The Dialectics of Our Black Shame
-Part Two-
copyrighted © 6/12/07
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Absence of Black Foundations:
-A Self-inflicted Wound-

The San Francisco Bay Area may not be a model of Black America or America generally, but in one aspect it is reflective of Black America. This area, which has a population of some 10 million, has over 500 philanthropic foundations with assets in excess of $50 billion, yet not one of those 500 foundations is Black. This reality is repeated throughout the Black community across this nation, in spite of the fact that Blacks have the vast financial capacity for foundation-building and sustaining. ⁽¹⁾

A philanthropic foundation is an institution established as a financial infrastructure for providing the financial and managerial wherewithal to nonprofit and charitable organizations or ventures that assist a community in sustaining aspects of a healthy life. These activities are not administered by governmental or business entities. 

In Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, etc., where there are these sectors of society established to function in the sphere of nonprofit, charitable ventures, these entities are called nongovernmental organizations (NGO's). They are the counterparts to US's philanthropic or nonprofit agencies. United States’ Internal Revenue Code authorizes and regulates these types of nonprofit organizations as well as other types of nonprofit organizations, generally called 501(c)(3) organizations. These agencies and nonprofit organizations constitute an integral part of vibrant and healthy communities.

Philanthropic foundations function in at least two distinct ways: 1.) They provide nongovernmental financial support and administrative guidance primarily to nonprofit agencies in communities that provide free or low-cost direct services to members of that community’s needy, weak, and less-able class needing such services but cannot afford them; 2.) They provide voice, guidance, and social leadership to and for a community, ensuring the health and social vibrancy of that community. They may also function in other ways as well, but these are the primary functions that philanthropic foundations embrace. And in so doing, they build a healthy community and are a part of the nonprofit sector of that community. In western democracies, the philanthropic community creates and/or supports a nonprofit sector that is vital to a community’s life, health, wholeness, self-esteem, wholesomeness, and tranquility; this is uniquely true in highly industrialized, educated communities.

Although Black America is part of the western democracy of North America, it has no philanthropic infrastructure of significance. ⁽²⁾  And that absence has meant the African American community’s growth has been impeded in a number of ways. ⁽³⁾ Whereas this infrastructure may not be of such gravity in the nonwestern economies and communities, from which African Americans came, it is an important aspect of community in western democracies, in which we now find ourselves situated. ⁽⁴⁾

Dr. Kenneth Clark, famed Black psychologist, once wrote that although the artist has a value to the community that may not be quantifiable, that artist’s value is nonetheless important, and the absence of artists in a community may be negatively seen and felt. ⁽⁵⁾ Unbeknownst to many, art functions as an introspective tool for a society and its people; that introspection facilitates a certain, albeit abstract, societal tranquility and community peace. Think about how often some music is used when our daily routines have been very hectic. Music, which is one form of art, often sooths the inner conflicts and exasperations we experience; it brings us back to ourselves, our mental equilibrium. And as it is true of the individual, it is also true of a community.

Nonprofit agencies function in a community in a sort of parallel manner. There are many aspects/elements that go into the development and growth of a healthy community,⁽⁶⁾ not all of them are addressed by governmental entities. In western civilizations, individuals are fostered, shaped, and given a proper or improper frame of reference in their communities. The community is where we socialize our children to properly interact with others, but when the community is weak and sick, our socialization is also diseased, and our children are not socialized properly.

          -Precarious Circumstances Dictate Prudent Behavior-

All people escaping oppression, rising from poverty, or ascending financially and socially develop institutions able to seek out their causes and concerns, support and promote their safety, health and well being so that their ascension will be sustained and not threatened and that they may excel beyond mere survival. A failure to do so works to that people's shame, for it demonstrates their imprudence, ignorance, and self-hatred. ⁽⁷⁾

Foundation-building has not been lost on the Jewish community, a people coming out of Nazi atrocities and recurring episodes of widespread anti-Semitism. With a smaller population than Blacks or Browns in America, they have almost created the concept of philanthropic infrastructure building throughout their communities. For their credo, "Never again!" is wise indeed, in the light of the uncertainty of their times and circumstances, and a clear-headed pragmatism of their history in an uncertain world. Yet their plight is no more hazardous or uncertain than that of Black Americans in America.

In 1997, I took an almost ceremonial position as President/CEO of the Bay Area Black United Fund, an organization having a history of 25 years prior to my arrival. That agency held itself out as an organization financially assisting Black organizations that served the needy of the Black community and Black people; it supposedly functioned as  a Black foundation. Yet after some 25 years, that agency had no endowment and an annual budget of only $250,000, which was acquired through yearly United Way Federation funding--hardly an agency that could help the Black community in any significant manner. ⁽⁸⁾

An examination of that agency revealed that it was not structured to actually assist the community in any meaningful way, even though it shrouded itself in an aura of Black goodness---its name and its supposed purpose was to serve Black people. Yet it was little more than a forum employed by its long-tenured Board members (middle to upper middle class doctors, lawyers, managers, and a few indicted elected officials at the time of my short stay) to host yearly $150.00 a plate Martin Luther King black-tie dinners and balls in the name of the community they did not serve. The 11 months I served as CEO, that Board of Directors, operating outside the standard protocols of Boards of Directors, individually spent $57,000 on one of their Martin Luther King black-tie shindigs, and only raised $23,000, if that amount. Yet they gave the Black community a total of $40,000 that year in grants.

Being in the milieu of foundations, the goal and name of my agency allowed me to meet a number of Black administrators in financially powerful foundations who were administratively well-placed; some presiding over vast sums that they could have easily and legitimately channeled into developing Black foundations. But this idea was never contemplated by them; most just enjoyed the view, and never gave any consideration to making it possible that other Blacks could also have that view--they were "different from other Blacks" ⁽⁹⁾ and they savored and bathed in that "difference. "

Philanthropic foundations are rich institutions that give away money as their business. In those rich institutions with staffs, usually those staffs eat the best food, drink the best wine, are able to buy the best cars, clothes, homes, and are afforded the best health insurance. This is rarified air they breathe that can and often does mesmerize and deceive them by its cushiony nature. This tier of the nonprofit sector is comparable to the super rich--money is a commodity in plenty supply.

The position of CEO also allowed me to contemplate securing millions; so I pursued a course of acquiring real money for the Black community. Oddly, that pursuit and near completion of that pursuit placed me in opposition with entrenched and overly tenured board members who had no intention of doing anything for the community. And as I hobnobbed with the nabobs who were quite willing to entertain my discussion of giving us some $60 million to administer to the Black community throughout California, that board became startled, and focused their attention on calculating my cut, a figure too high for them to tolerate.⁽¹⁰⁾ That board prevented me from pursuing that significant amount through a series of pretenses; an agency established supposedly for securing money to assist the Black community, yet their own vested interests were such that they would not allow the Black community to possibly access a substantial sum of money. Within that institution set up for Black philanthropy, the very forces that constitute that institution hindered it.

No white forces hindered this effort--they have historically done and continue to do their share--but not this time, other than through those who unknowingly or knowingly were inculcated with the seeds of an almost masochistic hatred of Black independence and growth. This is what some Blacks have done and will do to Black people--and this behavior may be seen in our intelligentsia or the average brother on the street.

Needless to say, an honest broker would move on to propagate the idea of Black foundation building outside that type of anomalous institution, using whatever resources available and knowledge acquired from that tragic experience. What was learned was that Black America needs to be educated thoroughly to the idea that foundation-building is necessary for the health and tranquility of a community; second, there are miscreants within the Black community masquerading as good men, while they do harm.

Outside of that agency, as I pressed the concept of Black foundation building I was dissuaded by Blacks who worked within well established, financially potent white foundations--most whites were simply indifferent to the need for Black foundations, and Blacks within those institutions, by and large, had been socialized to and accepted their perspective. The complacent and dissuading voices arose primarily from those Blacks breathing the foundations' rarified air and imbibing the You are different from other Blacks rhetoric posited for splitting and diffusing Black thought and cohesiveness.

Why would building Black foundations be a concept of community development so overlooked as vital to a healthy Black community, especially by those within an environment of foundations? Yet it has been grossly overlooked by a Black community that has the financial wherewithal to remedy this community development flaw! For those not a part of the foundation community, this oversight is imaginable, even though unacceptable. After all, giving away money is what foundations do, and because Black people generally work so hard for their money, the thought of giving it away to any other entity, other than the church, an individual, or to the government in taxes, is almost anathema. ⁽¹¹⁾

Yet it is the way of the world for any well developed, socially ascending people who have known immoral hostility and oppressive rage of others, especially when still in the midst of those others. For such an abused people the cost of their survival is prudence on all fronts. Developing foundations throughout the Black community is one of those most important fronts. ⁽¹²⁾ Hurricane Katrina demonstrated this to all Black Americans who are intelligent enough to see it. Clearly, as one young, thoughtful Black man said chillingly, "In New Orleans, the end of the world came, and they left us!" Without a doubt, they will leave us again and again.

Anyone who depends upon another to save him from disaster when he has the means to save himself is a fool. And although Black America is too educated, too intelligent, too historically strong, and too wise to allow themselves to be dependant on another and play the part of a fool with their lives and the lives of their children, they have, nevertheless, flagrantly overlooked this flaw in social and communal development. While the village concept we frequently mouth as an African people has been left behind by us, others have picked it up. ⁽¹³⁾

                   -Who Black People Are: Some Statistics-

Before there was this nation, Blacks were in this land, cultivating this land, dying for this land and in this land. If there is any claim to this land based on labor, heroism, bravery, and sacrifice, Black Americans possess it. The first to die for this country, the hardest workers of this land, we are the salt and essence of this nation. Blacks' history and contribution to this land, and indeed, before this land, is more glorious than US American History books depict. But that failure to tell the honest Black story is an indication of America's shame.

Today’s census count indicates Black Americans comprise just at or slightly over 40 million in the continental USA; they own over two million businesses and have a yearly Gross National Product (GNP) of some $800 billion and growing. Depending on the definition of poverty used, Blacks have a 23-27% poverty rate, which indicates that 73-77% of Blacks are not in poverty; they live predominantly in the southern parts of this nation as doctors, lawyers, judges, administrators, business owners, politicians, governors, mayors, teachers, and all that America is.

At any time there are approximately 1.5 million young people ages 17-29 in colleges and universities across this nation, whether in the 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities or other schools throughout this nation. Of the 2.2 million Americans incarcerated or under court or probation authority, almost half of those are young Black and Brown males--this too may speak more to the systemic problems of American institutions and systems than to the problematic behavior of Blacks and Brown people.

In the light of this circumstance, with its vast setbacks, Black America has not seen the need or developed the political will to author institutional foundations throughout its communities as a part of its social, cultural, and economic fabric. This is unfortunate because there are needs that only a community that cares for itself, plans for itself, willing to defend itself, and loves itself will address. Whatever the roots of this failure are, the failure to build institutional philanthropic foundations in our community stands as an embarrassment and a grave harm we continually inflict on ourselves.

There is no a dialectical disposition that can be honestly posited to justify this oversight that could be remedied with the proper community and political will to do so. As it stands, this failure is a community deficit to our own collective Black shame!

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1.)  There are celebrity foundations, but those are not the institutional foundations that are based in the community and sustained by the community; such foundations foster community pride and support.

2.) A significant foundation functioning as it should have endowments of at least $100-200 million. The Black community has, when comprehending an $800 billion Black GNP, the financial assets to plant and grow significant community foundations throughout the nation. Surely the terrors of America should have moved Black America to build defenses against the recurring vicious episodes of terror directed at them.

3.)  Community Foundations are agencies that are developed, funded, and sustained by a specific community. The focus of that foundation is the community of its domicile. It considers the health of the community, the needs and desires of that community; it also raises issues of concern for that community and provides the funds to correct needs, facilitate the health and tranquility of the community.  

4.)  Because there are no foundations functioning in most Black communities, many of them are troubled by youths without proper outlets for their young energies and they define correct youthful recreation in abnormal ways. Healthy communities with community foundations that identify problems of their domicile identify and facilitate their needs and generate activities that creatively dissipate the ragging energies of youths, as well as accommodate the needs of their more mature citizens.

5.)    I paraphrased his comment, and my paraphrase is honest.

6.)    It is often said by Black Americans that “It takes an entire village to raise a child.” Whereas that is true, the statement, however, supposes that the village is a healthy village that will raise healthy children. It is hard to bring a healthy child out of an unhealthy home and community because an unhealthy milieu creates and exhibits unhealthy principles for children to emulate. All children (and adults) learn through imitation and emulation—they see and they do, which is the first method of learning.

7.)    We all learned years ago from Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that human beings concern themselves with food, shelter, safety; after that they ascend to love and self-actualization. If a people struggle just to attain the basics of these needs, self-actualization can never be realized and the full creativity and potential of our people cannot be realized .We are then stifled and never can be all that we are able to be.

8.)    While serving as CEO, I received calls for sums of $80-$350,000 needed to save important agencies that were delivering valuable services to the community, but we were unable to help. Example: The Sobrante Park Consortium was an agency in the heart of East Oakland’s worst drug-ridden area. This agency had worked out a deal with drug dealers that a particular public park, which the drug dealers and users had overrun, to allow that park to be free of drugs and used by the children of that community. This agency was able to broker that deal when the Oakland Police Department was helpless. This valuable agency needed $60,000 to keep functioning.  Of course, the financially impotent agency I came to had no money to address this emergency. Another such example was the Women’s Transitional Shelter needed $200,000 to continue, and that agency was again impotent to assist. Both of these agencies no longer exist; the Sobrante Park is now fenced off so neither the drug dealers nor the children can use it.

9.)    This is often an expression naïve whites offer to Blacks in some attempt to assimilate them into their culture and cause them to abandon their own Black culture. Any number of Blacks accept that attempt to split them from other Blacks, as if what that person is being offered is something better or as if Blackness is somehow bad.

10.)  In order to hire me on at a low salary ($52,000) they drafted a contract that said I would be given a certain percentage of all money raised over a certain threshold. When the clear possibility of that threshold being greatly exceeded, this Board worried that my salary would be beyond that they had imagined. To prevent that eventuality, they were quite willing to (and did) forgo the community getting the $60 million.

11.) Black Americans give 95% of their philanthropic giving to the church. That amount is an enormous sum that can only be guessed at: The average two-salary family that makes approximately $6000 per month gives to the church at least 10% of that amount monthly. That 10% totals $7,120 yearly; this amount is typically the tithe and does not include the offerings. Suppose a church has a congregation of 200 families at this salary rate; a small church of this size would generate a sum of $1.5 million yearly from the tithes alone. Most Blacks attend church and give their money to the church both tithes and offerings.

12.) Not only was Katrina an indictment against America for its continued brutality and injustice against Black people (some say their attempt at genocide) but it was an indictment against Black people for their failure to plan and prepare for these types of disasters. Were we with significant Black foundations, Black America could have pooled the significant resources of these foundations and quickly gotten $50-100 million in the area to rescue Black people, even while President Bush flew over and did nothing. Even now Katrina is the most potent argument for Black foundation-building. What was done by this government will be done again to Black people! But we should say, even as our Jewish brothers say, “Never again!” and of that $800 billion spent yearly on goods and services, we should prepare ourselves.

13.) We have mouthed this expression, but often we seem to have left it behind us as we travel a road to and through the moment of nowhere because it does not plan for our children’s future. We have become so American that we are always in the moment of fun. And that moment of fun has stunned our development. But there is another expression that we need to heed since we have gone away from the village expression. That expression is “Sankofa!” My understanding of this African word’s translation is this: “Go back and fetch that which was left behind.” The word is a term, an expression that is quite apropos for those who have forgotten that “it takes an entire village to raise a child."

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      The Dialectics of Our Shame [Part One]  
A Lack of Political Will to Build Black Foundations [Part three--Final]

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