The Mayans and Black America’s Future

Just about everyone knows this. According to common understanding, the Mayans predicted that the world is going to meet its demise on December 21^st of 2012.  On New Year’s Day, numerous news articles referenced this ancient prediction; in the past, religious cults have formed in preparation for it. And even Columbia Pictures made a movie a few years ago, ominously entitled “2012”, that made over $769 million dollars and is 38^th in the list of the all-time top grossing films worldwide giving all of us a frightening look at this forthcoming doomsday scenario. And with the disarrayed state of Black America at the end of 2011, another year of challenges with no solutions on the horizon might lead those of us in the African-American community to believe that the end-of-the-world prediction by the Mayans is not only a prediction, but an inevitable outcome that is facing us just right around the corner. However, this popular understanding of the foretold 2012 event could possibly be incorrect.

A closer look at a broad range of research literature written about the Mayan prediction reveals a little-discussed alternative interpretation of how things might play out for the world in 2012. According to experts who have studied the Mayan people and their culture, the event that they were anticipating and trying to communicate to future generations was not the end of the world, but the end of the world as we currently know it.  In fact, more modern-day analysis of the 2012 prediction point instead to the introduction of a new age of increased spiritual and communal awareness that in turn may lead to a period of greater widespread prosperity on the planet. This is good news for black America because it means that it is not too late to change our community’s current circumstances. If we start now to collectively strategize and plan, black Americans can actively participate and benefit from this next possible “golden age”.

Over the course of 2012, the Black Economist will be sharing information with its readers that envisions, encourages, and enables the African-American community’s transition from a group ravaged by deepening problems from a number of socio-economic challenges to a people group excelling and succeeding in the new global economy. We will do this by exploring the economic, technological, political, and cultural implications for blacks behind many of the today’s headlines. We will also provide our thoughts on the “hidden” opportunities that exist in today’s events and situations if things are viewed in a slightly different way. Just as the majority of the world is unaware of the untold alternative and hopeful Mayan prediction, we seek to bring you the untold alternative story of a bright future for black America.

Let 2012 be the start of a truly new tomorrow for all of us.