By Carla Thomas
The Truth Contributor
We keep asking the same question: Why can’t Black people unify? Why are we so divided on politics, strategy or even on what progress looks like? But that question in and of itself is the problem.
Black people don’t lack unity because we disagree. We lack unity because we are not fighting the same battle. We’re not even naming the same enemy. Until we really understand what we each believe the problem is, we’re going to keep talking around each other instead of to each other. What we keep calling division is something deeper than that. In in my opinion, it’s different views of our reality.
Within our community, there are at least four different ways we see the problem. And depending on which one you believe, it shapes how you think, what you support, and what you’re willing to fight for.
- The “Fix Us” Mindset -When Behavior Gets Mistaken for the Problem
Some of us have been taught that the issue is us. Our behavior, our choices, our discipline and our families. This mindset centers accountability but fails to consider context.
They’ll tell you we need more discipline, better parenting, stronger values, less blaming the system. They’re the ones who say, “How can you expect them to stop killing us if we don’t stop killing us?” “Why don’t we have the same outrage when one of us kills us as we do when the police kills us?”
So their solution is always internal correction:
“Stop making excuses.”
“Make better choices.”
“Get your life together.”
And while personal responsibility matters, this mindset becomes dangerous when it ignores the conditions that shaped those behaviors in the first place.
When centuries of systemic pressure, over-policing, economic deprivation and psychological warfare are removed from the conversation, accountability turns into blaming us instead of actually addressing what we’ve been up against.
- The “Seat at the Table” Mindset – When Access Gets Confused with Power
Others believe the problem is exclusion. So the solution becomes proximity: more representation, more visibility, more Black faces in powerful spaces. And yes, representation matters. But proximity to power is not power itself.
They’re in the photos. In the meetings. Getting the titles and the recognition. But when it’s time to actually use that access, to speak up or push back, to actually advocate for Black people, they go silent. Why? Because saying something might cost them the very access they worked to get.
And at that point, it’s no longer about opening doors. It’s about keeping their seat and protecting the very systems they claimed they were trying to change.
- The “Build Power” Mindset – When We Start Asking the Right Questions
Then there are those who look beyond individuals and optics and ask who controls the resources, who writes the rules and who benefits no matter who’s in the room.
This is a structural mindset. It understands that systems are not broken, they are functioning exactly as designed. So the work becomes about building power, not borrowing it. Ownership, collective economics, institutional strategy and long-term vision become the focus.
This is the tradition of movements that understood liberation requires infrastructure, not just inclusion. It’s not about getting a seat. It’s about building your own table.
- The “Free the Mind” Mindset – The Battlefield You Can’t See
And then there are those who understand that the deepest form of control is internal. Because if the mind is colonized, everything else follows.
This mindset asks what have we been taught to believe about ourselves, what have we normalized that was never normal, and what parts of us were erased and what replaced them?
You can have all the access, all of the resources, you can even have power and still operate from limitation, fear, and disconnection.
So the work here is spiritual, psychological, and cultural. It is the work of remembering who we were before we were told who to be.
Stop Forcing Unity: Start Building Alignment
These aren’t minor disagreements. These are completely different ways of understanding the problem. And you cannot build true unity on top of conflicting realities.
What looks like the problem isn’t really the problem. We’re measuring success differently, fighting for different outcomes and speaking from different truths. So of course it feels like we can’t come together.
The Shift: From Unity to Coherence
Maybe our focus shouldn’t be on unity, at least not the way we’ve been taught to think about it This pressure to be unified creates frustration. How are we expected to move in one accord when we haven’t even identified the problem.
What we actually need is coherence. Not everybody thinking the same. Not everybody moving the same. But everybody being honest about where they stand.
When you understand and are confident in your own perspective, you stop expecting agreement from everyone and start building with people who are on the same page. That’s where real movement begins.
The Real Question
The real question is no longer why can’t we unify. The real question is what do we actually believe is being done to us, and what are we prepared to do about it? Once that answer becomes clear, everything changes.
And from there, we get something stronger than unity: direction, power and real movement.