A View from a Pew: Stop Begging. Start Building.

From where I sit — from this pew — history keeps whispering a lesson we don’t always want to hear: You don’t ask the system that broke you to rebuild you. You don’t go back to the plantation asking for freedom papers. You build freedom.

Now slow down before emotion jumps in the driver’s seat. This isn’t anger. This is analysis. Every other culture understands something we keep debating. They circulate their dollars among their own. They protect their image. They defend their institutions. They build networks that stretch from neighborhood storefronts to corporate boardrooms. They don’t apologize for it. They don’t hold town halls about it. They simply do it. But too often, we keep trying to fit into a structure that was never engineered with our prosperity in mind — and then we act surprised when the outcome doesn’t change.

From this pew, I’ve learned something about systems: A system does what it was designed to do. If I reach into a snake den and get bit, I don’t blame the snake. It’s behaving according to its nature. The system protects itself. That’s not bitterness — that’s structure. So why do we keep expecting a structure built without us to suddenly prioritize us?

What troubles me most is not what outsiders say about us. It’s when we echo it. When racist tropes surface — caricatures meant to dehumanize our former Black president and family to question their dignity, to strip their humanity — and some of us repeat them in the name of “independent thinking,” we are not being bold. We are reinforcing narratives that were designed to weaken us.

We can critique one another. We should demand accountability. But there’s a difference between correction and participation in our own humiliation. From this pew, I will never side against my own people just to win an argument.

Here’s a lesson that hits hard the first time you truly understand it: Politics is not just controlled by those who vote. It’s controlled by those who fund, finance, and influence. Voting matters. But ownership determines leverage.

That means the real question isn’t, “Who’s in office?” The real question is, “Who owns the infrastructure?”

Own the school. Own the grocery store. Own the land. Own the bank. Own the curriculum. Own the narrative. Respect in this world is rarely given to those who request it. It is extended to those who control resources.

Let’s stop pretending we lack the ability. There was a time when Black communities built entire ecosystems. There were over 60 all-Black towns in America. We had banks. Hospitals. Transportation systems. Schools. Insurance companies. Farms. Newspapers. Look at Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma — often called “Black Wall Street.” It was a thriving, self-sustaining economic powerhouse before it was destroyed in the Tulsa Race Massacre. The reason we hesitate to rebuild isn’t lack of talent. It isn’t lack of money. It isn’t lack of intelligence. It’s psychological fear. “What if they destroy it again?” Hear me clearly: You don’t stop planting because somebody once burned a field. You plant smarter. You insure it. You protect it. You multiply it. This is not 1921. We have legal protections. We have global visibility. We have digital infrastructure. We have millionaires, athletes, entertainers, pastors, educators, entrepreneurs. What we lack is unified economic strategy.

For generations we’ve stood in the courthouse of the very structure that denied us justice — asking it to validate our humanity. Freedom is not granted. It is organized. When you have institutions, you negotiate from strength. When you control capital, you negotiate from leverage. When you are unified, you negotiate from power.

From this pew, I am not looking for a political messiah. No man — Black or white — is coming to save us. Salvation in a civic sense looks like ownership. It looks like cooperative economics. It looks like land acquisition.
It looks like mentorship pipelines. It looks like circulating the Black dollar more than a few hours.

This is not a sermon of anger. It is a sermon of ownership. We are strong enough. We are gifted enough. We are resourced enough. The question is not what the system will give us. The question is:
What are we willing to build for ourselves? And when we answer that — not with hashtags, not with arguments, not with viral outrage — but with land deeds, business plans, investment clubs, and cooperative institutions — something powerful will happen. That same system we keep knocking on will start knocking on us. Because nothing commands respect like self-sufficiency.

I’m not preaching resentment. I’m preaching unity. I’m preaching ownership. Stop begging. Start building.