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When I mention Dr. Umar’s Everest of Challenges on the Hill of Betrayal, some might think I’m comparing starting a school to climbing Mt. Everest. No, it shouldn’t be impossible to start a school. However, Dr. Umar Rashad Ibn Abdullah-Johnson was not aiming to open just any school. He was working to launch an innovative Pan-African academy focused on re-educating Black children. The clinical psychologist, who calls himself the “Prince of Pan-Africanism,’ discussed the school-to-prison pipeline, fatherless homes, anti-family feminist influences, the unification of ALL people of African descent, and the psychological impacts of racism.
As with previous Black leaders who perished on that hill, the atmosphere around Dr. Umar Johnson and his Fredrick Douglass Marcus Garvey Leadership Academy (FDMG) became charged with the energy of betrayal. His effort to create an all-Black institution for Black boys became a powder keg, driven by the fading embers of a deeply fractured community. Yes, we need leadership for Black boys. Black girls need to be redirected from the Black feminist plantation to return to a refined version of modern African traditionalism. A realm where the Black family and the Black community thrive. However, the smell of betrayal is heavy in our community.
Call me what you want, but the Black community has some blame. We’re marred in the bitterness of disunity, and that disunity coats our tongue. Do you hear me? There’s an unbalancing tremor of dysfunctionality beneath our divided community, split into so many doomed factions: Foundational Black Americans, their voices an irate roar. The noble Caribbean people palpitate with defiance. Native Africans, their ancient spirits simmering with helplessness. Afropolitan’s worldly veneer masks deep-seated pain. American Descendants of Slavery cling to the chains that were dragged from Africa to the West. The Afro-Europeans negotiate their liminal existence.
The Global Diaspora of people of African descent is a vast and diverse community hosting the experiences and sorrows of the African people. You could probably add more to this list of doomed Black factions. Each group is like a separate constellation, orbiting shared pain but torn apart by irreconcilable differences in beliefs, histories, and aims. If you need to picture it, imagine the solar system. The sun is the PAIN, and the planets (and moons) orbiting it are the various factions of Black consciousness. The bitterness of our discord is itself another shackle, threatening any hope of unity. This is the realm where Dr. Umar Johnson chose to express his passion.
Some might argue that the concept of creating an all-Black school for Black children in the United States was doomed from the very beginning. Who was going to pay for this Pan-African school? We’d rallied behind a Black President and a Black US Attorney General with hope. Neither figure of power took action to unite or support Black causes. The President, in particular, directed the nation’s resources (“our” resources) toward radical feminism and the LGBTQIA+ movement, wrapped in colorful symbolism of inclusion. We ended up more divided than we were. Obama’s stand left a cold feeling of abandonment in the spines of many Black people.
Dr. Umar, driven by idealism, chose a nearly impossible battle —an Everest of challenges —to stand, fight, and perhaps even sacrifice his life on the hill of betrayal, where many of our heroes fell. To make matters worse for himself, Dr. Umar Johnson inflicted self-imposed limitations on his endeavour. He understood the burden of systemic disenfranchisement and the financial chains holding us back. Despite that, he chose to exclude those engaged in intercultural romance from his support network, shutting out any non-Black assistance or participation. Perhaps a fear of infiltration or a presumption of almost inevitable failure drove his decision.
Ironically, Umar’s attempt to unify the global diaspora of people of African descent is thwarted by his act of exclusion. He opted to play alone in a rigged game where the house always wins. Where all our very existence is always at stake, the bitter truth is one that most Americans choke on. We can own nothing in America. Nothing! We feel the cold sweat prickling our skin as we realize our banks, those faceless behemoths, can freeze our savings with a stroke of a keyboard, a digital guillotine severing us from our self-determination. The capitalist system in the United States is designed to keep us perpetually teetering on the edge of economic ruin.
The system compensates with promises of a second chance at prosperity while silently tightening its grip on our ability to retain wealth. Our American Dream is like a snowflake in the air — it appears beautiful from a distance but melts away when held in our hand. Therefore, the smart ones don’t save ALL their wealth or assets in American banks or on American soil. They invest a portion of their wealth there for business purposes. Yet, they funnel their profits out and hide them elsewhere. The authorities will rewrite the rules as they see fit, with their interests paramount and their power absolute. That means Dr. Umar could never have owned FDMG.
In the US, authorities have the power to seize homes, savings, cars, businesses, and any valuable possession. They can take your children and place them in foster care. They can also take away your life and make you vanish from memory. Additionally, they can imprison anyone, including you and me. It’s the wild, wild west. Imagine the taste in your mouth from the emptiness of eviction. You pay exorbitant rent, which feels like a drain—an endless tax on your life. Last year, we watched as Donald Trump, a former US President at that time, faced the possibility of spending the rest of his life in federal prison. Remember, Trump is also a billionaire.
Even if you manage to finance your home in the United States, the illusion of security fades. High mortgage payments become a suffocating burden that binds you to a 9-to-5 for 30 years. Billionaires have their billions in ‘I owe yous’ in the form of vouchers and stock. Do you want to buy your house with cash? That only invites property tax vultures, whose greed is as evident as sharp beaks and claws, digging into your dwindling resources. That’s because someone already owned the land on which your house stands. That someone is far more powerful than you. The illusion of buying land or any building in the US only masks the fact.
Dr. Umar Johnson should have saved his funds in a Ghanaian bank account (he’s a Ghanaian citizen), for example. He should have built his school in another country. Rent, mortgage, and property taxes form a crushing trio that drains you regardless of how you secure a roof over your head. A roof that, in truth, can never be entirely yours. This is the financial gulag, the American Dream a cruel joke played on the unsuspecting masses. Forget the airy pronouncements of the free US market. It isn’t about economics. It’s about control. It’s about the metallic tang of fear in your heart, the clenching in your gut as you realize your vulnerability.
Finally, Dr. Umar wouldn’t remain silent. He continuously voiced his plans and counted his chickens before they hatched, showing a lack of strategic organization in silence. Skip the superficial debates about Black boys needing a father, or Black queens forever. It’s those same Black queens who show up to dick-shame him whenever he rolled in the hay with one of them. The very Black fathers are the ones calling him a scam. This is where the disunity in our community becomes evident. We not only lack significant contributions to support the development of this Pan-African school, but we also have not fully united behind any recent cause.
That’s why I believe all factions of Black consciousness movements, from Pan-Africanism to Foundational Black Americans, American Descendants of Slavery, and Afropolitans, are all doomed. Let’s go straight to the core, revealing the harsh truth of this rigged game. To claim your wealth, you must find a bank that’s not under the jurisdiction of the United States. Build your fortress in a country that only requires one property tax payment at the time of purchase. Not one that requires you to keep paying taxes simply for owning the establishment. Dr. Umar would have had his FDMG today if he had launched it in Africa. But he chose Delaware, of all places.
