"Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Sociology. She has written for the New York Times and has three books forthcoming with Penguin Random House."
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ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS
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As a fellow writer, I was flooded with mixed emotions while listening to this brilliant young lady’s flawless performance at the Joe Biden's Presidential Inauguration ceremony. As a Black man I was bursting with pride at her absolute brilliance, while as a writer of well over 30 years, my heart bled at the glaring recognition that I’m obviously not all that. But as a human being, I take great pride in the fact that my first emotion greatly overwhelmed the latter.
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Beyond the eloquence of Amanda’s words, her essence blared an undeniable message to all those who suffer the desperate need to delude themselves regarding the acuity of Black intellect. ‘Inferior? I don't think so. You are right to feel threatened, because while you’re out screaming revolution, chanting "you won't replace us", and breaking windows, we're quietly breaking the shackles of the past’. . Amanda’s extraordinary brilliance also sent a stirring message to her people – ‘What we causally dismiss as mere soul, is in reality, unfettered creative greatness, straining to be set free’.
BLACK LIBERATION MUST BEGIN WITH BLACK EXCELLENCE
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Black liberation will only exist as Martin's dream until we seize control of our own destiny, and the only way we can accomplish that is by educating ourselves and modifying the cultural mores we were taught during slavery, and later, during the Jim Crow era. We can get out and shout, scream and demonstrate until the cows come home, but all that’s going to do is possibly gain redress on atrocities that’s been committed against us one incident at a time - and even then, only after the atrocities have already been committed. Clear evidence of that is the fact we’re still demonstrating over the very same issues that Martin and Malcolm were fighting to correct over 50 years ago.
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The root of the problem is that we’re being “managed” by others, and we’re stuck in the attitudes and behaviors that our “handlers”ingrained in us over generations. That places us in the exact same position as a pet, and no pet has any control over its owner, or how it’s treated by that owner. He’s completely at the owner’s mercy. But Black people are not pets. We have options, but in order to avail ourselves of those options we must free ourselves of our “training” by re-educating ourselves and gaining intellectual independence.
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In a previous article, “The Grits and Gravy Debate,” I pointed out the following:
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“Many Black people contracted a serious mental disorder during slavery, and it's been passed down through the generations over the years. It entails an innate distrust and disdain of our own people, the lack of focus and a seeming inability to prioritize, and the tendency to be disagreeable and hostile toward anyone who challenges the status quo. That attitude makes it next to impossible for Black people to come together and organize to improve our condition - and it also serves to insure the stability of the White supremacist system.
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“Even Martin Luther King was initially criticized by the Black church for causing an unnecessary disturbance to the status quo. They told him to stop rockin' the boat and just pray on it, and eventually racism and bigotry would work itself out. That mindset is so pronounced within the Black community that Malcolm was even killed by his own people. The White man has done his job well, so if we want to move forward in a society that has the odds stacked against us, we must learn to stick together, organize, focus, and make knowledge and a dedication to serious pursuits what it means to have “soul.” We must seek to own the racetrack, instead of just being the horse.
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So we must learn to stop just blindly accepting the statu quo. When the cops shoot and kill an unarmed Black man in his own backyard, what do we do? We go crying to White politicians for justice. We do that because we just blindly accept what we’ve been taught - that politicians are our leaders. But the fact is, that politician that we go crying to is not our leader, he’s our employee. So we’re, literally, living our lives by allowing the tail to wag the dog, but that’s only the case because we allow it to be.
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We must learn to take control of our lives and place ourselves in a position where we don’t have to beg and cry for justice, but demand it. But of course, we can’t out-scream the White man, because he controls the media, and we can’t out-fight him because we're only 13.3% of the population and he controls the military and police. But while those things might be true, we can out-think him, and Black people have both the intellect, and the proven creativity to do just that; we simply have to refocus it, and that’s exactly why the Black community must make the pursuit of knowledge our number one priority. Again, we must make knowledge the new “soul.” Instead of Black people being world renown for how much rhythm we have, we must refocus our intellect and creativity on becoming world renown for how much knowledge we possess, and with just a little effort we can do just that.
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The Republican Party has been mounting a brutal assault on our educational system for nearly forty years now, and there’s a reason for that - they know that it’s incumbent upon them to keep America ignorant and uninformed, because people who are informed and highly educated tend not to vote Republican. Highly educated people have both the intellect to see through conservative propaganda, and the knowledge to know their history and agenda. Once we begin to recognize that fact, we’ll also recognize the opportunity that it provides the Black community. Since the GOP is leaving no stone unturned to keep America ignorant and uninformed, we should leave no stone unturned to obtain as much education and knowledge as we can. Thereafter, we can use our exceptional knowledge to level the playing field against White supremacy. Black people could quite easily use their innate intellect and creativity to become the most educated group in America - Black women are already accomplishing that goal; now all we have to do is get the brothers onboard:
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BLACK WOMEN ARE NOW THE MOST EDUCATED GROUP IN AMERICA
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“Black women are now the most educated group in US, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
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“Between 2009 and 2010, black women earned 68 per cent of associate's degrees, 66 per cent of bachelor's degrees, 71 per cent of master's degrees and 65 per cent of all doctorate degrees awarded to black students.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-women-become-most-educated-group-in-us-a7063361.html
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But many Black men have an aversion to the active pursuit of knowledge. They tend to focus their considerable intellect on trying to be cool and other macho pursuits, like trying to be perceived as ladies men and players. There's a reason for that. During slavery, the only Blacks that field slaves knew who spoke anything that even resembled "proper English" were the house slaves, and they were looked upon with disdain, because the house slaves tended to look down their noses at the slaves who worked the fields. As a result, even though many Blacks fail to realize it on a conscious level, a negative attitude has been passed down through the years towards anything that reminds us of the house slave (or "house nigga")–and that includes articulate speech, and the desire for academic excellence. . That explains why we hear obviously intelligent young Black people going around saying things like "What it is?" or "What it be like?" Many of these young people can speak better English than White people, but they tend to believe that they have a moral obligation to sound ignorant in order to demonstrate that they take pride in their Black culture. So what does that say about their underlying mindset? It says that they equate the Black culture with ignorance, and that's a toxic mindset, because you are what you think. .
That also accounts for why we hear so many Black Ph.Ds on national television quoting Tupac instead of Langston Hughes or James Baldwin. Essentially, it's a public apology for being a seeker of knowledge. The message is, "Yeah, I've got an education, but don't worry about it - I'm still one of you." This attitude also accounts for the question that arose regarding whether Barack Obama was "Black enough", and why there was so much pressure on Obama to attend functions like Tavis Smiley's "State of Black America" talkfest - they wanted him to prove that he hadn't been "tainted" by his pursuit of excellence.
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We've got to get away from this kind of thinking - first, because it sends our young people the message that they have a moral obligation to remain ignorant and on the bottom rung of society in order to prove their worthiness as truly Black, and secondly, because it leaves us unprepared to face the new realities of the world around us. The Black community has both the intellect and the resources to move to the very top of this society, and we must begin to utilize them both. Thereafter, we won't have to tell others that Black lives matter, we can show them. So, "What it is?" - it's stupid not to get on our job.
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BLACK RESOURCES
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The African American community controls as much spending power than the Gross National Product of Germany - $1.1 TRILLION - the third richest industrial nation in the world, so why are we whining to the White man to provide for our needs? . Dr. James P. Neelankavil, a professor of marketing and international business at Hofstra University, says in his book, International Business Research, that "Since the output of a country is an indicator of its economic activity, the GNP [Gross National Product] is often used as key factor in evaluating a country’s economic strength. The five largest countries in the world based on their GNP are the United States, $7 trillion; Japan, $2.5 trillion; Germany, $1.1 Trillion; France, $873 billion; and China, $393 billion." .
So based on Professor Neelankavil’s data, the African American community’s buying power of $1.1 trillion is equal to the economy of Germany, the third largest industrial economy in the world. We control $127 billion more than France, and $607 billion more than the gross national product of China. So why was it that in the 2014 midterm election people like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West were running around suggesting that due to high unemployment in the Black community, Black people would be justified in sitting at home, not voting, and thereby, letting the Republican Party win governorships around the country, and take over the House and Senate? There’s something wrong there. Either they, and their ilk, are grossly uninformed - in which case, they need to keep their mouths shut and educate themselves - or they’re in active collusion with the GOP the Black community’s worst enemy, and the domestic enemy of the United States as a whole. And with respect to Smiley, that's not as speculative as one might think. Tavis Smiley was given national exposure by Walmart, the most conservative and worker-hostile corporation in the United States. . So the Black community has got to educate itself, and stop listening to political demagogues, Black or White. Before we can do that, however, we're going to have to get the people’s attention and get everybody on the same page in order to mount a collective effort. How are we going to do that? That’s easy. We’re going to have to start with our churches. . The Black community is going to have to put pressure on our Black churches to form a consortium and remain open 7 days a week to provide community services instead of having preachers just give spoken-word concerts every Sunday and then taking Black wealth out of the community. We must insist that they begin to perform community services instead of just running their mouths. They should be hiring unemployed mothers to provide low-cost childcare for working mothers, and enlisting their retired congregants to provide professional tutoring in music and the arts after school. These professionals could teach our young people to play musical instruments, write poetry and prose, perform modern dance, and even instruct them in dress design and computer programming. The churches could also organize sports teams, and put on fashion shows, and concerts. They could also serve as political action and education centers where the people can meet, organize, get to know one another, and learn the value of patronizing the businesses in our own community instead of just driving past on their way to Walmart. After all, the Bible says, "IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM" - John 8:39. Thus, according to the Bible, talk is cheap. . If we would just learn that, we wouldn’t have to say a word to politicians, because as our local Black businesses began to prosper, and Walmart and the other White businesses began to feel the pinch of losing their cut of our $1.1 trillion, it would say it all - that it’s a new day in the Black community. Then, instead of shunning us and telling us to go sit in the corner, they’d start catering to us; and if a cop shot a Black child, or upset the Black community in any way, all hell would break loose, because the politicians would know that we were gonna come after them in force, and in solidarity, on election day. And the White business community would be up-in-arms because they wouldn’t want to loose any more of the trillion dollars they’re competing for in the community due to our anger. .
Then once we've gotten everybody on the same page and established our community's clout, we could begin to encourage Black entertainers and athletes to invest in the community, and get awards shows like the Soul Train, and B.E.T. Awards to use their platforms to honor our young Black scholars and the people of outstanding achievement in the community. The entertainers would still play a role, but their role would be to entertain and pass out awards, instead of strutin' up on stage to receive them. If we did that, it would send the message to Black youth that the pursuit of Black excellence is cool, and it could bring them national notoriety.
. Another thing it would do is offset the White establishment attempt to portray the excellence of Barack Obama as a once in a generation aberration. By organizing to do the things pointed out above, we would not only motivate and refocus the mindset of our young people and the community, but demonstrate to the world that the Black community is filled with thousands of Barack Obamas. In addition, when our community leaders spoke to the various politicians, they’d speak with the clout of an employer to an employee, as it should be.
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WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THIS
YOUNG BLACK MAN WOULD BECOME
ONE OF THE GREATEST PRESIDENTS IN
AMERICAN HISTORY? . PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA JUDGED 8TH GREATEST PRESIDENT
IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
DONALD TRUMP CAME IN LAST AT 44TH
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President Barack Hussein Obama came in as the 8th greatest president in American history after Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Harry S. Truman and Dwight Eisenhower in the 2018 Presidents and Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey. Donald Trump came in dead last in 44th place. The Survey was based on 170 responses from current and former members of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics Section.
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/19/politics/trump-lincoln-presidential-greatness-survey/index.html .
. THAT'S WHO YOU REALLY ARE
. Eric L. Wattree wattree.blogspot.com Ewattree@Gmail.com . Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.Sphere: Related Content
The video above was a share from Roslyn Russell and Perman Wilson on FaceBook, and it made my eyes moist, not only because of the beautiful message it sends, but because of what this great lady represents. When I listened to it the years melted away and the memories began to flood in on how the beauty, grace, and excellence of this fabulous lady has enhanced my life over the years.
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The first time I heard Nancy Wilson it was on an album that my mother bought called “Nancy Wilson and Cannoball Adderly.” When my mother played it I was on my way outside to play, but when the bittersweet passion of Nancy's flawless voice filled our livingroom, it stopped me dead in my tracks, even though I was a mere child of 11 years old at the time. I sat down and listened to the entire album - including the alternating tracks of Cannonball’s group doing instrumentals.
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When the album was done I went to look at the album cover to see who this supremely talented lady was. Then when I picked up the album and laid eyes on her, I instantly fell madly in love, and even though she’ll be turning 80 years old in February, it’s a love affair that I still haven’t managed to overcome.
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For me Nancy was, and is, the embodiment of the perfect woman. She’s the reason that I’ve always loved women, and over the years it’s turned out that all of my best friends are woman, because for me, they all have some element of Nancy Wilson in them. Nancy’s beauty, eloquence and class helped to put me in touch with a part of myself that many men don't like to visit due to our predatory nature. Yes, we love women, but our outlook is often very superficial - we like what they look like and what we can do to, and with them, but we often don’t see them as real human beings with the same needs and desires that we have in life. But Nancy gave me an affinity for women, and helped me to view reality through their eyes. She opened a door to their world that gave me a unique view of the beauty, tenderness, and strength that women have to offer. And listening to her lush and sophisticated serenades over the years helped me to understand very early in life that there was nothing “soft” or “unmanly” about walking through that door and joining them in their world - a world of children, love, and sincerity. She taught me to trade in machismo for passion, and as a direct result, I’ve enjoyed a life of maturity, tenderness, and pure romantic joy.
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THANK YOU, NANCY, FOR REMINDING US THAT MUSIC IS NOT JUST ABOUT WEALTH AND FAME, IT'S ALSO ABOUT LIFE, AND THE LEGACY THAT WE LEAVE BEHIND.
A Sensible Response to White Supremacy Let Excellence Do Our Swaggerin'
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ADVERSITY MAKES YOU MORE, NOT LESS
I'm sick to death of continuously hearing so-called Black "intellectuals" talking about how the "White Supremacist" system is holding the Black man down. While we should always be at war against any and every kind of supremacy - White, as well as religious, ideological, sex and class - can't these so-called intellectuals see that if they concede that White Supremacy can hold the Black man down, they're also conceding that the White man is indeed superior!!!?
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The complaint is directly analogous to a man going home and telling his wife and family that he can't feed them because "Willie won't let me." Any real man would die before he'd go home and admit that, because he'd immediately recognize that if Willie can prevent him from feeding his family, that means that Willie is more of a man than he is. Thus, every time we say, "The 'White man' won't let me," we’re admitting cultural impotence, and also reinforcing the idea in our own minds that the White man is indeed superior to us. It shouldn’t take Socrates to see the simple reality in that logic.
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The White man is not our daddy. We're the masters of our own fate - or should be, unless we think of ourselves as children - so it's time for these "intellectuals" to come clean with the Black community. Nobody's going to GIVE us anything, and that includes justice. The only way that the Black community is going to get its piece of America's pie is to make ourselves strong enough to demand it, and competent enough to hold on to it.
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But there's a reason that these professional poverty pimps won't tell us that - because they know that once we begin to realize that reality, we will no longer need them as our highly paid envoy to the White man. So instead of telling us what we NEED to hear, they're telling us what we WANT to hear, because that's what they get paid to do, to make us feel comfortable in our misery, and in our rapid decline into irrelevance. Isn't it curious how they can continuously tell us that it's the White man's fault that we're in poverty, yet, they're just as Black as we are, but none of them are in poverty. Why is the White man giving them a pass?
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While I understand that "the White man" has a system in place that is designed to give him the upper hand, all the whining in the world is not going to change that system. How long have we been whining so far, and what has it done for us? It hasn’t done us a damn bit of good, has it? No it hasn’t, and it never will.
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The fact is, we will never be able to out-whine, out-scream, or out-fight, the White man. The only way we’re going to overcome the denigrating affects of his system is to OUT-THINK him. So what we need to do is shut up and stop telegraphing our every thought, turn off BET, MTV, and ESPN, and then start educating ourselves so we’ll have something of substance to bring to the table. And this is the perfect time to do that.
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The powers that be are currently embarked upon an agenda designed to dumb-down the entire poor and middle class segment of this society, because the fact is, we’re currently knee-deep in a not so covert class war. What the paleo-conservatives (social bigots) fail to realize - at least, at this point - is that the fiscal conservatives (corporatists) don’t care any more about them than they do Blacks, gays, or women. So while the corporatists are engaged in dumbing the rest of society down, if the Black community had the insight to start quietly embracing education and knowledge, that would serve to level the playing field that we’ve been traditionally complaining about - and what makes this the perfect plan is, knowledge is free. The only thing necessary to obtain it is to want it, and to have sense enough to respect it.
. The root of the problem that we’ve traditionally had in the Black community is our attitude toward knowledge. As a direct result of our history of slavery, we’ve developed a sort of aversion to knowledge. We tend to equate the pursuit of knowledge with selling out. We see knowledge as part of the White man’s domain, so we look upon Black people who have a love of knowledge with disdain, because we see them as "trying to be White."
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The reason for that is simple. During slavery the only Black people we knew who spoke anything close to proper English were the "house niggas," and many house niggas had a tendency to look down their noses at those of us who worked in the field. As a result of that experience, today, even highly intelligent Black people will often try to hide their intelligence, because, ironically, over the years we’ve developed an attitude where many feel that we have a moral obligation to remain ignorant in order to prove that we take pride in being Black. Think about that. Isn't ironic that many of us embrace ignorance as a sign of Black pride? That's why you hear educated young Black people going around saying things like, "What it is?" or "What it be like?" They know that's improper, but they see it as giving credibility to their pride in being Black.
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That’s one of the weapons that’s being used against President Obama by many envious Black intellectuals. They’re trying to convince the Black community of the following:
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"I’m cool - see my long, wooly Afro, how cool I act, and how I can quote Lil’ Wayne when I’m on stage? I’m one of y’all. I just have enough intelligence to speak the White man’s language, so I’m keeping an eye on him for the people. But that Obama, he’s not like us. He don’t have no Afro, he don’t never quote Lil Wayne, and he’s obviously much too intelligent to be trusted as a genuine Black man."
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People like those mentioned above, while posing as intellectuals themselves, are reinforcing a negative attitude towards knowledge that we desperately need to get past. And at the same time, they're promoting a negative stereotype of the Black male that even we embrace. Instead of quoting Lil' Wayne, they should be on a mission to get the kind of ignorance he's spewing banned from Black households. But they can't do that, because in spite of the damage that his message is doing to Black youth, they're afraid that if they speak out against him too aggressively it might damage their street creds.
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Now, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that we should go on a mission to destroy the careers of hip hop artists like Lil' Wayne, because he's a victim of the system as well. But it is incumbent upon the community to place pressure on artists such as Wayne to modify their message and image so as not to send ten minute commercials around the world with their every video that negatively profiles the Black community.
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That sort of pressure is nothing new. During the sixties and seventies even James Brown had to cut off his process and start sending the message that "I'm Black and I'm Proud," and any Black activist, entertainer, or athlete who didn't actively support the dignity of Black women and the upward mobility of the Black community didn't get our support.
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It is essential for all high-profile Black people to represent the Black community in a serious and dignified manner, because most of what we think we know about ourselves comes from the very same sources and stereotypes that informs White Americans about who we are. That's a serious problem in our community because we've allowed ourselves to buy into a negative stereotype of ourselves that’s destroying the self-image of our youth, and our popular culture has not only embraced this negative stereotype as a romantically heroic image, but it’s embellishing upon it. Then we complain about being profiled by society, when we’re actually profiling ourselves! Much of our popular culture is nothing less than an updated version of Stepin'- Fetchism.
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So instead of benefitting from the luxury of defining ourselves in a positive light like every other culture in America, many Black people have quite literally embraced a form of gross ignorance regarding our own character. Thus, it is imperative that we take the time to stop just long enough to consider who we really are. Then once we become cognizant of that truth - warts and all - we should address our issues, and then teach our young people to embellish our assets rather than our dysfunction.
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Who Are We As Black People?
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An excellent example of who we actually are was reflected around the turn of the 20th Century when you could find Black musicians sitting along the side of the road playing washboards, tubs, and anything else they could put together that would make a sound. When people passed them by, including White musicians, they would simply smile, and sometimes even throw them a few pennies for the modest effort and industry that they displayed for even attempting to make real music with such crude instruments.
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These simple music-makers were looked upon as "quaint" at the time. There was no hostility towards them at all, because they weren't a threat. After all, they were no threat to the White musicians, since they could never hope to get any real instruction in music. Most of them couldn't even read their names, so why should anyone ever worry about them learning to read music; and they had to struggle just to get through grade school, so what threat did they pose to White musicians who had access to the great music conservatories of the world?
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Well, little did the world know that in the very near future those simple little ragtag musicians with their makeshift instruments would develop into some of the greatest musicians the world has ever known, and they would contribute one of the most important and harmonically complex forms of music to the world in the history of all mankind - modern jazz, and as an offshoot, Big-City Blues, R&B, Rock &Roll, and literally, everything that most people think of as music today.
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Few knew at the time that one day Universities, musicologists, and music conservatories all over the world would struggle to understand the complexity of their musical genius, and even fewer could have guessed that many of these "quaint" musicians would someday become world renowned, and synonymous with their respective instruments–Louis Armstrong, Jellyroll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, just to mention a few.
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What we've got to recognize and absorb as a community is that creativity is not restricted to just music. The reason that the creative genius of Black people has been reflected more in music than in business, science, or technology is because it was an area where we didn't have to depend on the approval of others, and more importantly, we were rewarded in the community for its development. We've also got to recognize, as any scientist who studies cognition well knows, that creativity is not stagnant - it has associative properties that allow it to be transferred from one endeavor to another. Thus, as Barack Obama is clearly demonstrating, Black people have much more to offer the world than a twelve bar blues.
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The Pursuit of Excellence is the Key to Black Viability
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So today the Black community is in a similar situation as those early musicians were in their day, but this time we have the advantage of not having to sit on the side of the road. We have a supportive Black man in the White House, an economic environment that's thirsting for innovation, creativity, and new ideas, and no one to hold us back but ourselves. Therefore, all that's left for us to do now is to recognize our potential as a people, shed all of the defensive excuses and bad habits that were a part of the old paradigm, and get to work.
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And our very first task should be to reassess and rid ourselves of the negative cultural mores that we've developed over the past hundred years or so. That involves discarding, and refusing to reward or romanticize the image of the Black man as an urban predator - that's what directly contributed to the racist attitude that the brutal murder of an innocent Black child constituted a public service.
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Mass ignorance is at the very root of our problem. How can we possibly expect to raise a well adjusted generation of young people when they're being sired by idiots running around in unlaced tennis shoes, wearing baseball caps sideways, and whose most heartfelt ambition is to be looked up to as serial abusers of Black women (the very womb of our culture) and successful gangsters? It can't be done. This is the real world. We can't base a culture on trying to relive the life of Al Capone. It's time to grow up. So we've got to stop rewarding such behavior, and make that a community effort.
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When I was a kid my grandfather use to tell me, "All I want from this whole damn nation is a pretty little wife and a good foundation." I didn't realize it at the time, but he was relating the key to life to me in that one little lyric - the foundation of happiness and success starts with a solid family.
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So we need to start with our girls in order to get the attention of our young men. We've got to start teaching our young girls from birth that young men who assume the gangster image are bad news, and we've got to keep such images out of our homes. We must also create an environment where if BET wants to continue to enter our homes, its call sign will have to be changed to meanBlack Excellence Television.
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In addition, we've got to demand more responsibility from our other community institutions. We've got to make it clear to our churches that if they expect to take collection money out of our community on Sunday, they'd better be prepared to put some kind of service back into the community during the week. Our churches should be serving as low-cost childcare facilities for working mothers during the week. They could then employ unemployed mothers, and at the same time hold classes in child rearing. So the community should send the following message to our preachers -"Don't just preach me a sermon, live me one."
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And we should also encourage the promoters of these awards shows, like the Soul Train Awards, to be more responsive to the needs of our community. We don't need yet another parade of swaggering millionaires staggering up on stage, snatching microphones, and acting a fool. We need to start placing more emphasis on honoring young scholars, educators, and the people in the community who are helping to move Black people forward. That isn't to say that celebrities and entertainment shouldn't be involved in the shows (I'm a musician myself), but they should be the "help," not the honorees. After all, if all our young people ever see the community honoring are singers, movies stars, and athletes, why should they aspire to be anything else?
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The only hope for the Black man is to make knowledge, the new "soul" of our culture, because God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. Thus, it’s no longer enough to simply say "I’m Black and I’m proud." It is long past time for us to start investing in our excellence, so we’ll have something to be proud of.
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The axiom that "Knowledge is power" is no myth. The truth of that assertion has been repeatedly proven throughout human history. For that reason, with very few exceptions, it has been the most knowledgeable who have ultimately prevailed, not the coolest. Thus, those who simply continue to advocate what’s been repeatedly tried and has failed miserably - attempting to whine, complain, and protest their way to equality - are on a fool’s errand. It's time to give the novel and completely obvious a try - the stability of excellence, and the strength of knowledge.
Strive To Become Your Own Hero... Then Let No One Remove Your Cape.
BIO
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s been a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). He’s also the author of "A Message From the Hood."
Some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.
Am I a hater, you ask? You're damn right I'm a hater. I hate injustice. I hate hypocrisy. I also hate demagoguery, apathy, and the stupidity that allows it to exist. Hater? Absolutely. I'm a big time hater. I hate what I see happening to this country, and I hate watching the development of a culture that embraces ignorance with a stupid sense of pride. So yes, I am indeed a hater, but not only that - I'm a hater with a very low threshold for bullshit, so step off.
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