while, nor can they precede (it).”  We are witnessing the old world going out, as a new world is coming in, just as the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us.

Why has the old world been sentenced to death? Because the made-man’s arrogant approach to science in his mastery of nature is without reverence or respect for the Author of Nature. The present world rulers have set themselves up in “the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” as it is written in II Thessalonians 2:4. His anthropocentric (man centered) approach to development without regard for environmental impacts has created a socio-ecological system that is unsustainable and without resiliency. In other words, the current practices of mankind will end and they will be unable to bounce back from the catastrophic consequences of their misguided stewardship. Therefore, there must be new stewards placed on the earth. We have now been placed in the valley of decision. Will we accept this phase of the mission?

Student Regional Ministers Robert Muhammad and Abdul Sharrief Muhammad

In Proverbs 1:5-6 it is written: “A wise man will hear, and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels to understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their riddles.” Materialistic consumerism has replaced Christianity as the religion of the West and will soon replace Buddhism in the Far East. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said to us: “We must start teaching the babies, and begin to regenerate a culture of purposeful saving and investing.” It is imperative that we curb our media driven appetite for the latest gadget or consumable product. The Minister pointed out, “… there is no end to what we can do, if we start putting them nickels, pennies, [and] dollars together.” Therefore, our primary objectives are to control spending, while increasing saving and investing. The meaning of the Minister’s weekly series The Time and What Must Be Done is: we must change, adapt or perish! “Surely Allah never changes not the condition until they change their own condition” Holy Qur’an 13:11.

MGT of Muhammad Mosque No.45 Houston, Texas

Professor William Rees of the University of British Columbia states: “…mechanical assumptions must give way to dynamic analysis. The role of science shifts from facilitating the restructuring of nature to helping people adapt to natural variability.” He states further, “Understanding and coping with change is at the heart of resilience thinking.” In order for Black people to be resilient or bounce back from our terrible condition of poverty and want - change or adaptation is required.

Make Our Neighborhoods decent places to live

The first two of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s five ‘basic principles’ he outlined before giving us ‘the details’ of his Economic Blueprint were “Recognize the necessity for unity and group operation (activities) and Pool your resources, physically as well as financially.” This is what planning and management experts call an “inside-out” or “asset-capital based” approach. It focuses on looking at the glass half full rather than the glass half empty.

            Instead of focusing solely on our needs, problems, or deficiencies, we must now reorient our thinking to focus on our strengths, assets, and community capitals. In order to be successful, we must organize ourselves, associations, and institutions in our community to attract the resources we need to bring into existence what we desire. We must identify the human, social, cultural, economic, political, physical, and environmental capital-assets in our midst.  The Minister reminded us: “The enemy will never recognize us as an equal if we are in a begging position! We’re gonna have to get up and go to work, and do something for self!” It is as our Eternal Leader, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us: “Help self first, then others.” 

Fruit of Islam Muhammad Mosque No.45 Houston, Texas

Genesis 2:5 says: “And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth: and there was not a man to till the ground.” As it was in the beginning, our first order of business after organizing and pooling our resources is to acquire land for agriculture. The Minister made it crystal clear when he told us: “In order to build a nation, we had to give our people a vision of what it’s going to take. And we have to have land and there is no compromising this.” Today, we must now feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves.

          Are we the new stewards to replace the ‘wicked husbandmen’? We certainly can be if we follow Allah’s guidance coming through the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, organize, pool our resources, and implement Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint to end poverty and want.

Time to Decide What's in Our Own Best Interest

Black people have to decide what is in their own best interest. This is something we have to do for ourselves without outside influence or interference.

The miserable conditions that Black people live under in America and around the world would make a brass monkey cry. Our condition in the Western Hemisphere is the direct result of the world's greatest crime - the transatlantic slave trade.

Africans, Arabs, Europeans and Americans participated in the slave trade. Animist, Muslim, Christian and Jews have the blood of millions on their hands. The stolen labor of enslaved Africans in the so-called New World created untold wealth for Europe and made possible the Industrial Revolution that gave the West the technological advantage it enjoys today.

At the end of the day, any honest leader of Black people will have to lament over the terrible condition of our people. They will be forced to admit, it is not getting any better for the MASSES of Black people. Unless and until a decision is made to do that which is in the best interest of our people, nothing will change for the better. Nobody is going to do for us what we refuse to do for ourselves.

Now is the time to put all options on the table. Assimilation, integration, accommodation or separation, reparations, repatriation? Time is running out. Our people are suffering and dying. We can't afford to wait 40 more years for the answer. Black leaders have to decide whether they are truly Black leaders or the tools of others while wearing a black face. Decide now or we perish.

O-GOP Movement

Houston - Consider this: most eligible Blacks don't register; most who register don't vote; most who do vote, vote Democrat. What if those who are eligible, decided to register and vote in Republican primaries just to see if we can moderate or fire a shot across the bow of O-GOP (Our Grandparents Original Party)?

To my "Yellow Dog" Democrat friends: this is not a threat to your allegiance to the Democratic party. I know the Dems have done much for our people during the last half of the 20th century. However, they have also crippled our spirit of self determination with a Santa Claus like welfare state that is unsustainable and not in our best long term interest. There are issues we rarely discuss in our community like: master-slave relationship with party bosses, mental health, child molestation, abortion, separation, reparations, repatriation, and agriculture among other matters. Unless we are willing to put everything on the table for the liberation and salvation of our people; we who claim to be leaders will be nothing more than cowards. If what we have been doing over the last 40 years has been working so well, then why are Black people in such bad shape despite having our brother Obama in the White house?

You think you have a permanent friend in the Democratic party? Watch these Blue Dog Democrats vote like Republicans in the next Congress. Unless Black people take their destiny in their own hands and put everyone on notice that we have no permanent political friends and no permanent political enemies, just permanent interest - we will continue to be ignored by the Republicans and taken for granted by the Democrats. Politics IS NOT the panacea by which our people will be saved. But if we are going to play the political game, we might as well play to win. Mission Impossible? What are we afraid of? We don't have anything to lose but our chains.

I Am Not Going Away Quietly!

Houston - For those who are hiding in a cave or in a closet, I say: "Come out of hiding and start fighting back!" I am sick of these hand wringing Democrats and so-called Progressives whining about how the Tea Party and Republicans have taken over the government. So what!

Does anybody see that the Republicans have conned the Tea Party? Can anyone guess what will happen when the Tea Partiers find out what the rest of us knew about the Republican ruling elite? If they think Democrats are elitist, wait until they wake up and see who they have gotten in bed with.

In Texas, many are worried about the Texas legislature being two-thirds Republican, needing no Democratic votes to pass anything. "We can't stop them" is what I'm hearing. Well, they may go quietly into the night but as for me, I refuse to go to the lynching tree, gas chamber or reservation without putting up a hell of a struggle.

Man up Black folks! Man up Progressives! Grow a spine and stand up!

Disorganized Love and Organized Hate

Houston - In 1993, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said to me as we sat in a car at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas: "Brother, disorganized love can be overcome by organized hate." I never forgot his words and wise counsel.

Last night, November 2, 2010, those who openly advocated "taking back their nation" and conversely putting us back in our place, completed one step in that process. The victory of the Tea Party is reminiscent of 1877, when post emancipation Reconstruction ended and Jim Crow began.

The message from Tuesday's election is clear. Those who see the ascendancy of people of color as a threat have struck back like the sequel to Star Wars. Yes, the Empire has indeed struck back. The members of the Tea Party are NOT the majority; we are. How then were they able to win? The victory of the Tea Party is actually the result of our apathy and disorganization.

In the end, they stayed on message and organized themselves accordingly. The same economic conditions that existed in the post Civil war America exist today. The same social and political climate hovers over this country. We must not go hide in a closet and cry our eyes out. We must challenge these hardhearted demagogues on their turf.

It is time to organize a winning strategy. That requires a message that resonates with our people and an organizational effort to bring what we envision into existence. No matter how much we love, if we are disorganized we can be overcome by those who hate us. Let's get moving brothers and sisters. Time out for siting around waiting on a mystery God to bring us food, clothing and shelter. President Obama has his hands full. We must organize for our own self interest. If we don't nobody else will. Be prepared for the Return of the Jedi!