Good day, Family.
Since my friends’ list encompasses people of all socioeconomic classes and all walks of life, I’m going to start this off with a disclaimer and the hope that what I have to say here does not offend. I have a love for all people as a member of the human race, however, by birth, I am a BLACK woman (a proud Black woman), and the mother of what I hope will someday BE a proud, strong, self-sufficient Black woman. My struggle encompasses Black people, and that is my subject matter for today. I grant that there are those who feel I should not discuss these matters in mixed company, but I represent that what I am about to say is IMPERATIVE, and it’s nothing that others aren’t ALREADY saying about us….
So with that out of the way, I begin.
In recent weeks, I had the opportunity to read an article in the Washington Post, and still another in the New York Times that addressed this topic, and I have been struggling to get these words out for WEEKS. It’s difficult to say what I really want to say because frankly some it sounds like racism against my own people… and y’all saw what happened to Bill Cosby when HE tried to expose the ugly truth for what it is.
My travels around the internet as well as between DC and Baltimore in day to day life have led me to a sad reality. Black people are sliding off the skin of the world by our fingernails. At least SOME of us are. That statement alone reminds me of a million conversations I had with my Caucasian co-workers back in the day that always seemed to end with “… but you’re so ‘DIFFERENT.’” I never found offense in that statement – after all, I was raised to believe that I had to work ten times as hard as the average White girl just to get a fair shake, and at that point, I only really knew ONE kind of Black people: Hard-working, ethical, family and community-oriented. Of course, there were a few exceptions … drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes and such… but never in all my days have I had to step back and shake my head in sadness at how some of my people live. I never thought I would have to give in to the belief that among Black folks… there’s “us” and there’s “them.” I don’t want to believe in that, because even from the toughest situations, somehow there emerges one or two that want more for themselves.
I can’t help but ponder how this country spends BILLIONS on a war that has nothing to do with the average American (except in the vein of getting raped at the gas pumps)… but our children are being turned out of public education systems woefully ill-prepared for the next stages of the game. I was almost moved to tears by the article I saw in the Washington Post – it talked about children in the DC Public School System, and how even the top graduates (who prevail against incredible odds) find themselves struggling to keep up with what college has to offer (independent life balanced with a much higher set of expectations, let alone an exponentially higher level of academic rigor). Even the ones that ARE putting forth the effort are doing so in the face of almost insurmountable peer pressure. And to think… if they’re not prepared for college, how do we expect them to succeed in Corporate America? Why are we surprised when having faced this grim reality, so many of even our brightest simply give up the ghost and fall victim to the generational apathy that leaves them swilling at the bottom of the barrel?
How did we get here??
I blame it in part on decades of social promotion and the breakdown in the enforcement of rules in the classroom. Students cursing at teachers? Students walking out of class on their whim? Child bye… I wish somebody would have tried that where I went to school, but then again that was 20 years ago.
It seems that among the younger generation, the prevailing mentalities are “Stop Snitching” and “By Any Means Necessary” (robbing, stealing, murder) to achieve the status that is crammed down their throats via common media outlets. I’m not sure how to reverse this trend, but I get the impression that our young people are brought into this world by parents who are ill-prepared to raise them (I am loathe to say that the children are unwanted, but you have to wonder).
They are left to fend for themselves by parents who are either working , scraping trying to survive by any means necessary, or just abandoned to the TV and left to their own devises. While many of us are aware of the negativity spewing from the media at large, the bottom line is that mass media, sadly, gives the people what it wants. I remember a time when hiphop videos weren’t full of half-naked “bitches and hoes”. Sex has always sold, but the bar has been set at a point whereas to even try and make a name for yourself as a female, you have to be willing to go along with the prevailing lowest common denominator mentality.
We have truly lost our sense of community. There is no “village” left to raise the children. People are afraid to openly chastise other people’s children, by and large. Is it because they’re afraid of the consequences and repercussions of doing so, or do they just not care? I’m afraid of the answer. I hurt, and I’m angry with myself, because I know in my heart that even I am not doing enough to effectuate change. My hands are sort of tied (because of my prior issues with my own child I am precluded from doing any work with children).
That brings me yet to another point. I fear for my daughter. She is the product of a solid middle class upbringing. Once I got her out of the ghetto of Prince George’s County and back to her father and stepmother her life changed for the better. I worry for her because I wonder what kind of chance she has to meet an honest young Black man who shares her goals, dreams, ideals and visions. What about all the other little Black girls out there whose parents have shepherded them through a sheltered life of morality, Christianity and emphasis on education? Where do they find love? Where will their partners come from? (I say that not to say that if she married outside her race that it would be SO bad, because love truly knows no color… but in truth, there are some cultural differences that simply are not borne out through explanation and you can’t assimilate them, no matter how hard you try.) I worry that in a time when our Latino and Asian counterparts are reproducing in droves, and making cultural gains across the board (they outpace Blacks in home and business ownership in double digit percentages), that the few Black people left who are living on the right side are going to be so far marginalized that we will damn near become a MYTH.
I was raised by children of the Depression, and through them I gained an understanding and appreciation for their struggle. My grandfather only went to the sixth grade, and spent time in the Civilian Conservation Corps. (Look it up if you don’t know what that is). My grandmother went to the eighth grade, but soon after went to work as a housekeeper in 1940’s New York so that she could send money home to help her family with the youngest siblings. My Aunt Ruth followed my grandmother out there for a time, and after a while they both returned home to start their own families.
My great-grandmother was the granddaughter of a slave named Rebecca and the White master, Jacob Loving, a doctor in Virginia. I listened to her tell of how her mother’s brothers and sisters were scattered among the four winds when Dr. Loving died. I’ve heard reports that she was a nurse in Paris during World War I. She buried two sons in childhood, and later a husband. She kept the rest of the family together, and a close knit bunch we still are to this VERY DAY.
You might wonder what all that has to do with the price of heroin in Harlem. For me, those who have come before me in the way they have holds deep meaning. There was an expectation of great things from me and I have tried very hard to live up to those expectations. The defining moment of my life was the moment my grandmother told me that she was PROUD OF ME. I grew up learning about how communities were once segregated… how we had Black hospitals and Black schools, full of Black doctors and black teachers. We took care of our communities. We took care of our own, proudly. I cry because that pride in self, that essential sense of community has been replaced, seemingly, by a distinct crab-in-the-barrel mentality and a burning desire for the biggest house, the flashiest rims, and my heart HURTS, y’all.
I never thought that in 2007 I would still have other Black people twisting their lips at me because I “talk White.” I never believed that the future of the indigenous Black American would be in peril because so seemingly few of our young people are doing what needs to be done to keep Blackness viable.
Maybe I’m wrong. I can only hope that’s the case.
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