Anyone familiar with the Book of Luke (Chapter 12) will recall the passage about the young man who had accumulated so much “stuff” and decided to tear down his old barns and build bigger ones in which to store his “stuff.” In other words, he had great excess and was not the least bit interested in sharing it or using it to glorify God. The young man was so proud of what he thought was his own accomplishment – accumulating so much material wealth – that he never considered the temporary nature of earthly treasure, nor how he could use his treasure to help others.

Are Black folks in that same collective mindset today, accumulating more and more “stuff” and in danger of facing the reality of losing that “stuff” to someone else, as the parable says? Are we so engrossed with getting more and more and hording it, to the point of forgetting where it came from in the first place? Have we overlooked the fact that we are supposed to be good stewards over what we have? And finally, do we think we will live forever, surrounded by our “stuff”?

That particular verse says the young man, after saying he would simply build more barns, was called a “fool” by God; he was told he would die that night, and his great wealth and all of his “stuff” would go to someone else. It goes on to say that this is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.

No, this is not a sermon. I just want to point out the wherewithal among Black people, both financial and intellectual, and to suggest for the umpteenth time that we should use our resources in ways that will enhance our collective empowerment, especially among those less fortunate.

A feature in the National Black News Journal cited an article by Forbes Magazine that listed the wealthiest Black folks in America. The top ten individuals had a total wealth of more than $6.5 billion. Wow! I bet they have some huge barns.

Individual wealth among Black people, coupled with our collective annual income of around $900 billion, has already built thousands of big barns across this country. But, what has that tremendous amount of money built that will last well beyond our time? Has it and is it building a solid collective economic foundation? Is it building a strong infrastructure, which is necessary to sustain our children’s future well into the next century? Are we using our collective resources, big and small, abundant and meager, to uplift the “masses of our people,” as Jackie Robinson lamented?

During this time of economic crisis, especially among Black Americans, isn’t it ironic that we are suffering the most from this latest recession, but we are still in second place when it comes to group income. We are still the most educated Black people on the face of the earth, but we have yet to figure out how to carve out a piece of the U.S. economy for ourselves. We are the majority in several large cities but we are still calling ourselves “minorities” in those cities and settling for small percentages of the business and job opportunities therein.

We have a competitive advantage in several industries, in that we purchase the majority of various goods and services, yet we do not control their production and distribution. I guess we are too busy building bigger barns for all the “stuff” we buy from businesses other than our own.

Our children are suffering in an education system that has no interest in teaching them how to learn; and new prisons are being built everyday. We pray, sing, shout, and dance in church more than any other group; and we have the ornate edifices within which to do those things, but most of our church buildings are built by non-Black construction companies.

We are the most accommodating, forgiving, supportive, patriotic group of people in this country, and yet we do not love, trust, and respect ourselves enough to stand up and be counted, to use our billions of dollars to leverage better treatment from those who mistreat us everyday. What irony there is in our predicament.

I trust that someday we will get ourselves together, start to pool our individual resources, no matter how great or how small, and get busy doing the work of economic empowerment and taking more control over our children’s educational needs. I pray we will see that the solution to our paradoxical situation is not in building bigger barns for all of our “stuff,” but rather in building an economic foundation – a collective economic legacy that we can leave for our progeny.

See: www.jlnscs.org for more information.