{"id":7001,"date":"2025-04-03T03:30:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T03:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7001"},"modified":"2025-04-16T03:34:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T03:34:42","slug":"in-disruption-go-back-to-our-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7001","title":{"rendered":"In Disruption, Go Back to Our Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Julianne Malveaux<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In two scant months, the 47th president has upended business as usual, in federal government, in classrooms, in business. Many of us who cover this news are experiencing extreme whiplash. Wolf tickets barked at our allies. Tariffs here and gone tomorrow. Tantrums in the Oval Office. State Departments of Education being threatened. Stock markets crashing, with the market logging its worst performance for a \u201cnew\u201d president since 2009. People are apprehensive about their pensions and their jobs and have dialed back their spending as a result. Consumer spending drives the economy, and many consumers aren\u2019t confident enough (consumer confidence is down by more than 9%) to take on extra spending. We are in the middle of a \u201cball of confusion\u201d the Temptations referenced in their 1970 song.<\/p>\n

The 47th president promised no business as usual. What he meant was no business at all! The disruption that has riddled both the federal government and our total way of life is, at best, disturbing. Not everyone is experiencing it, but everyone knows someone who is. What are we to do? I say that in the middle of disruption, of being shaken up, we go back to basics, back to our roots. What does that mean? We shop Black, work Black, live Black, aspire Black. Too many of us drank the integration Kool-Aid without tasting all the integration flavor. In other words, nothing wrong with integration if we value ourselves. The white man\u2019s ice is not colder. White man\u2019s laws are not fairer. Those deluded folk who seemed to think that the 47th president would be better for the economy are now about to find out what Malcolm X meant when he talked about \u201cchickens coming home to roost.\u201d Some of the very people who were touting 47 in November are now whining about job losses, portfolio shrinkage and deportation.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been there, done that with government cutbacks. The most glaring history is that of the racist President Woodrow Wilson, who fired most of the senior Black people in his administration. Most notably, the demotion of Daniel Murray, assistant librarian of Congress, was a disgrace that reminds us that those who serve at \u201cthe pleasure of the president\u201d can be easily let go. Their firings may be challenged but the work of their agencies will slow, if not stop. And the 47th president\u2019s overreaching has a chilling effect on the progress of some agencies.<\/p>\n