Background

I have been thinking about this blog for a very long time.

This is extremely bittersweet for me because, while I’m thankful for the lessons I’ve learned, I hate what I had to go through to learn them. Even when I experienced events that had an adverse or negative impact on my life, I sometimes fell back into bad habits, for short-term pleasure. That’s ok, we are human beings; however, I want to impart my knowledge to every person that comes across this blog.

Subject matter like this, is the reason why I blog.

Sociology is without a doubt, one of the most fascinating fields of study.  It was my minor in college and if I knew about it sooner (and if you could get a great job with that degree) would have most likely been my major.  In laymen’s terms, sociology is the study of development, structure, and functioning of human society and social problems.  The growing wealth divide in America, social experiments where it has been proven convicts of one race get hired more than degree holders in another racial group, were subjects that were compelling and captivating to me. The writings and theories from Charles Horton Cooley, Max Weber, and Mead resonated in my mind as much as rap lyrics from Lupe and Andre 3000.

(BARS)

I wanted a chance to leave my imprint on societal issues, before I left this earth. As long as I have reached one person, I did my job.

The Reconditioning of African-American Society

Let me start by saying, this is simply my theory on what it would take to get African-American society back on track.

I want to offer more to you, than just the casual one liners that you get from your parents: “Don’t get married until you fall in love”, “Make sure you strap up before you have ‘relations’”. Although these phrases are nice and easily repeatable, they don’t give a person the full grasp of life situations.

I love my people, but despise our actions in recent years that have placed our society where it is today.

I’d like to begin by pulling together some figures that depict the socio-economic standing of the African-American society.  I researched a myriad of articles that would detail the following:

• Median income of African-Americans
• Education levels and associated income
• Unemployment
• Non-Marital Births
• Single Parent Households
• Cost of Raising a Child

Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2013 median weekly earnings for full-time workers, African-American men and women earned $646 and $621 dollars a week respectively. Unemployment for African-American youth (ages 16-24) was at 26%. These statistics also show that African-American males earn the least in comparison to males of other races at every educational level, and Census data shows African-Americans among the lowest at education attainment.

Data from the Center for Control and Disease (CDC) and Prevention from their data on births in America, released information on births in 2010 that 73% of ‘non-marital’ births stemmed from African-Americans. In addition to that Census data the following year identified 67% of African-American children to be living in single parent homes.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a child born in 2013 until the age of 18 for a middle-class income family is approximately $245,340 (or $304,480 considering inflation). With “middle-class” income defined as being thirds to double the median household income in the U.S. (range of $42,000-$126,000).

By now you can hopefully see the picture that I am trying to paint for you, but in case it isn’t clear base on the data above, allow me to summarize for you:

The African-American Society Is in A Perpetual State of Mediocrity

My fellow African-Americans, my young brothers, my young men.

You are behind the proverbial “eight ball” the moment you are born.

Your margin of error is practically zero when it comes to becoming a high value male; you cannot afford to be careless with your lives and your growth and progression as individuals.  Whether you receive a degree or not, statistics show you will earn less than nearly everyone else, and when you factor in the life changing event of having a child before you reach your prime earning potential, you have a recipe for engendering a societal abyss. How can future generations progress in this landscape? How can you look your future sons and daughters in the eyes knowing you didn’t give them the best chance to elevate the society as a whole?

There are countless statistics that suggest that 60 to 70 percent of people born in lower income households, remain in that class.

Based on that, how can these statistics spell out anything but disaster? How does this bode well for the next 10, 20 or 30 years?

Simply put, moving up in social class takes moving up the income ladder, family wealth and knowledge, home ownership, stocks, and other assets.

I geared this blog towards men, because it starts with us. I have so much love for my people.  I truly believe that African-American men can be elite, we can be treated as kings by our sister counterparts, but it’s going to take some effort. Based off my experiences, I want to recommend a couple of behavior changes that will get the society to realizing its potential.

There are numerous factors affecting the statistics I listed above but I want to focus on the small things that each of us can reprogram ourselves to do.  I always believed in a person handling their business first, and the rest taking care of itself.

So, without further ado. . .

 

Know Yourself = Reaching Your Pinnacle

The biggest problem by far, with African-Americans as a society, is we make too many critical, life altering decisions in the early stages of adolescence/adulthood, before we understand who were truly are, or reach our highest earning potential.

There are exceptions to every rule, however it generally takes people well into their late 20’s/early 30’s to find out who they really are as a person.  You must allow time to thoroughly know who you are:  what your likes are, what your dislikes are, what do you want out of life, what your ideals are going to be, what you like in the opposite sex, your career paths, friends, EVERYTHING.

Picture your life as a canvas, it is not wise to just broad stroke areas in your life. A beautiful portrait considers every little detail.

I purposely put degree and non-degree holders within these statistics, because not everyone’s critical path to success means attaining a Ph.D.  There are successful people in every field you can imagine, so all it takes is doing the research, and dedicating yourself (sometimes multiple times if you change your mind) to that path.

Too often we learn about ourselves AFTER life changing events, mishaps that you cannot take back.  Generally, everyone wants to find that special someone, get married, have children; but we rarely consider every component that comes with those choices, the social responsibility that comes with raising a family.  The choices you make are the seeds that will influence generation upon generation.  I’m going to be honest here, as a man, not doing everything in your power to fully take on the endeavors that come with being socially responsible is nothing short of malevolent.

Given the statistics that I gave you, you owe it to the next generation to become as high value of a man as possible.  You are giving yourself and your offspring a chance to make the society better as a whole.  They will appreciate you, take what you did and inherit it as their own ideals.  It will set the gears in motion for us to be better for years to come.

America is a cold place.  It’s unlike any other country in the world.  I am not trying to sound to calculated or heartless, but men you must treat yourself like a business, like a firm or enterprise.  Align yourself with likeminded individuals, allow yourself to exhibit critical thinking, and make tough decisions.

Not everyone is going to like you, and if you truly know yourself and what you want to achieve then that’s ok.  Let your ambition drive you, and the right people will gravitate toward you.

Spend a couple weekends indoors, dedicate a couple hours towards your craft, let people party who have achieved nothing with their lives.  You won’t miss a thing, I promise.

Know Yourself. . . your ambition, your focus, your drive, your craft. Those things come FIRST.  Everything else is secondary to that fact.

If nothing else, if you follow these principles, and just allow yourself to reach the age where your earning potential is at its maximum, without any derailments. You put yourself in position to be at high value.

 

Interactions with Women

Scroll on any social media, dating app, or go out to any night club, and interact with African-American women.  . .

You’ll be ready to throw up in 2 seconds (Don’t dispute me on this; I have screenshots of every situation listed, and chose not to be petty as it would diminish the seriousness of this post).

It is sickening to me the way African-American women treat us, and the most disturbing thing is, we as African-American men created the reasoning for it. What’s worse is we encourage it.

Women already have the perception that men bring the following to the table: Invitations to the bedroom and NOTHING. So now we have women, even those who don’t rate any higher than a 5 or 6, bragging about the attention they are getting: the comments under pictures, the endless sea of DMs.

It is the norm for women to act this way, and in all honesty, I can’t blame them.  Refer to the statistics in the beginning, it certainly looks like we have nothing to bring to the table. So how can we change the narrative? How can we change the perception from being a common commodity to something of rarity and value?

Gentlemen we must flip the script.

As men set the tone, women will follow suit.

Kings hold themselves in high regard.  Men of high value are not for everyone; your raw rod and seed are not for everyone that passes you by.  Just because you can have someone, doesn’t mean you should partake. Stop wasting time with women you KNOW you don’t want. Exhibit self-control.

High value men maintain the attention

STOP GIVING THIRST TRAPS ATTENTION.  Just picture yourself in a world where a chick drops a thirst trap picture and nobody of high value responds, nobody jumps crazy in the comments.

Women will have NO CHOICE but to step their game up.

The looking glass theory of Charles Horton Cooley is summarized as: we present ourselves to the world, we get a response, and we craft that into our identify and belief system.

If a chick is just a 5 or 6, stop stunting her growth as a person, its ok for her to realize “dang I need to take my tail to the gym, and hit these squats”, if a chick is a dime with NOTHING else to offer, stop stunting her growth by validating her thinking she can get by with just looks.  Gentlemen, that same energy you use, needlessly boasting a woman’s ego who care nothing about you, can be used to better yourself.  Those who are use to receiving attention will soon realize that, attention is earned.  If there is power in attention and abundance . . .remove it.

There needs to be separation between men of high value, and everyone else. If a chick wants to go back and forth with bottom feeders under her comments and DMs, then let her.  The men of high value will not be found there.

African-American women get the bad rap that, they don’t know how to be submissive.  That’s not true. They are submissive to a real man of high value. They are submission to a man who knows himself, knows his ambitions, and knows how to set parameters and live by them.  Again, if a woman doesn’t want to play by the rules, and you are of high value, her lost.

We must turn an abundance of African-American men who offer nothing, to an abundance of African-American men who are high value and want their sister counterparts to pick it up.  They will respond in kind. No question.

FORCE WOMEN TO PLAY BALL THE RIGHT WAY

Conclusion

Men it starts with us.  Find out what it is you want to achieve in life, do your research and take an assessment to see how realistic it is for you to achieve it, then make it happen. Focus on your craft and remember the social responsibility you have to your future generations.  African-American society is dependent on men righting the ship, and leading us all to prosperity.  As a man, you must internalize your dreams and focus solely on those dreams, and everything else will take care of itself. Life changing events alter yours vision completely. You must build FIRST, then bring other elements into it. A woman and child, carry their own agendas, and you will have to tend to those, so it’s better to have achieved what you were after first.

African-American women have a lot of potential. I love my sisters to death, but we can’t marry simply off potential.  Men, we have contributed to their lack of faith in us: the jokes, the memes, the inappropriate disrespect when we approach sincerely.

If we do our part, they will play ball, they will have no choice to.

African-Americans are fighters.  Its ingrained in us, as we have overcome so much in our long history in this country.  I just want us to do better.  Many won’t agree with my suggestions, but look back at the statistics in the in beginning.  We must reprogram our minds, focus, and become great.

Weather Your Storm, Maintain Inner Reign -E