Khadijah, you are righter than right here. Once you realize that the majority of blacks are working triple time to make themselves into THE underclass of the United States, the answer of whether to “divest” or “build an ark” should be loud and clear.

My father used to always say that black people were going to have a day of reckoning within “our own borders” – having nothing to do with white people. We were going to have a civil war between blacks who wanted to live happy, healthy, safe and productive lives and who knew how to do this without a lot of hand holding and ego-stroking and those who do not. This is what we have been in for the past thirty years. The sheer number of african americans living in utter dysfunction (relationship, professional, financial, etc) is growing and growing with each generation.

I shutter to see what the 2010 census is going to look like in regards to OOW births. If only a third of black children were born out of wedlock instead of only one third being born to married parents I think we could find ways to at least help this one third from growing any larger. But at this point, it is just too late. Things like “Marry your baby daddy” are not going to help either.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic in black areas is also one of the last few nails in the coffin. The rates of transmission to black women by their jail bird lovers is something we apparently don’t like talking about. We are denying the fact that a lot of men are having sex with men (either voluntarily or rape) and contracting the disease. Or the legions of “playas” out there having sex with hundreds of women and not using protection. There is a sexual health crisis in the black community that we are ignoring to our own peril. HIV/AIDS is keeping black women dead-locked by severely limiting their ability to find a healthy, stable relationship. It is robbing children of their parents the same way gang violence did in the 90’s.

Low educational attainment, another nail.

Rate of black male felons continues to climb – even post-Obama – another nail in the coffin.

If we were only dealing with one of these MASSIVE problems then maybe we could talk about “saving” folks and “staying and fighting”. Sadly I think we are past the possibility of restoring the communities we had in the 50’s and 60’s. We are past “black meccas” and middle class black neighborhoods with parents and children and black businesses and churches. These places are not going to come back – they are gone and have been replaced by non black owned businesses, single women with children and pay day loan establishments.

I commend all those who are impatiently holding your peace. I know its been difficult

Our discussion parallels the debate between Marcus Garvey and the NAACP. Garvey literally built an Ark to return Black folks to Africa, which proved more difficult than it seemed initially. When we leave, we abandon an infrastructure and resources our ancestors spent literally hundreds of years building, to wander in the desert. Ask Palestinian refuges how they feel now about leaving their towns when life there seemed unbearable… we too could leap from from the frying pan into a fire in the name of safety.

While Garvey built his ark as a physical ship called the Black Star Line, a group of Black visionaries built their ark as an abstract covenant on a Niagara Falls retreat in 1905. The set of principles they proposed became the foundation of the US civil rights movement, which achieved virtually all its goals within two generations. They were so successful that today, their concerns seem kind of quaint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Movement

Today, with the strategic use of the internet, television and other media, we can do what took them 60 years in less than a decade. Doubt it? Remember Google didn’t exist 10 years ago, and Obama was a nobody 5 years ago.

We will not earn anyone’s respect by running away from a righteous fight.

When I was of junior high school age, they did not want me attending the local public school, but instead wanted me in a Catholic school. When I became of high school age, I went to an integrated school in a neighboring community.

As for the notion of black feminism, that undoubtedly contributed to my notion of black women needing an “ark.” For one, I was an early reader of Ms. magazine, when I was in junior high school–there were copies of the magazine around the house that my aunt brought for my mom.

So I was already thinking about gender questions, and I never adopted the mindset that “feminism” was for white girls, when I saw that Ms. magazine spoke about issues that could potentially affect many women, but that they also included articles written by black women or which were about black women’s issues, in a way that Essence magazine and Ebony did not.

By the time I got to be of college age and I heard the propaganda about “feminism,” my response was, “huh?,” especially when I saw that civil rights movement ideology was not talking about gender in the black community, and especially since my first women’s studies class was with a black female professor, and she showed us how feminism was about all women, not just white women!

By this time, I already had an ark mindset, that I was to reject any ideology that did not address my race and gender at the same time.

As for sacrificing “for the race,” I believe in racial uplift, but I always questioned this notion of sacrificing–what am I supposed to sacrifice, and who is going to benefit from my sacrifices? What will be my return?

Most importantly, it always seems to me that black women are called upon to sacrifice, but I don’t see any ideology that black men are to sacrifice at the same time. This to me is sexist, and I have no interest in it; thus, I believe in the “Ark.”

If we had the power to do that we wouldn’t be dealing with the fucknuttery that we currently face. Instead, we have marches and welcome home parades on behalf of convicted rapists and various other predators. Nope, the time for guidelines has long passed. Get out while you still have a chance.

And most importantly, don’t look back. I keep saying this because oftentimes we have seen situations where people will escape the pestilence, yet they’ll allow it to go with them in the form of friends or relatives, thus corrupting a formerly safe environment. Looking back is never a good thing.

I can agree that standards/rules may be beneficial and are a part of this, but another blogger has stressed to me that wise immediate action is necessary right now.

[I had similar thoughts such as you posted above]

BW women need to do whatever they can on a practical level right now – in the time that it would take to execute a plan like that how many more BW will have suffered?

Divesting or getting on the ark would require the reallocation/gathering of resources whether mental, emotional, and financial. That is a process for many BW that would require their energy and focus -now.

Someone once said power is the ability to reward your friends and punish your enemies. Rules serve their purposes only when rule breakers are effectively punished and others observe the punishment and decide rule breaking is too costly.

Sadly, our current situation is one in which no one seems to have the ability or willingness to punish the enemies within the camp. Therefore, the enemies have taken over most sections of the camp. Thus follows the need to break camp for the sake of safety and create a space where safety and well being are protect-able and sustainable.

Rules only work if enforcement is swift and certain. Who is going to enforce your “clear, simple list of rules”?

This document could be in the form of a bill of rights, or something like the “Contract with America” that Republicans used to take over Congress, or like the 10 commandments or Martin Luther’s 95 theses that launched the protestant reformation. In each case the positions were concise, decisive and divisive, to clearly separate those “in the ark” from those excluded. This is what Gina did right here on this page, by setting simple rules that made this blog an “ark” only for those who accepted her standard. So let’s expand this thinking into a set of general commandments promoting comprehensive security for Black women beyond this blog. Once written, invite men and women to post the rules on their blogs, print them on t-shirts, tape them to walls in dorms, barber and beauty shops, nail them to church doors, mail them to whom they please and quote them on radio and television interviews.

Creating a simple, clear list of rules would seem like a little thing, except for the fact that many revolutions started that way.

Some of the points you bring up have been discussed before.

“, yet it fails to address the fact that half of the children within roughly a decade and a half at the most will be black male adults who were raised without fathers, thus warranting a new ark to continue the run once they reach maturity.”

Old dynamics may be difficult to play out in a new environment bc it won’t be tolerated.

“Not to mention that a number of the families will inevitably open their doors to brothers, uncles, male cousins and other black male relatives and aquantances.”

Men are protectors and providers. If these relatives were any good to BW then there would be no need for the ark in the first place. Some BW need to escape brothers, uncles, male cousins, and other BM relatives in order to have a shot at being safe, sane, and healthy- and not let them back in.

“white response to The Ark is for themselves to build an arc,”

1. White flight may not be a response. People can do many things to keep you out instead of them leaving.

2. I would distinguish myself from what another blogger calls the ABC’s or the acting black crew.

3. and lastly and most importantly- I would not move into a neighborhood that was at or close to its tipping point with POC.

There is not one white/multiracial community – there are legions spread out all over the US. If i knew that I could earn a decent income – I could live in Kansas or Alaska – it doesn’t matter.