What others are saying about
Black Futurists In The Information Age: Vision Of A 21st
Century Technological renaissance
Black Futurists in the Information Age is a wake-up call to Black people. It is a jolt toward the realization of the role they can play in the technological age. It is a look at past and future contributions to technology and information, and more specifically how these contributions will effect us all as we enter the 21st century.
--Denise Turney, author of Portia, Love Has Many Faces
Timothy Jenkins and Khafra K Omrazeti have performed a very important service. With an insightful foreword by former UN Ambassador Andrew Young, Jenkins and Omrazeti have combined their considerable talents and insights to create the case for black Americans to advance into the future using their intellect and technology… The book is well researched and draws upon the work of successful black technologists and scientists who in the past, leapt ahead of their time to make important contributions to the world at large.
--Nat Irvin II
*****
BLACK FUTURISTS
IN THE
INFORMATION AGE
VISION OF A 21ST CENTURY
TECHNOLOGICAL RENAISSANCE
by
Khafra K Om-Ra-Seti
Timothy L. Jenkins
Edited by
Saundra Anderson
SMASHWORDS EDITION
This book is also available in print at Amazon.com
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
KMT Publications at Smashwords
Copyright © 2010 by Khafra K Om-Ra-Seti
First Print Edition 1997
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
BLACK FUTURISTS
IN THE
INFORMATION AGE
* * ***
CONTENTS
Andrew Young
PART ONE
THE IMPACT OF THE INFORMATION
AGE REVOLUTION
Chapter
One
From GateKeepers to
GateCrashers
Timothy L.
Jenkins
Chapter
Two
Information Age
Technologies
Khafra K
Om-Ra-Seti
Chapter
Three
Black Scientific
Legacy
Khafra K Om-Ra-Seti
PART TWO
PREPARATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
GLOBAL AGE
Chapter
Four
Education and
Training with Multimedia
Timothy L.
Jenkins
Chapter
Five
Black Economics
within Information Innovations
Timothy L.
Jenkins
Chapter
Six
The New Industrial Era and Strategic Planning
Khafra K Om-Ra-Seti
PART THREE
CHALLENGES OF THE NEW ERA
The Telecommunication and Wireless Revolution of the 1990s
Khafra K Om-Ra-Seti
The Politics and Ethics of Telecom
Timothy L. Jenkins
Timothy L. Jenkins
Other Titles by Khafra K Om-Ra-Seti
Tables
(1)Creative Stages in Technological Innovation
(2) Top Ten Cellular Companies: August 1994
*****
In the memory of Ron Brown (1941-1996): Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce, African American internationalist, political activist, pioneer and global visionary. In the spirit of our ancestors and of futurists building uplifting bridges to the 21st Century, may Ron’s vision and life’s mission help us to forge new unity and priorities for the Information Age Revolution….Hotep!
*****
In many ways the development of this project was a focused intellectual journey shared, to some extent, by many individuals along its pathways. Many thanks to Dr. Beverly J. Robinson and Dorothy Karvi of Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Leroy McCreary and Dr. Julian Earls of NASA, Black Filmmaker, A. Jacquie Taliaferro, Manu Ampim of Advancing The Research, Ronnie Prosser of Black Art Productions, political advisor and activist, Leon Thibeaux, Donald Jerrold, former president of the Black Data Processing Association, musician, Nate Justice, and Percy Earby for their collective support and research assistance on various phases of this project.
Special thanks and much appreciation to Saundra Anderson for providing her sharp editorial skills and consultation in polishing the final manuscript. And special thanks to my dear friend Geratha Ann McCreary, for her patient ability to provide thoughtful suggestions and recommendations on various issues. Many thanks to my father, Rev. James L. Davis (author and writer) for the mutual support we share in our writing and publishing endeavors.
Particular gratitude goes to Dr. Henry T. Sampson for his strong support in providing much clarity on the issue of black participation in the sciences. Likewise, special thanks to Dr. Ivan Van Sertima’s tireless efforts in bringing forth critical research on black scientific achievements in the 20th Century.
I would also like to convey a sincere appreciation and great round of applause to the scientific traditions of our African ancestors and the great African Civilizations, and to the countless modern day black scientists, engineers, technocrats and others for their enormous contributions.
And finally, special thanks to the indwelling spirit of God for helping me to remain focused and patient in the production of this project.
Khafra K Om-Ra-Seti
*****
The face of social injustice has many shapes and they change constantly. Today we are confronted by a very different image unlike any we have known in the past. It is a divided America without the necessity of active discrimination, but with painful results every bit as devastating.
Throughout the 20th Century, African Americans have continually struggled to overcome the forces that would stop their progress towards freedom, justice and equality in America. Over 35 years ago we marched on Washington, in a bold determination to bring about profound changes in our land. In the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, we changed the conditions of segregation in this country. We challenged this nation to abandon its practice of gross discrimination and racism, in the name of justice, fair play and civil decency. The signs came down, the South was transformed, and desegregation became the law of the land. Though we won many battles in our push for social and economic justice, we cannot say with conviction that our war of peaceful liberation has been won; “the badges and incidents” of discrimination cited in Plessy vs. Ferguson live on.
In the 1990s, we are confronted with a list of devastating statistics highlighting critical problems in black communities in America, which raise a number of perplexing questions for many in my generation. Indeed, if Martin Luther King Jr. were with us today, he would be outraged by the mindless killing in our communities among our young people, the debilitating drug scene, babies having babies, educational decline, job loss, homelessness and many other social pathologies. As I stated not so long ago, no nation as rich as ours should have so many people isolated on islands of poverty in such a sea of material wealth.’ This is the dilemma that many black communities face as we approach the dawning of a new century. These disturbing trends must be reversed first by reversing the fundamental root causes. At the center of these causes are the increasingly marginal roles black people play in the economy of our nation.
Authors Timothy L. Jenkins and Khafra K Om-Ra-Seti are suggesting that many of our problems and our solutions can be found in the current Information Age Technological Revolution. As Black Futurists, they are seeking to raise our consciousness to the accelerating historic transformations that are taking place during the 1990s, in an effort to spotlight the significance of technological change as a fundamental cause for many expressions of social pathology. They not only point out the displacement of labor saving systems, robotic workers and devices are having on millions of African American workers, but they also warn that if educational decline continues at its current pace, those displaced (as well as millions of new African American workers) will be unable to function in the high-tech societies of the 21st Century. This dire prediction can only bring about dramatic increases in the problems I spoke of earlier. In chapter and verse, the authors explain how we are confronted with the forces of technological change on an astounding level and at a rapid pace, such that all previous expectations of an inclusive society may be at an end.
This book offers us an alternative vision, one that holds up a two-sided mirror to our face (one good, the other bad) and says, “choose the economic and technological mission of today, which is the way of the future.” We are challenged to change our conditions by joining, on a grand scale, the technological revolution of our times. In the tradition of barrier breaking visionaries, the authors are issuing a call for a “Scientific and Technological Revolution” in the black world. They label that call KyberGenesis, a simultaneous revolution of the spirit and creative mind-set of African Americans to find and redefine themselves in the midst of the broad-sweeping informational changes reshaping our world for the 21St Century.
These authors argue that the spirit and mission of global deregulation (in many industries) is moving to create more market-driven economies for the global age of the 21st Century. Furthermore, with a vast majority of African Americans positioned as consumers and not producers, this represents a set of circumstances that is considered a formula for future economic disaster. African Americans have got to become, as a group, a more competitive and productive segment in the rapid emergence of the global age; the penalty for not responding to this challenge may present a state of economic suicide, particularly as governmental safety-net programs and affirmative action standbys are eliminated. The challenge, then, is to use our divinely inspired talents to create vibrant business, institutional and economic models utilizing information age technologies. They urge us to plant the seeds now during the remaining years of the 1990s, so that our harvest will be bountiful in the 21st Century. Thus, the leadership segment of the African American world is admonished to change its priorities and adapt to the profound implications of the Information Age Revolution. History has proven that African Americans have been resilient and resourceful since arriving to these shores over 400 years ago, now it remains for us to respond to this new mission and prepare ourselves for the 21St Century.
Changing times require adjustments in our behavior. We cannot expect to operate on the same agenda and platform in the future, if the world around us is shifting gears for higher levels of production and development. Jenkins and Om-Ra-Seti are correct in their assessment that major corporate restructuring and reengineering in the 1990s will leave millions of workers behind, as many companies struggle to become more competitive on a global basis. They seriously question whether the black community is prepared to survive this onslaught, and if not, what will be the strategy for future progress? Hence, KyberGenesis and the need for greater self-reliance and the creative use of many of these new technologies for educational systems, job training, entrepreneurial opportunities, and many other areas of practical use, which may very well offer the only realistic alternatives. With public education under heavy assault, and the imminent revision of our current welfare system that provides as much as a fifth to a third of black income, this call for economic and technological self-reliance is a timely alarm. Indeed, the “signs of the times” are again indicating a new direction, a spirit to promote something different beyond the limitations of the present era. I’m reminded of something I stated not too long ago, that the events that produce genuine change or meaningful success always involve a dimension that is beyond the obvious political, social, or personal forces. Something extra pulls all these energies and insights together creating something greater than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps this is what the authors are presenting to us, a vision whose time has come. They have articulated what we have been thinking about, and now is the time to put it all together. Our strategies and tactics will have to change in order to make a systematic adjustment to the historic “paradigm shift” that the authors are describing. From their point of view, the digital revolution will not only displace millions of workers, but will ultimately render many of our organizational systems obsolete in the next century.
Jenkins and Om-Ra-Seti also attract our attention to the legacy of black scientific achievement, which reminds me of Drs. Charles Drew, Percy Julian and Ernest Just from my student years at Howard University. Dr. Drew was a Howard medical school professor who pioneered the use of blood plasma, and created the first national blood banks. Dr. Just was a world class geneticist, and Dr. Julian was a chemist who not only created patented products, but industrial wealth through their manufacture. The authors want us to become very conscious about such black scientific and technological innovators, and to make the next generation of students aware that science and technology are black developments as well as rhythm and blues.
We are also admonished to understand the profound implications of breakthrough innovations, and to recognize a beginning period of new opportunities to solve medical, educational, societal and environmental problems. Because the world is not aware of the profound contributions that black scientific minds have had on world civilization, it tends to ignore any potential contributions we have yet to make.
What is radiantly clear in the thoughts of these two authors, is a message of hope and the ability of African Americans to master the science and technology of this current revolution. As we stand at the crossroads of time, our choice must be for greater progress and development on a level we have not previously contemplated. In the minds of Jenkins and Om-Ra-Seti, we must either accept the historic mission of KyberGenesis or expect to wake up to a problem of nightmarish proportions shortly after the dawn of the 21 St Century.
As such, this volume represents a first. Not only has it been made available in hard copy, but it is being published internationally - online. As such, it is simultaneously available domestically and throughout the world as the first electronically published book by African American authors via the Internet. I trust that this is the first, but not the last of such ambitious efforts by these two insightful authors. Their message is a wake-up call and something each of us should ponder very carefully as we approach the new millennium.
Andrew Young
Former Congressman, United
States Ambassador to the
United Nations, and Mayor
of Atlanta. Author of A Way
Out Of No Way and An Easy
Burden
*****
It has been said that the two great revolutions of this century are those of human rights and the explosion of technology. A major concern of this book is that these two revolutionary forces may be headed on a collision course, unless creative interventions are made to harmonize their potential capacity and positive energy. It’s ironic that the same liberating potential that technology offers to free mankind from many aspects of routine drudgery, poses a parallel danger that it may simultaneously relegate those who gainfully performed such routine tasks in the past, to an idle future. Such a result is more than a personal tragedy for those so displaced, it also represents a fatal danger to the social and economic fabric of our nation.
While there have been many to decry these developments, very few have been the voices proposing alternative directions, particularly with regard to the African American community and the looming disaster inherent in this current technological revolution. Continued oblivion to the demands of technological literacy, not just for employment and economic advancement, but for self-determination and development, education, public expression, cultural enjoyment and a continuing sense of community, is similar to burying our heads in the sand. In part, this is attributable to the great divide between those who know and those who care.
As authors, we have made an effort to bridge the gap. We have been equally concerned to investigate the many creative ways in which the Information Revolution (accelerated by digital technology) offers opportunities that are, and shall continue to be, available not just to black people, but to many of the “dispossessed of all races” who have been unfairly denied access to information, economic participation and self-expression.
Accordingly, this book has been designed as a wake-up call to technicians and non-technicians alike, to become vitally concerned with the sweeping technological undercurrents radically and silently changing the demographics of the future. It is intended to raise important questions of public policy and corporate concerns. It is created as an understandable primer in the language of technology, to enable policy and opinion makers to speak in relevant terms to one another.
Also, embedded in our presentation is a clear assessment and declaration that outlines the many scientific and technological contributions that black peoplehave made to usher in this new scientific millennium. Throughout the development of this project, we have been haunted by the historical facts (long obscured) that the world of scientific mastery is as much a part of the African Diaspora as its globally acknowledged rhythms and art. It has been our constant inspiration and conviction that the heritage of black people, which created the lunar calendar with which the world still marks its time, can create contemporary technological vehicles which can again benefit all of mankind. As analysts of the future, we hold high hopes for the innate potential genius of black people to uplift all of mankind, while at the same time we call attention to the potential disastrous downside of our situation, if it is left to spin out of control.
Further, we strongly stress that the new era requires a renewed commitment to intellectual and scientific pursuits; a new spirit to seize the opportunities embedded in the climate of this dynamic revolution. It requires monumental patience and qualitative time; a pulling together of various levels and dimensions of knowledge to orchestrate a plan and strategy for success. We must employ the patience of the pyramid builders, the dynamic energy and intellectual spirit of Moorish Spain, and maintain a commitment similar to the ancient ingenuity of the Dogon people in their celestial science. This is a time of great change and of great sacrifices if we are to succeed as a people in the 21st Century. It will require a dedication beyond the ordinary and a true sense of urgency to assist not only black people, but all of mankind to make this incredible adjustment and transition to the 21st Century. Indeed, there is an urgent need for the most talented black people to get beyond this present stage of complacency, otherwise the light of knowledge and progress will be extinguished for millions of our brothers and sisters.
As such, we wanted to do something other than simply write an informative book, we want to provide a beginning blueprint of the ways in which the aspirations of our people can be advanced. This is not a mere intellectual escapade being suggested here; this is intended to be the seeds of a campaign not unlike that at the turn of the 20th Century known as the Niagara Movement led by intellectuals pledged to the social, economic, and political liberation of the masses as part of a newly industrialized society. Only this time, we suspect that the masses may well be ahead of their leaders in recognizing the importance of the great work to be done.
It is therefore important to look to grassroots organizational efforts aimed at mobilizing churches, unions, public housing units, boards of education, and students as the critical change agents. The need is for a massive bottom-up demand for inclusion rather than a trickle down system of benefits.
We are clear in our assessment that the journey we take in the 21st Century will bring us either to the brink of a major economic and technological collapse, or propel us on a course to unparalleled levels of progress. Black people must decide which path they will follow in the new millennium, a decision that must be made now!
By definition digital technology is mass technology rather than class technology. It has the potential for universal relevance to every living human being regardless of language, religion, race, geography, or economic circumstance. And it has the capacity to improve upon the model of current communication systems serving universal needs in education, medicine, information, culture, government and debate. But to accomplish this, one must be part of the design process that is still at work. This book is to help assure the inclusiveness of African Americans in that global design.
*****
PART ONE
THE IMPACT OF THE
INFORMATION AGE
REVOLUTION
*****
Chapter
One
FROM
GATEKEEPERS TO
The Far Side of the Mountain
It has been a source of amazement and alarm that, in spite of the roar of public attention surrounding the advent of the Information Age as the explosive successor to the industrial era, the leadership of the African American community has yet to broadly interpret the Age’s far reaching implications for the vital interests of their constituents. The delinquency of their silence has been all the more profound, because of the palpable evidence that without major interventions, the utopian predictions of the Information Age for the society as a whole will paradoxically result in a doomsday scenario for the masses of black people. Alternatively, a clear understanding of the broad implications and susceptibilities of these tools of modern communications, coupled with information science, have the clear potential to foster unheard of strategies of liberation. The burden of this volume has been to articulate a new vision for African Americans in the Information Age.
The benefit and the burden of being black in America arise from the ability and the necessity to view the same things the rest of society sees differently. This difference is born of bitter experience, that popular propaganda is seldom predicated on the best interests of black people in particular or humanity in general. Moreover, black people harbor a justifiable skepticism that the larger society is equipped to interpret or even understand the best interests of those elements of the population it has excluded from so many of its inner sanctums. Ironically, by the very reason of such exclusion, the social perceptions black leaders hold sometimes allow them insights that are clearer and more reliable reflections of reality for the larger society as well. Contributing factors in the black/white leadership divide come from the material differences in their resources and power. In almost every sphere of life, the historic status of Blacks increases their vulnerability. Statistics affirm these differences in economics, education, health, social mobility, and even in certain areas of historical and philosophical aspirations.
Because of these increased vulnerabilities, many stresses which the majority easily survives, exceed the level of tolerance for Blacks. In this sense, observing the effects of certain conditions on Blacks may predict the later ramifications on the general public. Black people, suffering economically in the early stages of the Information Age, may be like the canary in a coal mine, forecasting climactic dangers before they become a general manifestation. Thus, as the euphoria sweeps the nation regarding the exciting expectations of the Information Age, African Americans must sound the alarm on the dangers of systematic exclusion.
On the surface, every reason exists to celebrate the proliferation of Information Age technologies. But it does not follow that information by itself can guarantee an improved quality of life or more secure democratic rights. Nor does the international migrations of information industries assure that the result will not be the lowest common denominator in wages and jobs. The propagandists insist that universally available information leads inexorably toward democracy, but they seldom acknowledge the mega-disparities that exist in the corporate versus citizens’ ability to gather, manipulate, and interpret information in politically relevant ways.
Confronted by these pressing issues, black leaders must now move forward in a new role with specific agendas, promoting the development and advocacy of reform policies and programs that can wisely pick and choose among the probable social effects of the Information Age. The result could be an early wake up call for our nation, hopefully before the negative effects of tele-cybernetics become irreversible. By fulfilling their role, black leaders can move from being gatekeepers to gatecrashers, opening up new lines of thinking and new avenues of public policy. The beneficiaries of their interventions will not only be blacks, but workers of all races, ages, and their institutions. By the same token, if at the end of the day, technology will only provide an economic haven for the brightest and the best of us - regardless of race - then we will have cold and shallow comfort in the toll that this direction will have on our society. If those of us who care, exercise influence sufficient to force the agenda of our interest on the application of technology, then we should have our fortunes rise with the whole of mankind.
It is still too early to know which will be the predominant result. In the meantime, we must do all in our power to assure that we are technically aware of technology’s positives and negatives, as each public decision is made in response to the rapidly changing world of The Age of Light. And woe be unto us if Marshall McLuhan was right when he said “the medium is the message,” for most of us are likely to be left out of understanding or enjoying a vital economic connection with either.
In the final analysis, the essence of technology ought to be service. Judged from that perspective, it remains to be seen whether the interests of the black community are served or sacrificed. Absent purposeful leadership involvement, either could be true. The deciding factor will be the extent to which those who both understand and influence the direction of technology, take into account the peculiar interests of the black community as they may well harbinger society’s interests in general. If its prime effect is to reduce the labor force to an absolute minimum in order to maximize profits or to allow jobs to follow tax breaks and the lowest wages wherever they might lead, then technology while benefiting some, will have failed us all!
DEDICATED TO THE FUTURE
This book is, therefore, dedicated to the future - not an inevitable future - but rather the future which we can design. Never before has there been a time when so much could be achieved in leveling the playing field of life through pluralistic imagination and commercial creativity, as modern computer-driven technological genius has now made possible. But we will first have to be open to a personal as well as an institutional need to change, before we can use technology to counteract social, economic, and intellectual inertia on the matters of race and ethnicity in America. Indeed, the refusal to open our minds to the discomfort of change may be the largest obstacle yet to our ultimate empowerment through technology.
In spite of its many positive potentials, the unfolding of the decade that closes the 20th Century and opens the 21st, is at best neutral. With equal facility, this epoch can irrevocably alter for good or ill the intellectual and economic disparities born of race, as well as spatial and social realities. The exercise of values in our allocation of relevant technological resources will be the critical challenge.
The factor that makes these next ten years so critical are both the unprecedented pace of emergent telecommunications and computer innovations, as well as the recognition that, unlike the agricultural and industrial revolutions, those who are left behind this time may never be able to catch up again. Moreover, the Information Age promises to impact monumentally on every area of human life, especially our social and commercial organizations, where the impact will be far-reaching and pervasive. Emergent technologies will be the keys for determining economic and employment opportunity, freedom of expression, educational attainment and meaningful political participation; all of which are tantamount to deciding who will exercise predominant power for the next hundred years. As such, we stand on the threshold of the invention of what may well become a new worldwide class distinction, or technological caste system.
While the coming of this New Age is a matter of prolific study and investigation in all of these areas, ironically it has been left to the fringe elements of the nation’s counterculture to examine its revolutionary implications for America’s black, red, and brown minorities. Indeed, if one were to judge by mainstream portrayals of high-tech beneficiaries, it would be easy to conclude that cultural “homogeneity” is to be the uniform requirement of the next century, rather than an increase in diversity implicit in the national demographic shifts in which the minorities of today will become the population majority of tomorrow. Overwhelmingly, the computer icons, advertisements, spokespersons and media campaigns are standardized to look, feel and act like their industrial creators, resulting in their not being user-friendly to minorities or their unique cultural interests. We have not only seen the creation of the Information Age invisible man, but also the invisible interests and concerns of racial and ethnic diversity excluded from hightech images. As a result, Star Treks I & II notwithstanding, we might be led subliminally to conclude that the future belongs to only the information industry’s chosen few rather than the whole population.
Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that access to technology is a fundamental entitlement, yet nowhere is such an “entitlement” given universal access. Accordingly, those of us who have been to a different mountain and seen a different promised land must now declare a different vision. Ours is a vision in which American society as well as world culture, through the marvels of technology, open themselves up to beneficial change based on a deeper and more intimate understanding of the creative differences of which they are comprised. With an appreciation for the enormity of the coming change in information access, this decade represents the last best hope to challenge the patterns of social exclusion from the past being extended and reinforced by technology into the future. The information and telecommunications revolution promises brand new games, which require that we invent new rules by which they can be played for life quality improvements rather than mere quantitative accelerations. Only then can the inherent power for change - implicit in hightechnology communications - yield results that alleviate rather than further degrade our communities. In essence, we as black people must shape and mold the emergent Information Age revolution into our own image, and establish values and morals that are consistent with our historical traditions, to ultimately benefit the world. For example, it will not be appropriate to follow the pattern of mindlessly creating video games on CD-ROM that simply entertain people in the sport of killing the enemy. We need to rethink the possibilities of such tools, so they can help to produce a generation of enlightened people!
Alas, any hope of playing by a set of new rules, demands intellectual as well as behavioral modifications of today’s leadership, not only on explicit matters of race and ethnicity in America, but the ingenuous ways in which seemingly neutral trends can help to perpetuate inequalities. In spite of the loudest protests to the contrary, minority group leaders and majority group power holders have both grown used to slow dancing with each other, while they are increasingly distanced from the growing economic and social insecurities that plague their constituents. Although it tends to be less frequently noted, educated white elites often display as little real appreciation for the material and emotional needs lying below them as certain mis-educated elite black escapees from the ghetto. Hence, the expressions of political and editorial surprise at the electoral revolts that have occurred throughout the nation in recent years, when blue collar constituencies have rejected predicted group behavior and voted with the opposition, or when opinion polls fly in the face of predictions from wouldbe pundits and opinion makers.
The establishment just doesn’t get it; the majority of people feel betrayed by both their leaders and institutions. Almost nowhere, except in dark alleys, poorly lit parking lots or celebrated talk shows, does the world of most black leaders and white power holders come together with the alienated underclass and its seething social rebellion. These social and economic distances are seriously exacerbated by mainstream communication barriers that provide little or no ongoing dialogue. The heated debates regarding black rap lyrics as well as the librettos of white heavy metal ballads, vividly illustrate the symptoms of such class warfare.
For the first time, however, walking in another class’ shoes is becoming feasible. Online computer networks can offer a new town hall. Desk top publishing promises a new public forum. Civic teleconferencing can become a new vehicle for group dialogue. Distance learning will allow a classroom to be worldwide. No longer must music, art, and theater suffer an unnatural fence. The libraries and museums of the world can be available to the most remote corners of the earth for the first time in history. Diagnostic health care can now be distributed without regard to distance between patients and national hospital specialists. Soon, with everyone able to be his or her own publisher, the means for truth-telling as an everyday Internet exchange, rather than the occasional moment, can be at hand. While the uncensored picture that emanates from down under may not always be exactly pretty, it at least promises to be far more honest and realistic than the polished products of editorial middlemen with their own hidden agendas.
Few will deny that the instant presence of television has made a tremendous difference politically during the past thirty years, whether evidenced in the civil rights marches or the fall of the Berlin Wall. By way of parallel, the problem will now be assuring that unrestrained market forces alone are not the only forces left to determine individual and group access to knowledge or set the speed limits of the Information Superhighway. This calls for the development of enlightened public policies that balance the bargaining power among the players and provide a level playing field. On such a playing field the merits of an idea will be able to withstand the onslaught of superior economic power, and this can lead to a freer and more egalitarian society than the cash register alone is likely to foster.
But before we get euphoric over these grand possibilities, we need the sobering recognition that such progress is not a self-evident truth nor a historical imperative. On the contrary, if the old rules of means tests, class advantage, ethnicity and geographical preferences are applied to these new technologies, the result will not only be the perpetuation of existing disparities, but their indelible reinforcement. And based on emerging patterns to date, the perpetuation of the old rules are clearly at work. Low income children are half as likely to have access to computers at home or in school. Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities are substantially less likely to have high-tech facilities, equipment, and technological programs of equal quality. Minority workers are disproportionately relegated to the tedious low end of automated systems, if they have any access at all. The geographical areas slated to enjoy entree to these marvelous new and costly communications systems are those least likely to include minority or low income households. In this regard, it is useful to be reminded that the majority of the world’s population has yet to be able to place its first telephone call. In the United States population pockets exist that have actually lost ground in their access to telephones in the years from 1985 to 1995, and many of these are in the very cities which boast the most advanced forms of progress in telecommunications.
All of this suggests that this new information and communications revolution could easily bypass the minority communities of America just like the infamous interstate highways of old, providing few or no meaningful access ramps unless they are carefully designed into the plans taking shape now. Indeed it has been graphically suggested that, left to their own devices, minorities are most likely to be the major road kill of the Information Superhighway, with jobs flowing abroad, while those remaining in the country have unreachable high-tech entry requirements or offer a new form of house-bound peonage without hard-won worker fringe benefits or long-term job security. All of this makes the coming decade of pivotal importance, for the next ten years will determine who goes up and who goes down on the technology seesaw. Because we share a stake in the design of the future, we must exercise the option to modify these outcomes based on direct participation in the decision-making processes which are bringing about the construction of the new Information Superhighway. But to do this we must first reinvent our leaders.
One of the most astonishing discoveries we encountered was the private sector indifference shown by the various Fortune 500 computer hardware, software, and telecommunications companies; there is essentially a lack of concern not only toward the underserved information needs of black people in general, but also toward the $450 billion appeal of the African American market. Having participated in or been aware of efforts to induce such companies to expand their high-tech marketing outreach into minority consumer niches, with only three exceptions, we have witnessed a response that has been uniformly negative. When approached, such companies retort that either blacks aren’t interested in high-tech telecommunication devices and computers, or those that are so inclined, can be readily reached through a generalized mainstream outreach.
This behavior flies in the face of the great weight of professional marketing in other areas which shows the importance of special niche market identification and promotion. Such indifference also underestimates the extent to which upper income black consumers not only exceed the general population in brand name loyalties, but also in the mainstream consumption of sophisticated electronic equipment. The consumer areas in question include CDs, hi-fi and stereo equipment buying, as well as VCRs and video cameras; all of which aggregated to a $6 billion electronic market among minorities in 1994, well above the comparable per capita expenditure of the general U.S. population. Indeed, the black market penetration of VCRs is greater than that for the household population as a whole. Consider what this might imply for CD-ROM products and other software capable of appealing to this same audience.
In a larger sense, this backward corporate attitude poses an additional threat to the long-term economic and social health of the nation based on technology diffusion. Corporate negativity toward the hightech minority market suggests the specter of an ever increasing racial and ethnic divide in technology usage, due to ineffective promotion among minorities, leading to a permanently uneven computer and telecommunication diffusion throughout the population to the national detriment of a less competitive workforce and a less just society. All of this is to underscore the fact that, left to the traditional market forces of today, those who know and those who know-not will translate to a schism of those employable or unemployable along racial and ethnic lines comparable to a distinction of class or caste. One would have hoped for a more forward looking response from that very segment of the economy that prides itself most on its creative alliance with the future. But alas, even the industrial gatekeepers who stand to collect the tolls to the Information Superhighway have shown themselves unwilling to attract additional road traffic from the minority community. This only reinforces the urgency for the black community’s internal mobilization to assure its access to the Information Superhighway and the policies that shape its path, as Malcolm X once said, “by any means necessary.”
LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD
The Adinkra peoples of West Africa have a symbol called Sankofa, of a bird in full flight with its head turned backward. Sankofa signifies the truth that no people can know where it is going if it cannot look backward from whence it came. This may be the classic recognition of all culture. Visionary black leadership will be of critical importance in how we chart our future course. Therefore, we need to be reminded of some of the historic leadership strengths and weaknesses in our community to be able to discern the one from the other in the future. Because of the peculiar ways in which our traditions of leadership have been fashioned, such hegemony may itself represent a temporary impasse to the free flow of benefits from the info-revolution. Such an examination may also identify patterns and practices that are no longer affordable in the face of current requirements. At the same time, it can highlight unique strengths to which we must hold and carry forward for future progress.
From Colonial days to the present, black leadership has primarily been a matter of damage control or the juggling of crises. Limited to operating with inadequate resources against superior material odds, faced with an ever present urgency that defied long-term planning, and originally surrounded by a constituency with limited understanding, black leaders developed peculiar leadership styles. For most, day-to-day survival was the highest common denominator. Their coping with leadership responsibilities without any management tutelage was like having to learn to read without either a dictionary or the formal rules of grammar. Trial and error mixed with innate talent and personal fortitude often led to highly subjective, if not dogmatic, management styles.
Understandably, not only did the cult of personality sometimes become a problem, but also the requirement for self-reliance was frequently at war with democratic procedures. Moreover, the role of leadership carried with it the conflicting need to project one set of characteristics to black constituents and another to the hostile white world outside the community. Accordingly, it remained for black leaders historically to adapt to special balancing acts for survival.
The traditional procession of leaders has been first preachers, then teachers, and lastly doctors and lawyers. Each succeeding wave of such leaders has had to master the means of walking in two directions at once and the ability to “hit straight licks with crooked sticks” in order to meet the approval of two racially antagonistic audiences for their every act. Preachers were the first to be mutually acceptable in both worlds because they could disguise their temporal leadership as other-worldly guidance. Teachers became acceptable because they were usually controllable public employees. Lawyers and doctors were safe agents of change in the eyes of a dominant majority because of the constraints of their essentially conservative professional guilds. Along the way sprinkles of more radical writers, entrepreneurs or labor leaders have come to the fore, but for the most part, the traditional professions historically comprised the dominant leadership profiles within the black community. This is not to deny that sports, theater, and screen celebrities were briefly elevated to leadership roles, rather it is to recognize that the principal flow of direction associated with large scale membership and affinity groups with mass self-help agendas, has come from the same basic professional core, which for the most part had the credentials of higher education as the prerequisite for its status. Through the accident of such education passed on to their children, an almost hereditary leadership class developed which has benignly perpetuated itself from the employment differentiations of old until now, with the ever present potential for gradual estrangement from its constituency.
Such leadership has accordingly mastered those messianic arts and crafts required of them. Typically some measure of entrepreneurship and personal economic success, along with a mastery of oratory and audience appeal, were their principal instruments of influence. They exercised persuasion as charismatic spokespersons or grievance-brokers with power centers. Serving as middlemen and women between two worlds, the perpetuation of their own leadership roles was sometimes as subtle a goal as the objective improvement of their followers. This irony has been aptly described in such works as Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-education of the Negro, W. E. B. DuBois’ early treatise, The Philadelphia Negro, E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoisie, and other analytic works that followed these pioneering publications.
Historically, this duality was maintained easily when the discriminations faced were palpable and universal both in law as well as in fact, as so vividly described in Gunnar Myrhdal’s American Dilemma. But with the incremental and sometimes sweeping changes brought about by a steady march of victories over de jure segregation and discrimination born of civil rights protests, litigation and legislation, a new set of inequality challenges not easily addressed by the traditional leadership styles arose; the creation of a veritable “Underclass”, the name first given the phenomena by Douglas Glasgow in his seminal book of the same name. This signaled the demarcation of a new substrata of characteristics reinforcing the factor of race as a barrier to advancement such as welfare dependence, unemployability, and the alienation from middle class ideals, values, and aspirations.
With this metamorphosis has come a kind of leadership dislocation, whereby the alternate traditions of managed protest and accommodation (which had been the black leadership’s hallmarks from precolonial days) are less certain or marginally applicable strategies. Now the issues are not petitioning for or even obtaining equality before the law, but obtaining equality in fact. With this bold reality has come the need for greater empowerment from within the black community, based on the mechanisms of self-reliance and self-improvement.
In spite of this need for a shift in emphasis, too often the traditional leadership in the black community has continued to emphasize pro forma legal remedies, which leave factual inequities beyond their reach. The cynical suggested that this resistance to change was more the result of conflicting interests between traditional leaders and those outside their social and economic class. But a more charitable view is that established leaders may have inadvertently either lost touch with the full weight of the social and economic forces newly confronting their constituents, or be at an intellectual loss for better strategies. The leadership’s personal misperceptions may be further influenced by their own relatively stable economic circumstances, which are at stark variance with the increasing numbers of those for whom they would speak. These are problems easily addressed by honest dialogue and the reconsideration of the facts, but first they must be jointly acknowledged.
Because of the many bad experiences of hostile “divide and conquer” strategies as well as leadership assassinations (both real and figurative), a general reluctance to criticize or even challenge leadership figures from within the community has arisen. Those with the temerity to challenge such blind silence, frequently have become objects of criticism themselves, branded as disloyalists or worse, agents provocateur for sinister as well as invisible racist forces. Such conspiracy theories are all the more easily promoted when partisan, regional, and monetary considerations are part of the mix. The resulting differences have led to additional strains when both sides have resorted to name calling and mutual castigation of one another’s motives, rather than addressing relevant issues objectively or collaboratively. This caused even further confusion, with the suggestion that many of the traditional civil rights remedies disproportionately benefit the traditional reformers rather than their down and out constituencies. Hence, we witness the pro and con affirmative action arguments addressed by Tony Brown in his book, Black Lies White Lies, as part of this ongoing dialogue. In addition, demagogues aplenty have practiced patterns of factual denial, which have made race and racial inequality the sole culprit for every conceivable social ill in the black community whether substance abuse, the high rates of crime, school dropout rates, low reading scores, teenage pregnancies, job unreadiness, and other social pathologies. These often radical voices have promoted a fatalistic generic excuse for failures, rather than their being attributed to personal inadequacies capable of reform and correction.
As if this were not sufficiently confusing, now comes a new breed of minstrel-like propagandists and politicians from the right, whose profession it is to heap self-blame on Blacks for each and every one of their social pathologies. For these neo-apologists, the holocaust of slavery either never existed, or if it did, it was primarily the fratricidal African’s fault. Equally unfortunate, these distorted voices have been adopted by major political conservatives as their favorite Negroes and given talk shows, widespread media access, highly visible political appointments and the like. Throughout this process, the practice is to rely on the time-honored tools of hyperbolic rhetoric, ad hominem, and emotionalism, at the cost of clarity, precision, and objective debate on racial matters. Although thoughtful analysts, thinkers, and writers have existed in the black community throughout, these more measured voices have seldom had a platform off-campus or beyond the pages of scholarly journals and outside the covers of thick volumes in fine print.
Sadly, not enough of the existing cadre of brand-name leadership in the black community are describable in terms of the future analytic needs. Too often they are content with their select roles as middlemen and women within the power centers. Some are seduced with personal benefits or benefits for those who mirror themselves, without comparable attention to those below them economically and socially with different needs. They are too preoccupied with an assured leadership status throughout their lifetime to be concerned with development of a leadership transition system within their institutions, which prepares younger and equally capable leaders to take on leadership roles after their timely retirement.
Many among this current black leadership generation, like their role models before them, have little or no appreciation for the discipline of managing information in the work they pursue. To many, personal rather than institutional decisions are indistinguishable. Few of them consult quantitative data as a required tool for strategy development. Their preference is for speculation, intuition, subjective past experience, and anecdotal information. They are content to employ statistical data only for rhetorical effect, without ever documenting the factual basis for their citations. Take for example the frequently mouthed shibboleth that, “there are more black men in prisons than there are enrolled in higher education.” To the contrary there are far more Blacks in colleges and universities and only a minority in confinement, but it is more dramatic to use shock rhetoric over the truth. An information-based scientific approach to leadership would prevent such excess.
A rigorous review of the institutions and organizations of the black community reveals a consistent absence of other systems controls common to modern institutional management. Typically this improvised approach has left key leadership figures open to willful charges of graft or financial irregularities, even when there can be no showing of criminal intent. From Marcus Garvey to the latest sensation of laid back approaches to financial accountability, these problems seem to be endemic to black institutions.
One finds similar disregard in personnel matters and staff planning. The functions of recruitment, hiring, evaluation, compensation, promotion, and dismissal in staff procedures cannot be assumed as a matter of formal routine. Typically, whatever exists in the way of written policies are rife with exceptions. All too frequently, nepotism, sexism, conflicts of interest, technical incompetence, and marginal productivity, are shown a blind eye in favor of personal loyalties, congenial personalities and all absolving “good intentions,” reminiscent of Sterling Brown’s indulgent encomium, “he mean good, even if he do so doggone po!” Because of the absence of planned maintenance, human resources and capital equipment are frequently consumed prematurely, rather than refurbished and scheduled for upgrading or timely replacement to maximize their useful lives. As a result, age-old crisis management is constantly required to meet what could be routine occurrences, leading to uncertainty, program disruptions, and recurring episodes of organizational disruption.
Similarly, local public agencies controlled by people who profess a commitment to high-minded service objectives, sometimes reflect the same shortcomings. These occasionally destabilized institutions include housing authorities, welfare agencies, churches, colleges and universities, labor unions, civic and social organizations, health centers, public school systems, business enterprises, professional organizations and a myriad of charitable activities. The ultimate price of this approach to management and operations is less effective organizations and institutions. It comes as no small wonder then that most of our leadership has been taken unawares by the revolutionary sweep of information systems and the managerial implications they generate. In large part, the crux of the problem is a lack of awareness of the necessary connection between valid information management and desired outcomes. While not universally applicable, having participated in all these activities for many years, we are embarrassed by the truth of this as well as the inveterate resistance to improvement by the very leaders who would benefit most from reform. Unless reformed from within, such leadership itself will be a principal impediment to community development and advancement. And unless reformed, such leadership will be unable to lead the black community into the Information Age.
Criticism of such practices should not be taken as personal attacks or forbidden in the name of aiding and abetting our enemies. Investigative journalism or oversight of leadership is just as indispensable within the black community as society at large. Writers must not be expected to play the ancient role of the African “praise singers,” highlighting or magnifying accomplishments and following a code of silence on anything negative. The results will only be continued widespread organizational dysfunction in a community trapped in the denial of its procedural problems, given to a collective avoidance of the responsibility for internal reform, and prone to attributing any and all shortcomings on the single external cause of racism. Most importantly, denial will serve to stifle the diffusion of information systems throughout our institutions.
With the coming of program analysis, better communications, and information systems to the black community, many of these historic proclivities will be objectively challenged. Simple computer generated spreadsheets of comparative daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual and biannual financial and performance results correlated to particular organizational units or individuals, will be able to objectify mission accomplishments alongside particularized costs. Structured reporting relationships and formal report dissemination, as well as documented peer reviews and quantitative evaluations as standard management procedures based on objective criteria and accountabilities, will go a long way to overcome subjective indulgences that cost productivity. The customary distribution of routine information to all appropriately interested parties will further enhance checks and balances on personal excesses and lead to greater confidence in the operations of the institutions we own and care about.
All of these management and information tools, while routine throughout the broader society, are still in their infancy in too many organizations and institutions within the black community. When these are newly introduced, they should not just come on the heels of a major scandal or after protracted litigation or bureaucratic guerrilla warfare. Instead, they should be routine assurances of willingly adopted group accountability consistent with modern management. In all of this, the tools of personal computers and telecommunications offer important improvements explained in detail throughout this book.
Furthermore, with the coming of the Information Age’s instant media blend of news as entertainment, a heightened mischief will result from having community spokespersons and organizations which easily lend themselves to sit-com caricatures for managerial incompetence. Therefore, an urgent need exists to identify and promote a new paradigm in community leadership of those who can master the newly available information tools and the management capacities they offer. Moreover, given the increasing complexities of the economic, social, and political issues facing the community, we are compelled to seek and promote new voices which speak in factual, managerial, and quantitative terms as additional spokespersons. Existing leaders need to attract these new voices as valuable assets for their effectiveness.
Our leaders need to be aware of the new high-tech avenues through which to talk sense with the masses and to enable these new players to assist in that mission. Equally important are the means to simplify and present complex data and concepts through desk top publishing so that the man in the street can understand, as Marvin Gaye would say, “what’s going on.” The support of black technologists must be mobilized to combat the distortions of the right-wing on complex social, economic, and political issues. We need a different type of black talk show participant than those most frequently called upon now. Fiery sound bites need to be replaced with sober analysis of the kind that only information analysts can provide. While either possibility might not have been feasible with the gatekeeper controls of traditional media (with its inherently high costs and exclusivity due to scarcity), it is now highly possible with the technological explosion of multimedia outlets.
Revolutionary multimedia systems and state-of-art telecommunications technologies include the low costs for the production and distribution of videos, upscale publications, color coded graphs, CDROM presentations, animation, E-mail, on-line networks, teleconferencing as well as the rapid transmission of personal computer data and text. Using state-of-art Internet and World Wide Web electronic delivery techniques can mean less time and less censorship of these new voices. Described in greater detail later in our book, these are the new means by which the old gatekeepers can be turned into gatecrashers. All of this means that traditional leadership talent must now be enhanced by additional technology training and exposure, to be able to understand and relate to different, more analytic, and more quantitatively verifiable requirements with which to influence public policy as well as manage community institutions. Also, they need to seek out and work with those holding such technological training and talents as a matter of routine.
While the community might well be content with an evolutionary approach to making the managerial and system reforms discussed in this book, national political realities foreclose that genteel option. With the coming of the 104th Congress of the United States on November 6, 1994, many of the public policy assumptions in favor of continued external support for African American interests were turned upside down. For example, a public monopoly for primary and secondary education, which had been the mainstay for upward mobility, is no longer a foregone conclusion. Unending welfare support can no longer be the economic staple for one third of the black community. The expectation of affirmative action to address past inequities through access to higher education, jobs, and public procurement contracts seems to be on its deathbed. The steady increase in elective political power through national, state, and local office holders may be in jeopardy of a Second Reconstruction era.
The steady erosion of economic viability in our high density urban centers sounds parallel alarms. The aggravated tendency toward oneparty politics within and without our communities poses a long-term threat of our political isolation. The loss of employment opportunities for unskilled, or even skilled labor as it has been known traditionally, promises a worldwide shift in unemployment and employability likely to be catastrophic to certain segments of the black workforce, and threatens permanent Depression-like conditions. These are the external factors that give added impetus to the need to reexamine the ways in which leadership is exhibited and exercised within the black community. With such broad-sweeping changes in required perspectives, traditional leadership types will need to undergo a radical metamorphosis to understand the rules of management, systems analysis, computer literacy, multimedia, and telecommunications, as well as their importance to understanding the domestic connection to worldwide labor and capital markets.