by James E. Clingman
It’s stupid.’’ Those were the words of Dr. Walter Lomax, Jr. in an interview with Chinta Strausberg of the Chicago Defender. He was referring to how black consumers turn their backs on their own businesses by spending billions of dollars in annual income with non-black businesses.
It’s “economic suicide,” for African Americans to behave in such a manner, according to Lomax. Why do we do this? Dr. Lomax, chairman emeritus of the MATAH Black distribution company, attributes much of our inappropriate behavior to integration and a lack of knowledge of black history.
Lomax bought the 570-acre Aspen Grove Plantation in Virginia, where his great-grandmother was once a slave, and spends a great deal time there reflecting on his heritage.“Our people have “forgotten their roots,” he said. “We haven’t passed on the legacy of our history to the next generation, and we have and still commit the most egregious of sins – abandoning our own businesses just to emulate and brush elbows with whites.”
Practicing medicine in Philadelphia for 30 years, Lomax also worked in his own companies: Healthcare Management Alternatives, Inc., AmeriChoice and Correctional Healthcare Solutions, Inc., where he provided health care to more than 20,000 inmates in 50 facilities located in 14 states. He urges blacks to support one another economically. That unity, he said, helps build capacity among blacks while stabilizing our communities.
This giant of a black man acknowledges the importance of understanding Black History; I mean a real understanding of Black History, not the cursory obligatory gestures made by corporate America every February.‘’Knowing black history will help blacks be more concerned about community. You’ll have more self-esteem. You’ll work harder, study harder, you won’t fritter away the $800 billion that we supposedly control now,’’ said Lomax.
‘’When you know your history, you’ll be more concerned about creating businesses in your own community. You’ll follow the principles of Claud Anderson’s PowerNomics.’’Asked who will teach blacks the principles of economic, ethnic, legacy, and survival skills, Lomax replied, ‘’It will depend upon us. What makes you think the people who have put us in this condition are going to get us out of this state? It will have to be after school programs in churches or mosques.
There has to be a concerted effort to reestablish family values, teaching the importance of education, and reestablishing the importance of economic empowerment. Not only are we following [the wrong values], we seem to be leading our own self-destruction.’’ When asked about economic leadership among blacks, Lomax retorted, “We don’t have leadership.
Most of our leaders are Black politicians and Black ministers. Traditional leadership is so preoccupied with integration, and integration for them represents being like White folks, being integrated into their society and culture,’’ he said. ‘’The only way integration can work is if it’s an integration of equals – everybody brings something to the table; otherwise, in business terms, you don’t have a merger [you have] an acquisition.”
How can African Americans become more economically empowered? Lomax says one way is through support of the MATAH Network. “If we can breathe life into MATAH and organizations like that this will help solidify the black dollar and empower the community.” Wow! I should have let Dr. Lomax write this article.Lomax said blacks probably have some African-American ‘’messiah’’ that could help lead us out of this predicament.
But, he said, until [Whites] say who our leader is, we don’t have one.‘’Black leadership is lacking. We need an ideology we can rally around - self-esteem, economic empowerment, self-preservation, do-for-self and stop trying to be integrated all the time, take advantage of your own culture...all those things that God gave us that everybody tries to emulate and benefit from. We should take them for our own benefit,’’ he stated. ‘’We’re no more than before.
We’re the slaves whether it’s sports or entertainment. We’re the work horse, and they sit on the patio and benefit from it.’’Integration? Yes, we got social integration, but not economic integration, as he puts it. Right again, Dr. Lomax. “Integration is slowly burying us as we become more politically and financially impotent - dispensable in a society that pits blacks against Hispanics for mere contractual crumbs – in a nation blacks built at gunpoint for free.
Talented Tenth? ‘’Today, the Talented Ten has been integrated,’’ said Lomax. And, if I might add, many of them have also been conditioned to hold the 90 percent down rather than lift us up. We are blessed to have man such as Dr. Walter Lomax, Jr. among us. He says what must be said, and does what must be done. “The view from his window at Aspen Grove is a stark reminder of where Blacks have been, how far we’ve come, and sadly where we are today,” journalist Strausberg wrote.
“The two cemeteries on his property tell the whole story: One for whites near the house, and one for Blacks off in the distance out of sight.”
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