Transcription
How were blacks going to be saved, and who was going to save them? In 1903, activist W.E.B. Du Bois provided an answer to these questions in his essay titled "The Talented Tenth." So let's see if we can get into the mind of Du Bois and determine if what he said was a good, workable solution.
And so, let's go in here to this book here, "The Booker T. Washington Collection," and let's turn here to page 21, where it says this: "The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men." And hearing this, the first question that should come to mind is, saved from what, right? What are these exceptional men supposed to save the Negro from? Let's see what he says: "The problem of education then among Negroes must first of all deal with The Talented Tenth. It is the problem of developing the best of this race, that they may guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the worst in their own and other races."
That's what he's saying, that these exceptional, talented Negroes are supposed to save the others from, right? From being sucked into the ways and into the thinkings of the contaminated people from within their own group and from members of the other groups, right? Let's continue.
"The training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers." And so, the teaching is supposed to be done by educational experts, but the goals of these teachings are supposed to be managed by the seers, or the people who have foresight into the future, right? People who can see the final product of this training and what it will produce as a result. Let's continue.
"If we make money the object of man training, we shall develop money-makers, but not necessarily men." And that's true. If money's the end goal, then you have a whole bunch of people who know how to make money, and that's about it. You'll end up with a whole community that mirrors what we see today, right? Where the dollar is the primary goal of most Western people. Here we go.
"If we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans, but not necessarily men." And if skills are made the only object of education, then you'll have a whole bunch of people with skills, but not men. And he's going to explain what he means by men as we continue.
"Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the school—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it." This is the curriculum of that higher education which must underlie true life. And that's what he's describing as men: people who are knowledgeable about the world around them, uh, who are aware of history, who are intelligent and able to acquire information and then put that information into practical use. That's what he's talking about right here.
Now, he didn't address character, which is essential, but he's going to address it later on in the essay. So let's continue.
"On this foundation we may build bread-winning skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life." And so, when the object is the making of the person, then money and skills come as a consequence. And so, he's saying, don't get it twisted and confuse money-making or or developing skills as the goals of life, right? It's the other way around. It's the development of the person. Let's continue.
"If this be true, and who can deny it, three tasks lay before me: first, to show from the past that the talented tenth, as they have risen among American Negroes, have been worthy of leadership; secondly, to show how these men may be educated and developed; and thirdly, to show their relation to the Negro population."
And so, he continues in this essay, and he pleads his case on how the talented Negroes have risen up in certain leadership positions and have created impact, right? And so, from here, let's go on to page, uh, 23, where we can get a preview on what he's talking about. Here we go.
"Too little notice has been taken of the work which The Talented Tenth among Negroes took in the great abolition crusade. From the very day that a Philadelphia colored man became the first subscriber to Garrison's Liberator, to the day when negro soldiers made the Emancipation Proclamation possible, black leaders worked shoulder-to-shoulder with white men in the movement, the success of which would have been impossible without them."
And you'll find both black and white leaders linked together on both ends of the spectrum. On one end, trying to genuinely help the blacks, and on the other end, trying to capitalize off the plight of the blacks, right? For their own gain. And today, what you're going to find most of those two linked together for the purpose of exploiting that community for their own gain. Let's continue.
"There was Purvis, and Raymond Pennington, and Highland Garnett, Sojourner Truth, and Alexander Crummell, and above all, Frederick Douglass. What would the abolition movement have been without them?" And his point is that these exceptional Negro figures created great change. Let's continue.
"They stood as living examples of the possibilities of the Negro race. Their own hard experiences and well-wrought culture set silently more than all the drawn periods of orators. They were the men who made American slavery impossible." As Maria Weston Chapman once said, "From the school of anti-slavery agitation, a throng of authors, editors, lawyers, orators, and accomplished gentlemen of color have taken their degree. It has equally implanted hopes and aspirations, noble thoughts and sublime purposes in the hearts of both races. It has prepared the white man for the freedom of the black man, and it has made the black man scorn the thought of enslavement, as does the white man."
"As far as its influence has extended, before its organization, the country only saw here and there in slavery some faithful Cugo or Dinah whose strong natures blossomed even in bondage like a fine plant beneath a heavy stone. Now, under the elevating and cherishing influence of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the colored race, like the white, furnishes Corinthian capitals for the noblest temples."
Where were these black abolitionists trained? Some, like Frederick Douglass, were self-trained, but yet trained liberally. Others, like Alexander Crummell, and McCoon Smith, graduated from famous foreign universities. Most of them rose up through the colored schools of New York and Philadelphia and Boston, taught by college-bred men like Russwurm, or Dartmouth, and college-bred white men like Nott and Bennett. And the point that he's making here is that the leaders who created those changes were trained and mostly college educated, and he's contributing that education to their success in shaping and, uh, uh, changing the society. Let's continue.
"After emancipation came a new group of educated and gifted leaders—Langston, Bruce, and Elliot, Greener, Williams, and Payne. Through political organization, historical and pic writing, and moral regeneration, these, these men strove to uplift their people. It is the fashion of today to sneer at them and to say that with freedom, negro leadership should have begun at the plow and not in the Senate—a foolish and mischievous lie."
And so, people were saying that black leadership should have started at the plow, or with training people to have skills, and not in the political area. But, uh, Du Bois is not having that at all.
"250 years that black surf toiled at the plow, and yet the toiling was in vain till the Senate passed the war amendments. And 250 years more, the half-free surfs of today may toil at his plow, but unless he have political rights and righteously guarded civic status, he will still remain the poverty-stricken and ignorant plaything of rascals that he now is."
And so, he's basically saying that blacks could have all the skills that they wanted, right? But if they were not protected under the law and were afforded the rights as everyone else, then they basically would have remained in the same condition. And so, his argument was that political rights were necessary, and they were just as necessary as the exceptional people who fought for them. Let's continue.
"This all sane men know, even if they dare not say it." And so, we come to the present: a day of cowardice and vacillation, of strident, wide-voiced wrong and faint-hearted compromise, of double-faced dallying with truth and right. Who are today guiding the work of the Negro people? And so, that's the question that he's asking. Here we go.
"The exceptions, of course." And remember, this was written in 1903. That would not be the same answer today. Let's continue.
"And yet, so sure as this talented tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the average cry out in alarm: 'These are exceptions! Look here at death, disease, and crime!' These are the happy rule." Of course, these are the rule because a silly nation made them the rule. And who's the silly nation that made it a rule? It's talking about America, and specifically the greedy white leadership at that time. And now, how did they do this? Let's see what Du Bois has to say.
"Because for three long centuries this people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave, raped black women who dared to be virtuous, crushed rich-hued youth who dared to be ambitious, and encouraged and made to flourish servility and lenience and apathy."
And that's how they invented black people. They created the environment, and they set up the circumstances, which is why he's saying that it encouraged and it made to flourish servility, or an excessive willingness to serve or to be a servant; lewdness, which is indecent behavior; and apathy, which is a lack of concern, right? A lack of concern for anything. Let's continue.
"But not even this was able to crush all manhood and chastity and aspiration from Black Folk. A saving remnant continually survives and persists, continually aspires, continually shows itself in thrift and ability and character."
And that's all that it was back then, and that's all it is today. And so, the message that's delivered is for those people who strive and persist today and will eventually climb all the way out of the pit and experience a new reality in this lifetime, right? We're not talking about waiting until death to go to some heaven. We're talking about seeing the kingdom come on Earth. Let's continue.
"Exceptional it is, to be sure, but this is its chiefest promise: it shows the capability of negro blood, the promise of black men." Now, this was the promise in 1903, but today, I'm telling you that it's another promise for those who grow out of the identity and the consciousness of Blackness altogether. But let's continue.
"Do Americans ever stop to reflect that there are in this land a million of negro blood well-educated owners of homes, against the honor of whose womanhood no breath was ever raised, whose men occupy positions of trust and usefulness, and who, judged by any standard, have reached the full measure of the best type of modern European culture?"
And so, these are the exceptional people that he's referring to here. Here we go.
"Is it fair? Is it decent? Is it Christian to ignore these facts of the Negro problem, to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership, and seek to crush these people back into the mass out of which, by toil and travail, they and their fathers have raised themselves? Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character?"
And so, he's asking, is there any faster way to raise these other blacks out of the pit than by the example that was left and by the help of these other blacks who he's calling elite in both character and talent, right? Is there any other faster way? That's the question.
"Was there ever a nation on God's fair Earth civilized from the bottom upward?" Meaning, has there ever been a people from the very bottom of the pit, with the least developed talents and character, who have civilized an entire nation? Let's continue.
"Never. It is ever and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters." And to an extent, he has a point because civilization is very complex, and it's something that can only be established by very knowledgeable people, right? But the problem is that many times, these very knowledgeable people, they don't have the people's best interest in mind. They have their own interest in mind, right? And many times, their interest runs contrary to the interest of the people. And that's how you have a society like America set up systematically with the black and white racial classification, which serves and still does serve the interest of the people who exploit that system, but it does not serve the best interest of the average citizen, right? It does not.
But Du Bois, he's making a point that the elite types of people, they have the largest influence on culture, right? And it trickles down into the masses. Now, watch this.
"The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground." Now, notice that he says "all that are worth the saving," which means what? That there are people who are not worth saving, right? And he's clear on this, and this still applies today.
"The final phase of freedom is a call out of Blackness, and everyone that's in Blackness is not worth saving." And why is that? Is because many of them like where they are, right? And they have no desire to change anything, right? They're over there partying in the pit, and they have decided to remain in the pit, which is why it's not worth spending any mental resources on trying to pull people out of the pit and get people to do things that they don't want to do. And there's a lot of people who don't want to do anything, but there are a few who do, and those are the people who I'm talking to. And that's it, and that's all Du Bois was talking about as well, right? The Talented Tenth pulling up those who are worth the saving. Let's continue.
"This is the history of human progress, and the two historic mistakes which have hindered that progress were the thinking, first, that no more could ever rise save the few already risen, which there are people who have the same thoughts today. Here we go. Or, second, that it would be better the unrisen to pull the risen down." Pull the risen down where? Down into the pit, right? And many people will do that if you allow them to. Here we go.
"How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained, and the hands of the risen few strengthened? There can be just one answer: The best and the most capable of their youth must be schooled—schooled in the colleges and universities of the land." So, through colleges and universities was how he believed that this capable youth was supposed to be trained. Let's continue.
"We will not quarrel as to just what the University of the Negro should teach or how it should teach it. Willingly admit that each soul and each race soul needs its own peculiar curriculum." And so, it appears that he's talking about creating Negro universities, and for what purpose? He talked about it in the beginning, for the purpose of making men, right? And so, he wanted to use the university as a tool to shape the minds, the skill, and the character of the Negro. Let's continue.
"But this is true: a university is a human invention for the transmission of knowledge and culture from generation to generation through the training of quick minds and pure hearts, and for this work no other human invention will suffice, not even trade and industrial schools."
Now, we have to remember that this solution was presented in 1903. And to some extent, a lot of blacks followed this approach, and they became educated over the years. But the question is, what happened with that education? It created money-makers, right? And a bunch of individuals who were out for themselves, which was against the ideas that Du Bois had in his mind, and it was also against what some of the, uh, NRS from his generation were about. And so, right now, what we're going to do is we're going to read about some of these educated blacks that were around during his time, and let's see what they were about. Here we go.
"Of these graduates, 2,079 were men and 252 were women. 50% of Northern-born college men come South to work among the masses of their people at a sacrifice which few people realize. Nearly 90% of the Southern-born graduates, instead of seeking that personal freedom and broader intellectual atmosphere which their training has led them in some degree to conceive, stay and labor and wait in the midst of their black neighbors and relatives."
And so, they didn't take the enticing route of individualism. They postponed their personal interests and they came back to help the ones who were worth helping that came from their community. And as a matter of fact, someone who really understands community is someone whose personal interest is also in alignment with the community interest, right? It's an "I win when the community wins" type of mentality. And some of those blacks had that mentality. Let's continue.
"These figures illustrate vividly the function of the college-bred Negro. He is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who sets the ideals of the community where he lives, directs its thoughts, and heads its social movements." And every community needs leaders. It needs leaders who have a vision for the people, and who have a vision that has the people's best interest in mind, right? And not only is this true for things like a community, it's also true for other things like businesses as well. There needs to be people who lead the business in a certain direction because, like the Bible says, "where there is no vision, the people perish." So, the right leadership is paramount, right? And it doesn't have to come from college-educated people or people who have all types of money, right? But it does require intelligent people and people with pure intentions who set good moral and action examples. Let's continue.
"It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership more than most groups. That they have no tradition to fall back upon, no long-established customs, no strong family ties, no well-defined social classes." This was the hand that was dealt to black people. Now, I will say that blacks did have a tradition, and they did have customs, but it's just that most of those traditions and those customs that they developed were not designed to pull people out of the pit. They were developed to survive in the pit and to make the pit of slavery as comfortable as possible, which any human would have done. But once people are no longer required to remain in the pit, then they have to create an entirely different culture that is designed to pull them out of the pit, which takes a completely different mentality and a completely different approach than that which was developed in the pit. Can you see that? Let's continue.
"All these things must be slowly and painfully evolved." And that's why he's saying that all these things must be painfully evolved because you have to squeeze out a new personality, right? Which is uncomfortable for a lot of people to do because what they have done is they have become attached to their current personality and worldview, and they believe that this is the only one and real version of themselves. But I'm telling you that there's many avatars for each human, and the power that's working through each human is able to reconstruct the personality, right? And although this does take time and effort, it's absolutely worth the effort that you put in. Understand? Here we go.
"The preacher was even before the War the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their greatest social institution. Naturally, this preacher was ignorant and too often immoral, and the problem of replacing the older type by better educated men has been a difficult one." And so, Du Bois is saying that the church was the greatest social institution, which it was for the Negro, but the preacher didn't know a lot, right? And he was often immoral. And since this preacher was a great influence on the blacks, it was in the best interest to replace this type of teacher with someone who was intelligent and also, uh, more ethical, right? But this was a difficult task, and I can imagine so. Here we go.
"Both by direct work and by direct influence on other preachers and on congregations, the college-bred preacher has an opportunity for reformatory work and moral inspiration, the value of which cannot be overestimated. It has, however, been in the fishing of teachers that the Negro College has found its peculiar function. Few persons realize how vast a work, how mighty a revolution has been thus accomplished: to furnish 5 million or more ignorant people with teachers of their own race and blood in one generation was not only a very difficult undertaking, but a very important one, in that it placed before the eyes of almost every negro child an attainable ideal."
Now, he's still making his case for using the educated elite to lift the Negro from out of the pit, right? The ones who are worth saving. Let's continue.
"It brought the masses of the blacks in contact with modern civilization, made black men the leaders of their communities and trainers of the new generation. In this work, college-bred Negroes were first teachers and then teachers of teachers. And here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value. Knowledge of life in its wider meaning has been to the point of the negro's deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been simply for bread-winning, but also for human culture, has been of inestimable value in the training of these men."
And that's referring to the people who have their heart in the community and not primarily on the mighty dollar. Let's see some more.
"The problem of training the Negro is today immensely complicated by the fact that the whole question of the efficiency and appropriateness of our present system of education for any kind of child is a matter of active debate, in which final settlement seems still a far off. Consequently, it often happens that persons arguing for or against certain systems of education for Negroes have these controversies in mind and miss the real question at issue. The main question, so far as the Southern Negro is concerned, is: What, under the present circumstances, must a system of education do in order to raise the Negro as quickly as possible in the scale of civilization?"
Right? And that's the question: What must this system of education do to raise the Negro out of the pit, to bring them up to a certain level of civilization? Now, here's his answer.
"The answer to this question seems to me clear: It must strengthen the Negro's character, increase his knowledge, and teach him to earn a living." That's what was clear to Mr. Du Bois, right? The character first and foremost needed to be strengthened. The knowledge needed to be increased, and the skills needed to be increased. That's the complete package, right there. And what people want to do today is focus on just making a living and getting the biggest dollar that they can get while neglecting the character and also neglecting the part of of gaining knowledge, right? And you have to understand that just because somebody makes a lot of money, it doesn't mean that they have good character. There are plenty of people, which we all know, that make millions of dollars but have poor character, and people do not want to be around those types of people other than for financial reasons, right? So, all three of these things that Mr. Du Bois just named have to be addressed when going through life. Let's get some more.
"Now, it goes without saying that it is hard to do all these things simultaneously or suddenly, and that at the same time it will not do to give all the attention to one and neglect the others. We could give the black boys trades, but that alone will not civilize a race of ex-slaves. We might simply increase their knowledge of the world, but this would not necessarily make them wish to use this knowledge honestly. We might seek to strengthen character and purpose, but to what end if this people have nothing to eat or to wear?"
Which brings it back full circle as to why people need to address each one of these, you see that? Let's get some more.
"A system of education is not one thing, nor does it have a single definite object, nor is it a mere matter of schools. Education is that whole system of human training within and without the schoolhouse walls which molds and develops men. If, then, we start out to train an ignorant and unskilled people with a heritage of bad habits, our system of training must set before itself two great aims: the one dealing with knowledge and character, the other part seeming to give the child the technical knowledge necessary for him to earn a living under the present circumstances."
These objects are accomplished in part by the opening of the common schools, on the one, and of the industrial schools, on the other, but only in part. For there must also be trained those who are to teach these schools—men and women of knowledge and culture and technical skill, who understand modern civilization and have the training and aptitude to impart it to the children under them. And remember that these teachers were to be pure-hearted, right? And not people who were just looking, uh, for another opportunity just to make money, right? That's not what he's talking about. Let's continue.
"There, there must be teachers and teachers of teachers. And to attempt to establish any sort of system of common and industrial school training without first—and I say advisedly, without first—providing for the higher training of the very best teachers is simply throwing your money to the winds."
And so, he's saying that it's a waste of money to set up such a school system without having highly trained teachers. Let's get some more.
"Schoolhouses do not teach themselves. Piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out in it. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian, or American. If Hampton, Tuskegee, and the hundred other industrial schools prove in the future to be as successful as they deserve to be, then their success in training black artisans for the South will be due primarily to the White colleges of the North and the black colleges of the South which train the teachers which today conduct these institutions."
And so, now he's addressing Booker T. Washington's institution, which was directed towards building skills, right? And he's saying that if this institution was to succeed, which he wants it to, then it would be due to the trained teachers who went to these other colleges, who then prepared them to run these institutions like Tuskegee, right? Let's continue.
"I would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully, or seem to depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play in the accomplishment of these ends. But I do say and insist upon it that it is industrialism drunk with its vision of success to imagine that its own work can be accomplished without providing for the training of broadly cultured men and women to teach its own teachers and to teach the teachers of the public schools."
But I have already said that human education is not simply a matter of schools. It is much more a matter of family and group life, the training of one's home, of one's daily companions, of one's social class, which is very true. And so, he's talking about making everyone participate in this process of education, right? Starting from the house and the family, to the friends, and extending all the way out into the actual school. All parties need to do their part in the creation of the community, right? If the school is proficient, if the parents are involved, if the entire neighborhood is on the same page, then you've created a highly influential atmosphere which significantly increases the children's chances of succeeding. And it is this system that groups like the Hasidic Jews in America have figured out, right? They figured out this system, and they have created environments which include the right types of people and exclude all the other types of people who are not with the program, right? And that's the direction that the Earth Poise people are going, right? Let's continue.
"Now, the black boy of the South moves in a black world—a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, its own ideals." And this is the mass mind of the blacks that we talk about, which contains certain ideas, thoughts, standards, and beliefs, right? Here we go.
"In this world he gets by far the largest part of his life training, and through the eyes of this dark world he peers into the veiled world beyond. Who guides and determines the education which he receives in his world? His teachers. Here are group leaders of the Negro people: the physicians, the clergymen, the trained fathers and mothers, the influential and forceful men about him of all kinds. Here it is, if at all, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools."
Right? And so, these are supposed to be the cultured men and women who impart knowledge and wisdom into the younger child, right? Within their neighborhood, so they can see things from a different perspective. These people are supposed to have the child's best interest in mind and have something of some type of substance to teach the children, right? And in today's time, they don't have to come from the universities or the colleges. They can come from people who are genuine, who have developed themselves, who are making something of their lives, and are community-centered people, right? Those are the types of people. Let's get some more.
"Can such culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we afford to ignore it? Do you think that if the leaders of thought among Negroes are not trained and educated thinkers, that they will have no leadership? Only the contrary: a hundred half-trained demagogues will still hold the places they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous busybodies will multiply."
And so, the demagogues are people who exploit the prejudices and the false beliefs of the common people. They basically tell you what you want to hear and not what you need to hear, and they do this in order to gain favor with the people so they can either get power, money, or some type of authority over other people, right? And they're all over the place, right? These are the people who tell blacks that they can't make it because of racism or white supremacy. These are the ones who justify people's fears and allow people to accept themselves being in a condition that they're in, right? And blaming it on other people, right? And they do this in exchange for people's votes or, uh, to gain some type of leadership position, right? These are the demagogues, and they run rampant in the black community. They're in all communities, but they're by the thousands in the black community, right? And what Du Bois is saying is that if the leaders are not well-trained and educated, then the leaders are going to come from these demagogues who were present at that time. And Booker T. Washington, he also talks about it too, that there's another class of colored people, right? Some of these people do not want the Negroes to lose their grievance because they will lose their jobs, right? That's what he says, and it's even truer for today. Now, let's keep going.
"You have no choice. Either you will help fish these ranks from within its own ranks with thoughtful men of trained leadership, or you must suffer the evil consequences of a headless, misguided rabble." So, the option that he laid out is either have thoughtful and well-trained leaders, or evil is coming to town from a headless, misguided rabble, which means from a lower class people or people who are disorganized. And so, that was the prediction that Mr. Du Bois made, right? And so, from here, let's go over to page 38, and let's see a little bit more about some of these stronger warnings that, uh, Mr. Du Bois left. Here we go.
"Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers." The fathers are the European slaveholders and the West African slave catchers, right? Those two conspired together to make this transplant happen. Let's get some more.
"Whether you like it or not, millions are here, and here they will remain." Uh oh, here's the warning: "If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down." That's the warning that W.E.B. Du Bois left. If you don't lift them up, you're coming down to the pit with them, right? That's what he's talking about. Let's continue.
"Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work; it must teach life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this work, and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men."
And so, that was the snippet of the solution to the Negro problem: the exceptional talent, 10% of the Negroes, were to get educated and then bring their wider view of the world back to the community and instill education and culture in the rest of the 90%, or more specifically, those who were worth saving, right? And in addition to that, the preachers, the family, and the other influential members of the community, they were also, uh, supposed to be educated so they can have a proper influence on the up-and-coming youth within the Negro community. And so, the message was to rely on the members that come from within the Negro community, right? To lend out a lifting hand for the worthy ones who were stuck in the pit, right? And overall, I think this was a pretty good plan for that time, right? But now that we've had well over a hundred more years of history to consider, the problem has changed and transformed, and we can clearly see that that is not a feasible solution to save an entire Negro people, right? This plan right here, or any other similar type of plan, it requires a vast amount of participation with all members within a community. Blacks today vary, uh, significantly in their interests and in their goals for their lives, and most of them have bought into the concept of individualism, right? And they have no concern whatsoever for an actual community, right? Not none, none whatsoever. So, trying to save an entire group of blacks, this makes no sense today. The only viable objective that's left is to first reject the black identity, then gather together with other like-minded people to create new ethnic identities, right? And to create new agendas within that collective, right? Based on culture, character, and community development, right? And so, these people, they'll come from all walks of life, right? University-educated, right? Educated in trades, they'll have a lot of money, right? They can have little money, right? But the thing that they will all have in common, or the things that they will have in common, is a commitment to character, culture, and community development, right? And that's the only thing that's left for today. That's it. And so, hopefully, this has been able to help you out and has given you some light to find your way on the path. And so, I want to thank you for watching all the way into the end. My name is Brooklyn St. Michael, and I'll see you in the Free World.