Dr Glenville Ash­by

Dusk is fast ap­proach­ing. On the re­clin­er, my place of re­pose, the mem­o­ries of the days float by. I drift ever slow­ly in­to a rever­ie that fails to qui­et the mind. Im­ages of Ful­ton Street and Nos­trand Av­enue flash be­fore me. They rep­re­sent West In­di­an Brook­lyn in all its hues. The noise is eclec­tic-boom box­es, car horns, whis­tles of limers and the chat­ter of pedes­tri­ans.

Here every is­land is on "dis­play." This is where I pur­chase every nu­ance of is­land cui­sine, down to the sig­na­ture in­gre­di­ents for Sun­day lunch: callaloo, coo-coo, okra, dasheen, ed­does, plan­tains, is­land spices, mau­by, even sor­rel, you name it. And to bol­ster my health I buy Com­plan, Sanato­gen, and cod liv­er oil. And when my sweet tooth acts up, I can al­ways get caramel bars man­goes, and sug­ar cane. Call­ing home? Phone cards are in abun­dance.

A cul­tur­al tran­si­tion made so easy for hun­dreds of thou­sands of our di­as­po­ra. But made easy by an­oth­er group. What an in­cred­u­lous feat to un­der­stand and serve an­oth­er peo­ple, yet so ex­is­ten­tial­ly and cul­tur­al­ly re­moved from them? Re­mark­able.

Two blocks from the "West In­di­an" gro­cer I see neon lights, so invit­ing. They beck­on our West In­di­an sis­ters in need of a man­i­cure and pedi­cure to step right in. Oh, how every need of ours is ful­filled by oth­ers. And I am tak­en up in men­tal flight. And I be­hold the grand open­ing of a Courts fur­ni­ture store in Ja­maica, Queens, an­oth­er West In­di­an heart­land.

Praise for its ser­vices to our com­mu­ni­ty rain down. An unas­sail­able ser­vice. Ir­refutable. But again, the own­ers were not like us. Why didn't these ideas sur­face and ma­te­ri­alise among our own?

And I won­der. Sure­ly, a com­mu­ni­ty should know it­self. So why are oth­ers so pro­fi­cient at serv­ing us? But not all West In­di­ans are eco­nom­i­cal­ly di­shev­elled. There is an­oth­er com­mu­ni­ty in Queens, Lib­er­ty Av­enue, where "oth­ers" are not at the eco­nom­ic helm. And I won­der.

Yet my mind nev­er strays in­to the realm of self-dep­re­ca­tion and loathing, or the ir­rev­er­ent silli­ness of group con­dem­na­tion. But I strain for an ex­pla­na­tion. Hard work­ers we are no doubt. In­di­vid­ual out­puts ever im­pres­sive. And I see the Nos 4, 5 and 6 trains rat­tle by at 5 am. In a flash, be­fore me are women and men, young and old, fo­cused and ready to labour, to sup­port their fam­i­lies-here and abroad. Long, long hours. And among us are al­so pro­fes­sion­als, and busi­ness­men. But alas, they are all sin­gle units, nev­er work­ing col­lec­tive­ly.

And in my rever­ie I see: "We are in­di­vid­u­als un­to our­selves." And there­in lies the prob­lem that has be­set us here, and every­where. Why? If we are in­di­vid­u­al­ly ca­pa­ble, why don't we ex­hib­it the same abil­i­ty at a com­mu­nal lev­el? Has it al­ways been like this?

And a wall ap­pears be­fore me and there­in is in­scribed a piece of his­to­ry: "In Ok­la­homa, 60 black towns were found­ed fol­low­ing the civ­il war. Black-owned busi­ness­es were com­mon. And in the ear­ly 1900s, Green­wood or Lit­tle Africa emerged as the black Wall Street ...likened to a mi­ni-Bev­er­ly Hills. It was the gold­en door of the black com­mu­ni­ty and it proved that African Amer­i­cans had suc­cess­ful in­fra­struc­ture."

And the words flow, ever en­light­en­ing: "The dol­lar cir­cu­lat­ed 36 to 100 times, some­times tak­ing a year for cur­ren­cy to leave the com­mu­ni­ty. Now a dol­lar leaves the black com­mu­ni­ty in 15 min­utes. As far as re­sources, there were PhDs re­sid­ing in Lit­tle Africa with black at­tor­neys and doc­tors. One doc­tor was Dr Berry who owned the bus sys­tem. His av­er­age in­come was $500 a day, a hefty pock­et change in 1910.

"Dur­ing that era, physi­cians owned med­ical schools. There were pawn shops, broth­els, jew­el­ry stores, 21 church­es, 21 restau­rants and two movie the­atres. It was a time when the en­tire state of Ok­la­homa had on­ly two air­ports, yet six blacks owned their own planes. It was a very fas­ci­nat­ing com­mu­ni­ty."

A fa­bled achieve­ment, but with a trag­ic end. And I pon­der: if it was re­al­is­able then, un­der harsh so­cial and po­lit­i­cal con­di­tions, why not now? And to what should we at­tribute Green­wood's suc­cess? Could we use that tem­plate for trans­form­ing lives in the West In­di­an di­as­po­ra?

And sud­den­ly a pre­scrip­tion for suc­cess un­folds, like com­mand­ments. It reads: love your­self. Trust in your own abil­i­ties. Trust your own. Pool your re­sources. Cre­ate part­ner­ships. Cre­ate a learn­ing and com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment at the fa­mil­ial and com­mu­ni­ty lev­el. Em­u­late role mod­els in every genre. Guide and coun­sel each oth­er. And lo I am awake, my eye­lids seem­ing­ly pried apart. And I won­der.

• Dr Glenville Ash­by is a New York cor­re­spon­dent for the T&T Guardian