Begging MAGA for acceptance does not look promising
If there is any good to come out of the results of Election 2024, it will be that Blackfolk have finally awakened to the only viable path forward for our well-being — self-determination.
Lord, have mercy, we’ve had this centuries-old debate about which route would best serve our collective needs. Should we fully commit to seeking entrance and acceptance into the larger U.S. society — a path some reduce to the term integration? Or should we “go hard in the paint” building our own path — a route referred to as nation building, self-reliance, and/or self-determination?
Blackfolk have been engaged in this discussion forever. It can be summarized as “Which way is freedom?” But we can see both sides of the debate in one person: David Walker.
In 1828, Walker published a book that, at the time, could get you beaten, tortured, jailed, and/or killed if found in your possession. Today you can purchase it for a couple of bucks online. The book: “David Walker’s Appeal” (the actual title is nearly as long as this article).
Walker makes a four-pronged argument why enslaved and “freed” Blacks need to fight for their collective freedom “by any means necessary.” He advocated for self-determination.
This was a radical shift from Walker’s previous position as an abolitionist. Abolitionists stood against the institution of slavery but believed the only way to tear it down was within the confines of the law. The only problem: Slavery was the law.
Walker wrote about ending slavery and gave speeches on the topic from that abolitionist position. Then he realized we’d be begging others for acceptance for the next 400 years. God did not create us to be enslaved, so we need to stop acting like it and take what is ours — the freedom God birthed in all human beings.
That’s how slavery came to an end — spurred on by enslaved Blacks who weren’t waiting around for acceptance into a slave society. Every generation since has faced the question of how we improve our lot. And every time, most of us chose to fight for entrance into U.S. society over building our own. The only times we “chose” to build our own (Rosewood, Seneca Village, the multiple Black Wall Streets) were when we were kept out of the “larger society” by the force of law and white violence.
But each time we had this internal debate about which way freedom. We invested the lion’s share of our time, effort and dollars into accessing our piece of the American pie. We Blackfolk have time and again shown ourselves to believe in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and American democracy far more than whites. This last presidential election was a tripling down on that position.
One Black theologian, Bishop D. Kimathi Nelson, described Donald Trump’s 2024 win as the official end to America’s second Reconstruction. He argued that the first reconstruction immediately after slavery was a period of expanding rights for Black people. He further suggested that the second reconstruction, which started in 1965 and ended in 2024, was another era of possibilities for Black people.
As with the end of the first Reconstruction, which brought a halt to Black progress, a rollback of rights, and an exponential rise in violence against Blacks, this second Reconstruction’s end will be as jarring.
Blackfolk were never considered members of the “We” in “We the People.” However, because we thought we were, we invested heavily in shoring up our positions in a society that never fully embraced us. Now that society is openly rejecting us, many are feeling shocked, hurt, angry, confused and grief-stricken.
The only viable approach to forward movement is via giving self-determination a try. Self-determination involves a hard, dangerous, challenging collective effort to build the institutional network needed for people to feed, clothe, house, educate and employ themselves. Though such a reality may seem daunting, it stands more of a chance of succeeding than Black people collectively begging to be included in a MAGA universe.
For 400 years we’ve chosen the other route. Why not give self-determination a try?
Aswad Walker is an associate pastor for the Shrine of Black Madonna in Houston, an adjunct professor in the University of Houston Main Campus’ African American Studies Department, and the author of five books.