I suspect that a single detriment to Black Community Building is the “Either/Or” syndrome.  It is my thinking to consider the nature of this a syndrome because just as disease encompasses a ‘characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behavior’, —’either/or’ proves to be just as deadly.

Never to underestimate Booker T. Washington’s (BTW) living life as “A Slave Among Slaves” —”The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation, of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave plantation sought to escape.”  “The slave system on our place, in a large measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white people. My old master had many boys and girls, but not one, so far as I know, ever mastered a single trade or special line of productive industry. The girls were not taught to cook, sew, or to take care of the house.  All of this was left to the slaves.”

I believe it to be the ‘either/or’ syndrome that has empowered the minimalism of ‘BTW’s Truth’.  As his critics arise, the ‘great divides’ entrench. Only to note here that his founding of the National Negro Business League (NNBL) in 1900, platforms the Debates that must be seen in fresh eyesight between he and ‘WEB DuBois’ (WEBD) Truth’; in part, by his founding of ‘The Niagara Movement’ in 1906 (precursor to) The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.  BOTH these giants of the nation of Africans born in America were driven by their quest of the need for Education in the life of the emancipated slave.  “Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or a truck garden.”  (BTW —The Atlanta Compromise Speech 1895).  “We believe that, in defense of our own institutions, the United States should aid common school education, particularly in the South, and we especially recommend concerted agitation to his end.” ( WEBD —The Niagara Movement Declaration of Principles, 1905).

“As a rule, there was food for whites and blacks, but inside the house, and on the dining room table, there was wanting that delicacy and refinement of touch and finish which can make a home the most convenient, comfortable, and attractive place in the world. Withal there was a waste of food and other materials which was sad. When freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of property.”

This ‘either/or’ syndrome is the American way… ‘No Two Ways About It!’  Warring —by nature of this beast.  93% of the existence of this Nation —at War.  President Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law on Dec. 23, 2022, approving the 2023 defense budget and allotting $816.7 Billion to the Department of Defense.

“The slave owner and his sons had mastered no special industry. They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not the proper thing for them. On the other hand, the slaves, in many cases, had mastered some handicraft, and none were ashamed, and few unwilling, to labour.”

“Either/or” as a syndrome enables the critical race theory of Willie Lynch to find grounds of disease and destruction for the duration of his 300 year plan and beyond.  Even now, Black nation is consumed in pitting one Giant of our race, over against another Giant!  In every walk and field of our life.   When we move into the fulness of “BOTH/AND”, we can see with ‘woke eyes’ the importance of EACH GIANT of our race being just that —A Giant!  Now?  Fresh eyes are needed on the age old adversarial misnomenclature invested in the very powerful work left to us as the legacy of BOTH Booker T. Washington AND W. E. B. Du Bois BEFORE their life and work is minimalized by thinking “either/or”.

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