More Black people are becoming aware of the SOS (Signal of Self-Determination), which we must respond to if we are to survive and prosper, as Project 2025 prepares to begin full force here. We must create an IOU with one another, reminding each other that it’s on us, if we want to be the best versions of ourselves, both individually and collectively. What? All of it!
We were left dangling by our allies. From 1965 to 2024, the government’s support for Black life—economically, politically, and in education—is essentially gone. So, once more, it’s our fault. What? Everything!
Here are five Black Community New Year Resolutions to help you do that.
FEED OURSELVES
After the police killed Freddie Gray and the populace rioted, Baltimore gave birth to the nationally renowned Black Church Food Security Network (check it out; it’s a model that every big urban community should emulate and/or join). Closing the grocery stores was one of the first actions taken by the ruling class. Black people in Baltimore recognized that power is found in institutions rather than in money or titles, if they didn’t already know it before those grocery stores closed. The Black residents of those communities did not own or control the local food establishments. They were shut down by the people who owned and controlled them. since they desired to. because it was within their power.
We must make significant investments in any organizations and initiatives (co-ops, urban gardens, community food pantries, workshops, local Black farmers and ranchers, Black-owned restaurants and food trucks, etc.) that assist Black people in feeding Black people if we are to have a thriving 2025. If not, anytime the people in charge of those institutions feel like it, more will occur in a city close to you than what happened in B.
DEVELOP OURSELVES
Being the best version of yourself is truly a heavenly charge if you choose the spiritual path. That is the lesson to be learned from the Parable of the Talents in the Bible. Whatever gifts we have been given, The Great I Am expects us to cultivate, develop, and multiply them. Furthermore, sitting on one’s potential and doing nothing with it is the most disrespectful thing a child of God can do to their spirituality.
We will need to make use of the many skills, talents, and abilities that are plentiful in our communities during this time when all of our allies and supporters have abandoned us. To increase their influence, we will also need to develop those skills and match them with other people and organizations. Our ability to contribute to our group’s efforts to build the world we need and deserve will increase as we mature both personally and as an organization.
PROTECT OURSELVES
I never go alone, declared Hard Rhymer Chuck D in the PE classic Louder Than a Bomb, which is featured on the finest hip-hop album ever made, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. I never live by myself. My posse lives in my zone and is always prepared. He was discussing the value and strength of community, particularly during perilous times. We need to reconsider our tendency to simply hop on a bandwagon and head wherever if we want to be prosperous in 2025 and beyond. We should think about teaming up instead of rolling alone whenever and whenever possible. This is about using common sense to live and move instead than living and moving in terror. It involves putting into practice strategies for moving through this world that will best safeguard our loved ones and ourselves.
Additionally, implementing Ida B. Wells-Barnetts’ anti-lynching strategy from the early 1900s can be beneficial for our communities. Wells-Barnett’s strategy is to install a community alert system so that neighbors are prepared to help if an anti-Black person attacks a property. In the 1960s, the Louisiana-based Deacons for Defense and Justice effectively applied such strategy. Now would be a good time to bring it back.
EDUCATE OURSELVES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sZMFmY6b40 This is the video.
In essence, it is now illegal to teach Black history and Black viewpoints on modern realities to K–through–college students. States and their school systems are already taking steps to further whitewash the already-whitewashed curriculum.
This insanity cannot be tolerated by Black parents, educators, school administrators, religious leaders, retired educators, civic leaders, business owners, or any other organization that relies on Black votes and Black money. Members of different Black communities in Florida are already establishing grassroots educational networks to ensure that Black youngsters have the knowledge necessary to defend themselves against the impending flood of white nationalist brainwashing and to proclaim their humanity. It is essential to our people’s mental and emotional health, sanity, and intellectual integrity.
LOVE ON OURSELVES
In addition, focusing all of our attention and effort on loving one another and ourselves is one approach to safeguard our mental and emotional health. To combat the attacks we will encounter on all fronts (politics, education, criminal justice, economy, healthcare, etc.), we must establish an atmosphere, an expectation, a standard of support, and a celebration.
Black people have been socialized to dislike and disparage one another since the era of slavery. Over the years, this training and its aftereffects—which have been referred to by a variety of names, including internalized oppression, niggerization, and post-traumatic enslavement syndrome—have become so embedded in our culture that we accept this negativity as normal. But perhaps the best way to characterize that negativity is as fostering a Slave Culture, a negative interaction style that enslaves us to a life of untapped potential and growth.
That won’t work in the future. We must teach ourselves to see the best in both ourselves and other others, and to take the time to appreciate every success, no matter how minor. We must make it commonplace to support, encourage, and encourage one another. According to an African proverb, “If we go together, we can go farther.” We may accomplish that by celebrating one another.
