Community isn’t the answer

Loving the irony of the title “community is not the answer” and then the first thing that comes to my mind to write is based on not 1 but 2 black owned businesses. Shout out to To My Sisters podcasts in the UK (Courtney and Renee) and Wealth I am (my friend in real life from the US of A Nehanda Julot)

I am a weekly listener of the To My Sisters podcasts (hencefore TMS) where I listen with interest as these fine young ladies give there 2 cents on similar topics as I cover on the “Glowing and Growing” journey. However I always take what they say with a pinch of salt. The TMS premise is that we need to build a community of “sisters” who put emphasis on their platonic friendships to benefit society. I love their stuff and I’m really glad that they do what they do and highlight that all the relationships in your life need work to varying degrees. However I must disagree most strongly on the point of community.

Meanwhile I read a story from Wealth I am’s newsletter which resonated with me so much I messaged my friend Nehanda to praise her for it. She deals in stories talking about peoples relationships with money. It rebutted the concept of “I don’t win unless we all win” and it struck a chord with me.

So lets talk facts about me. I grew up poor. Yes I said it and I have nothing but love and respect for my parents who worked themselves to the bone to provide for me but even when I lived in London I lived in relative poverty (that’s another blog post) My peers would go on holidays and have new cars and their parents would buy their own houses, I didn’t go on any sort of holiday until 7, then again at 16. I wore second hand clothes/homemade clothes (all of which were beautiful and to a professional standard) and also my parents were last to hit any goals such as new car and owning their own home.

The next fact was I grew up in a rich community, I loved it. I loved being Sierra Leonean, I still like it. Someone is always looking out for you. I have 5 grandmas I have more aunties than you can imagine, barely 20% have any sort of blood relation to me. I grew up in “the black community” I had grandmas and aunties cooking Jolofrice for me and most importantly, shaping my character. We helped our neighbours, my parents where incredibly active within the community. My dad helped set up the Sierra Leone Fellowship, a charity in South West London which was started to bring aid and redevelopment after the 1997 war. He was its first President. He was President of the Wesley Guild and a church council member. My parents lived community. Helping everywhere they could.

And do you know what? It is draining. No one helps you, people pigeon hole you. You are the helper, therefore no one comes to your aid when times get tough for you, in fact they expect you to continue to help them. Its not just money, its time and emotional energy that you take for this. And I highly don’t recommend. Because at the end of the day, you too are human.

Boundaries are important and in the “community” they are not encouraged. Therefore the only thing that can help you is culturally condemned. People see it as you being selfish and stuck up.

Next, the main body of what I have to say today is that it encourages really, really, really unhealthy behavours. Growing up I saw some real con-artists because there is the safety net of the “the community” Something that is unique to Sierra Leone is the plight of abandoned children.

Abandoned children are not orphans, that is the saddest part. They have parents, their parents don’t want them. Their parents are healthy and even go on to have other children. However they don’t want that child in particular. They instead leave them with a relative guilting the relative knowing that otherwise the kid would be in the hands of the state and that really is a bad option in the UK.

But no one ever thinks about the mental state of the child that has been abandoned by his/her parents and then the parents go on to have more kids. The self esteem issues must be enormous. But in a community setting the parents aren’t condemned for their irresponsibility, nor are they required to take back the children they have abandoned. They just get to live their lives picking and choosing what they get to be responsible for. I actually grew up with a couple of these kids and looking back, you can see the self esteem issues manifesting themselves in their behaviours, often seen as problematic.

Then lets talk about financial irresponsibility- sweet heaven.

My mum paid for my cousin to go to medical school in Ukraine (she graduated 9 months before the war) My mum has met that cousin less than 5 times in her life. The total cost of the schooling was over £30,000. Roughly what my mum gave me as a deposit for my house and 6 time the amount of money my parents spent on me getting the professional qualification that got me where I am today.

My cousin is the daughter of my mum’s older sister. Who is a Principal of a private school, her late husband (he died during his daughters university education) was an engineer. These are middle class/upper class people. So let me break it down. From birth to university is 18 years in Sierra Leone, which meant that my aunt had 18 years to save for university education for her own daughter but didn’t. she better than anyone could have assessed that her daughter was worthy of medical school and could have started saving towards it. It may not have been the whole £30k but if she had 1 years fees it would have been something. Instead my mum footed the entire bill. Funnily enough this same aunt named her elder daughter after my mum, however my mum paid for the university of the younger daughter. I in turn am named after this specific aunt.

So pray tell me, if my mum wasn’t here and able to pay £30,000 for a niece she’s met between 1-3 times what would have happened to Dr Jones? Would we have had a Dr Jones in the family? Theres I bible verse. “ I look up to the hills, where does my help come from, my help comes from the Lord” I feel people take that too literally. Are you really playing fast and loose with your daughter’s future? Yes everyone says my late uncle was financially useless and spent the family money, however that is the man you married and that is the child’s father. You are the product of your parents circumstances. If your Father drank your university fund away, then he did that with his eyes wide open and if he loved drink more than seeing his daughter become a Dr, that is his choice and he made it. This is not cruel however I believe we should do things with our whole chest. This is one of them, drink that rum with your whole chest and be content that when your daughter doesn’t make it in life, be proud of the choices you made on her behalf. Don’t look to the hills and pray someone else is going to solve your problems.

Then you have the obligation. My main problem with the “community” is because I’m someone people consider to have “Made it.” As a result it is my responsibility to lift everyone else out of the pits of their own bad decisions. For example, I’ve been guarantor on a house, I’ve helped my parents with their own financial misadventures on multiple occasions and I have leant my car to “my uncle” which involves taxing and insuring a car that could be declared off the road in order to make it available for his convenience. Everything I do is not my own, but I have to live to help other people. People who did not pour into me or help me grow, and some people that did. However the nature of favours or community isn’t transactional. Its based on a deeper understanding of “when I have an opportunity, I’ll pass your kindness on” however my parents generation was the baby boomer generation and Gen X who are professionals at pulling the ladder up. Things that benefitted them they make sure to pull the ladder up so they never have to pass on the kindness. If we want to build a community, we need to go back to basics, but we also need to remember that no one thing can be the solution to your problems, today community might help you, but community can’t be the only thing that helps you. You need to help yourself. Maggie Thatcher once said “there is no such thing as society” which she got blasted for. I don’t agree with her but I understand her.

Then there is the cultural obligations. “community” really means “women” you never see a man helping you. I have 1 exception of a family friend who we did extraordinary kindness to just before dad got sick, as a result the husband and wife when my dad was sick would drive to Hampshire from Kent (across 2 counties) to bring literally life extending porridge to my dad. In his final days it was the only thing he’d eat. That was last year. The man still comes to trim my mum’s hedge from time to time and keep her company. That is the exception that proves the rule. Other than my dad, you never see men helping. Which is what made my dad so exceptional, he broke the mould.

Community also is used when someone needs a favour, when everyone is doing well on their own they see no need for community unless it is an audience to rub in everyone’s faces how well they are doing. No humility.

Based on that basis why would I want to hang out with you? Why would I want to comfort you when you are down? I’m not, as I often say, running for Pope or a sainthood. I need to be a Christian, not Holier than Thou. And you?

You need to be your own best friend.

Grace and Courage

Annetta Mother Smith