"The War is Lost": WAOD Reader Comment of the Week--We Have Only Begun to Fight!

I woke up Sunday morning and was cleaning out the comment que when I read this comment, and thought "Ah, yes,  the sweet smell of righteous indignation in the morning!" There is something about the clarity and boldness that get's triggered by righteous indignation. Charles wrote this comment in response to our post about the film, "Black Woman Walking". The film and the post clearly touched a nerve with readers.

At the age of 47 this black man is starting to feel that the war is lost. I feel that if the black people who were fighting to survive on the slave ships could see the way our people act now, they would have given up and jumped overboard. Why do we embrace the worst behavior possible and hold up those who cause damage to our community. Why do black men have the courage to go up against a cop who has a gun, stick, mace, a badge that says he has the right to use the gun, and a radio to call more people with all of the above but the same black man will back down from an algebra book. We have the nerve to insult black women on the street but we don’t have the nerve to be a good father or husband. I see young men in my neighborhood who will stand outside all night to sell drugs but will not stand up for 8 hours in McDonalds doing an honest job that could lead to something better and is not illegal. WAOD Reader

Curtis, I often think about all the Black women who made the choice to NOT jump over the side of the ship in order for me to be here. My great-great, great-great-great, great-great-great-great grandmothers and grandfathers had to navigate the Middle Passage, Slavery, Jim Crow and Lord knows what in order for me to be here. If anyone of them had been killed, succumbed to illness, or committed suicide, I wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be here.

Curtis, we have not lost the war. We haven't even begun to fight the war. Thats the problem. Getting Black folks to just put up a fight. Honorable decent, loving, black folks with common sense think that if they do the decent thing and fulfill their obligation to get an honest job, start an honest business, an education, save, purchase a home , raise their children etc. etc. then that's enough. As if somehow the devil isn't still running wild. I think in pre World War II Europe if you had told the French and the Poles what was coming, they and their populations would have put up more of a fight.

We cede the hearts, minds and imaginations of young Black children to the Regime of Bullets, Booty and Bling. We stand by and internalize the anti-Black propaganda of the entertainment industrial complex which teaches young Black children that their souls - their lives -are worthless. THe only thing that matters is who and what they can accumulate. We sit mute while large corporations go trolling to scrap the bottom of the barrel to find the most degenerate morally bankrupt Black people they can find and hand them reality shows and record deals and then we think that we as individuals will be able to compete for the imaginations of young Black children if we teach them right from within the home.

The misshapened values that Curtis laments aren't accidental.

"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His questions of education makes it necessary."Carter G. Woodson

Yet we call it "entertainment" these days. "Entertainment" which teaches young Black boys that the path to prosperity through education or an honest day's work is walled closed. Even if they are the children of lawyers and doctors. See Also ( here).

Yet a prerequisite to even beginning to discuss misshapen community values must be to look outside the Black community for culpability and salvation ie, making sure that White America receives their appropriate portion of the blame, except we rarely move beyond that. How has that worked for us? Sure for a generation we're fine and then WHAM!

I was reading up on Reconstruction for a chapter in book and was trying to figure out how it is in the span of years we went from freedom and elected political office ( a majority of the South Carolina legislature) back to basically slavery(sharecropping) and no meaningful right to vote. Frederick Douglas and others pushed heard for property ownership, but those in power thought that the right to vote was sufficient to protect us from past injustices. By participating in the political process, we were supposed to be able to protect the Black community. The guv'ment was our source of power.

Douglas was right, true power and liberty flow from self sufficiency and being able to provide for yourself and thus defend yourself if necessary. If you rely on government for anything, you will be greatly disappointed. In other words, the idea that the government or government institutions would be willing or able to protect our rights or our communities was wrong.Has always been wrong and continues to be wrong, yet all of our focus as a community appears to be anxiously looking over our shoulder to make sure that "the man" does not get us. All other concerns are subjugated to the concern over "the man". Whatever solutions we speak about have to involve "the man." That by itself hands the fate of Black America over to someone else.

If all of our power flows from the whims of "the man" That means we have none at all. I look at other groups who have suffered atrocities at the hands of the state. Sure they hold the state accountable and lobby on their own behalf, but they also put in place systems to make sure that in that in the event that they have to engage in self preservation they are equipped to do so. They know that to place their hands in the good intentions of someone else could mean extinction. Even if the other people don't do what they are supposed to do, they will be okay.

That's why when I started this blog way back in the day when I was more in tune with my inner righteous indignation I said basically if nobody else, does what they are supposed to do, fine, but those who know better have an obligation to fight and not sit quietly by while the Regime of Bullets Booty and Bling marches the Black community to the gallows.

Don't give up the fight Curtis. We haven't really done anything yet. When was the last time there was a widespread campaign from within the Black community to take on the regime of Bullets, Booty and Bling and the Black Elite Establishment that coddles them? When have any hint of those types of pushes a la Bill Cosby not been met with the gnashing of teeth and charges of classism? When have we pushed forward ANYWAY? When have we stood firm like Gandolf in the Lord of the Rings, pulled out a big stick and told the demons "THOU SHALL NOT PASS!"?

Your indignation is good. It means you are getting to a point where you won't care...in a good way

There comes a point when you get so fed up and so distressed by the idea of doing nothing that you won't be able to hold your peace. You won't care about the Black folks who are going to be upset with you for airing out dirty laundry. You won't be dissuaded by the obfuscation techniques that seek to bog you down with rhetorical questions and feigned outraged that you didn't qualify your statement with enough disclaimers that what you said doesn't apply to "all Black people." You won't be discouraged by Black people who call you names or slander you. You will keep going forward knowing that the bites of their barbs are nothing compared with what will happen to Black America -ALL OF IT- if men and women who know better don't fight back.

Every oath I've ever taken has been one to protect against all threats, foreign and domestic. Recognizing that sometimes the greatest threat to a nation, a community, a family comes from within. We have to be as willing to address outside threats as we are to address internal threats and there appears to be no organized will to address those who are attacking / destroying/ undermining the Black community from within. To point this out is to come under assault. The long term progress and advancement of the Black community means dealing with internal Community Security Threats as well as "the man" or "the system."

I do not believe the war is lost. If that was the case, I would have already high tailed it out of here and thrown up the deuce. I am actually more hopeful than ever that through the power of new media, the silent Black majority is beginning to rise up and realize that we are not alone in our outrage. We're drawing strength from our numbers. We are providing a small yet growing voice in opposition to the Regime of Bullets, Booty, and Bling, the Civil Rights Industrial Complex, and the Black Elite Establishment. Two weeks ago I met an incredible group of Black people at Blog World Expo.  They are all doing their own thing, but they are doing the dag gum thang! There is so much talent and creativity and drive and devotion to community out there Curtis.  I'm not ready to claim defeat before the first shot is even fired.

Don't jump overboard Curtis. The War is not Lost- Black folks with common sense haven't even begun to fight.

Comments

[Al From Bay Shore]

There are parts of me that sometimes entertains this pessimism. I think this pessimism is justified however. I believe the mission has changed. There are hard working, motivated, honest black folks who are suffering beneath the brunt of the tyranny of ghetto culture. These folks are out best and brightest. The new "blue eyed devil" now wears du-rags, gold "teef", and is named Jaquan or Shaquanita. Black folks of good conscience need to help the good honest black person separate from these Neo Uncle Toms.

[Hawa]

Gina, I admire you deeply. You connected with your Inner Righteous Indignation (IRI) and birthed a fantastic blog. Connections with my IRI come in flashes that don't last long enough to grasp a specific path or plan of action.

Sometimes I think I hate sexism... then another day it's racism... And then one day I discovered that "injustice" and "xenophobia" really light my fire. I haven't been able to direct that fire towards much except to join the AfroSpear (I miss you there!) and do some writing for Michelle Obama Watch.

I should sit at your feet and learn!

[Mar]

Can we win the war??? My husband and I tried to fight it - starting with his son. We laid down the rules and let him know what we expect (he just returned from his Army training - but still hangs out with the knuckleheads). He came back on Monday, we laid out the rules on Tuesday and he walked out on Saturday. We have been fighting the good fight for the past 3 years, but we lost. We are boring and uncool and ask too much ( clean your room, save your money, think broadly). We are professionals who have standards and do not accept excuses. He has chosen to go after the bling and booty and there is nothing we can do. He is 19. I'm quite the pessimist right now.

[Sacha]

To Mar,

You may have not lost. Remember the bible says; Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. He's still young but you've planted the seeds. So, you've done your job. Just pray and let the Lord do the rest.

[Al From Bay Shore]

Mar, all you did was prepare your son for that "ah-ha" moment. Of course we'd like for our children to be "together" immediately out the gate but at least you are doing something. What you need to do is see those parents who are chronic excuse makers, whiners who think its their job to have a "civil rights protest" each time their kid gets busted doing something wrong, etc.,

In some cases, I don't see a war as being lost, I see a situation where we, black folks, are at the triage stage. We have to reserve our efforts for those who are worthy of being saved lest we waste our time saving the obstinate at the expense of those who not only need our help but can benefit from it.

[pioneervalleywoman]

The tough love is obviously important, but important too is to get rid of the "rosy colored glasses" visions of black folks as a family of "brothers" and "sisters." This is what is killing us and letting the evil ones get the upper hand and legitimate their evil. People don't like to call out their family members and don't like to turn their backs on them. Time to cut them loose.

"Brothers" don't buy calling their "Sisters" out of their name and contribute to a culture that denigrates them. They don't celebrate their degredation in music and elsewhere. But many brothers don't see their real live mothers and sisters in other women they see, meet and know.

Some "Sisters" need to remember that black women are all in this together--how each one presents herself reflects on many of us. The society does not see us an individuals, the way white women are permitted to be. We are always defined by some group identity, and the current group identity being promulgated is not pretty. It contributes to the perpetuation of old tired stereotypes of who and what we are, and which DOES NOT represent all of us.

That is why I am so delighted that M. Obama is presenting an alternative vision of US that more closely resembles who and what I am.

[Huemanity]

I agree with Gina, all is not lost.

I started my blog because I believe that devotion to our black children is essential for any type of progress. Sometimes in our efforts to climb the ladder up and out, we think our kids are attached at the hip and will make it with us. I was a product of one of those families - so consumed with keeping and holding a "good" job they paid little or no attention to how my sister and I were growing up. TV replaced parenting because they were so spent they had no energy left to nurture and guide.

In my opinion this is the biggest crisis facing black America but it is one of the few that we don't need anybody else to fix. We need to focus on making sure our children understand the value of education through EXAMPLE, not through words. They need self-esteem building through creativity - not purchases. They need to know that no matter what, Mom or Dad or Auntie or Grandma or whoever is raising me has my BACK. Not just when I do something wrong, but while I'm doing all the right things too. Their love needs to not be taken for granted, either.

Of course there are a lot of things we do to make it harder on ourselves when it comes to raising our kids, but that doesn't mean the children should suffer. I definitely believe that there are folks out there that want to do right by their children but maybe don't know how or our frustrated due to their own circumstances.

But yes, all is certainly not lost. The blogosphere has showed me that. There are a lot of people who are frustrated with the way we have been treated by our "brothers and sisters" that have infiltrated the dominant white power structure and sold us down the river.

[Mar]

Thanks guys. But the problem is that I did not raise him. He was raised by his mother who was more interested in babying her son than raising him to be a man. His father took him at 15, but we are afraid that it was too late. My husband has had his son every weekend and most summers (once summer school was over) since he was born, but his son's mother undermined him each step of the way. The year his son began living with him was the first time that he did not have to go to summer school because he knew that his father would not tell him that it is ok. I married his father a year later and he never went to summer school again. We rode him for 3 years and he did graduate from HS this summer. The whole time, his mother was saying that we were being too hard on him, undermined what we were trying to do and actually said to me that education is not everything. It's complicated, but I'm really sad because I don't think that he will ever have that ah ha moment because no one else in his life now has ever had one. Sigh

[Mar]

But on a brighter note, I love seeing M. Obama. She is a reflection of me and the dignity that I possess and want restored for black women. I think that at least we will be able to point young girls to her as a concrete example that we are right - that Dignity is Good.

[JJ]

The war is lost.

As long as folk continue to believe that the "problem" is music, "ghetto culture," videos and the like the war is not only lost but never truly began.

What everyone keeps wringing their hands over is not the problem...it's the end results of what the problem was and that was the well coordinated attack on the Black community by Regan and every administration since (yes including Clinton) as a push back on the Civil Rights movement and the gains Black (and minorities in general) made at the time.

And also middle class Blacks believing that if they could just integrate then they would have success and be able to shield their kids from poverty, etc...following the White man's rules and playbook.

Well the Pew Research Center survey form earlier this year has shown how well that thinking has worked out.

The system is broken.

It has failed.

Black people are too shattered a group to see that. We seem to think if we just get BET off the airwaves all out problems will be solved. Bullets, Booty and Bling aren't the problem. That's American culture in general...not just Black American culture.

The thing is, now that the elites have gotten XTRA greedy, Whites are experiencing the same problems that have been associated with Black America for years.

The system is broken.

Unless or until we look at what the real problems are institutionalized racism, poverty, failng schools, etc. Then you can campaign against BET, "ghetto culture" and the like and nothing will change, lack of employment opportunities, etc.

Not only is this war lost...it never begun.

[Faith]

I do think there is a class difference and a value system conflict. We can talk about the things that harm the community and we can fight for it. Some people are going to have to be left behind once a line in the sand has been drawn though.We can't support those who are bent on destruction. People have to take some responsibility for their actions or inaction as well as their motivation and mindset. It's challenging work. People who do know better still support the destroyers of our communities and make excuses for them. At some point this has to stop.

[JJ]

U have to change the envrionment.

Changing individuals mena nothing if the envrionment still exists.

If you're raised in an area full of violence and depredation, you're not exactly going to grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar.

People sucumb to their envrionment. Whatever that environment may be.

For too long Black folk have been treating macro issues as if they are micro issues. As long as that is the "game plan" then the problems will continue to exist.

[JJ]

Pardon the spelling errors

[Yme]

Hmm, we can do this. Black families made it through Reagan and Clinton. We're a strong community. I do tend to think Bullets, Booty, and Bling are part of the problem. We have to teach ourselves and our children to survive and do well "in spite" of a system that appears stacked against us.

We have to refuse to participate in the pity party that allows us to simply place blame and continue to have low expectations. We're better than that.

Institutionalized racism isn't new. Poverty isn't new either. But, there was a time when children in our schools did better, or at least didn't seek to destroy each other in our schools.

I don't think "it's the man, this time". I think we have to reclaim our communities. I won't lose any sleep if I've seen the last of the Bullets, Booty, and Bling industry.

[JJ]

@YME

There was a time when schools were better.

There was a time when education was enough to move you up the ladder.

There was a time you could get a good job without a college education.

Times change.

What you're missing iabout "the times" ss the massive imprisonment of Black males in particular and Black women more recently. That begin on Regan's watch and his "War on Drugs" which was actually a war on Black men and Poor (Black) Neighborhoods.

Heroin in the 70's and Crack in the 80's hit the White community extremely hard as well but the difference is that they didn't end up in the criminal justice system.

And that was by design and not by accident.

You can't arrest and imprison that many people form one community and not suffer the consequences add in the busting of unions the loss of manufacturing jobs and what you get is unemployed (unemployable) Black people in general (Black men in particular) and a fractured community.

Do u really believe some music is enough to cause the ills that affect the Black community?

Seriously?

The same argument folk are having now about hip-hop they had about the Blues. In the teens and twenties the arguement was about the raunchy-ness of movies. In the eighties it was Dynasty saying "Bitch" on tv. And let's not talk about the drug haze and hedonism loving 60's and 70's. The decades that tried to bring back orgies and the age of Caligula.

Booty, Bullets and Bling have been with us off and on throughout American history. What's so special now?

It's not an issue of "the man." It's an issue of policies that are now coming home to roost.

[Yme]

Although many are incarcerated unjustly, there are plenty in prison, because they committed the crimes.

If we know the criminal justice system will treat us worse, shouldn't this be an added incentive to avoid it.

No politicians war on black folk could have been nearly as effective, if our community did not seem to have been in a war against its self.

We have to take some responsibility.

It can't all be someone else's fault, all the time. No one forces us to have unprotected sex, to take drugs, or to live bankrupt lifestyles.

And, guess what? Some people go through these experiences, and emerge eventually. Not because government became nicer. But, because at some point they realized they needed to get control of their lives.

We have some power. Don't take it away.

My husband's junior high school students idolize the people they see. They see a carefree lifestyle of sex and misconduct that isn't based on reality. Your average 10 - 13 year old, doesn't see and actor playing a game. He seems a persona to be imitated.

Yes, I blame part of this on people who look like me, and make money at the expense of the future of our black youth. They are no better and are in fact worse than the Reagans in the world in my opinion.

I beg to differ. Booty, Bullets, and Bling have not always been with us. Perhaps you're thinking of someone else's history.

I realize old folks have always warned about the ills of music. Just because the argument is old, doesn't mean it lacks merit. Is all rap bad? No.

In my opinion, any music that degrades women is worthless. But, hey, that's just my opinion.

We have to get out of the habit of teaching our children, their problems have been caused by someone else.

1) It's not always true.
2) It's seldom beneficial

I think they stand a better chance, if we allow them to share in the power they have to make their lives better. Let's empower them, and teach them to empower each other.

We have to teach them to succeed "in spite of" bad policies. That's how we retake our communities.

[La Belle Femme]

Things really started going downhill for black folks when desegregation occurred but black folks were never truly integrated in America.

Middle class black folks left behind folks in the ghetto and without role models, ghetto culture and the ghetto mentality developed. Now, the ghetto mentality has permeated all levels of the black community to such a point where if you don't speak ebonics or if you value school, you are somehow not black enough.

There are certain historical factors like the War on Drugs and well-intentioned Welfare programs that really accelerated the breakdown of the black community but I feel that the black community or the black elite did not put mechanisms in place in which to maintain our self-preservation while moving up the system.

Once desegregation occured... and in our effort to assimilate...we stopped placing money into our own local black buisnesses. We basically stopped supporting anything black except in music. Chris Rock once said, when white folks get money, they start up buisnesses and make other white folks rich; black folks on the other hand spend our money on worthless stuff.

Black folks have to start becoming more conscious of what going on around us and that's some of the stuff we are consuming is not healthy and are a deteriment to our community, (if there is still one).

[TCB]

Why do black men have the courage to go up against a cop who has a gun, stick, mace, a badge that says he has the right to use the gun, and a radio to call more people with all of the above but the same black man will back down from an algebra book.

The algebra book tends not to attract the sistahs. Men who act in such negative ways are repeatedly sexually rewarded and sexual reward is a strong motivator for most men. It's the Theory of Sexual Selection. Men overwhelmingly create culture and culture is simply mating rituals. Growing up in the black community, it became very apparent to me early on that playas, pimps and thugs had the prettiest women. Intellectuals had the least attractive.

Black women have generally given their full support for the behavior of so many of today's black men. The most ignorant of black men have supporting black female fans who view their ignorant behavior as appealing.

Also, too many of these black males grew up with no fatherly influence because black women are so insistent on driving away good men and having children with sorry men. I have always been baffled as to why so many black women are so ready to allow themselves to be impregnated by men everyone with sense knows will not take care of their children.

What is missed nowadays is the old habit of boys having to win over a girls father first. Nowadays, if a girl has a father in the house, she couldn't care less about what he thinks of her boyfriends. With women being left to their own devices nowadays, society is slowly crumbling. That is why we see so many black women out there with masculine tattoos on their arms and necks and why more women get tattoos nowadays than men. Black women are the fastest growing prison population. Our black women are looking less and less like wives and more and more sluts and men simply are not seeing marriagable black women anymore. Thus women are overwhelmingly having children out of wedlock and these boys lack fatherly influence. These single mothers are doing a horrible job of raising these boys and are the main one's molding them into the trifling men they will become. Feminism is the culprit.

[Huemanity]

Ok TCB, tell us how you REALLY feel!

I will agree that many black men behave the way they do because they are rewarded (with sex) for their trifling behavior. One thing I've noticed is that white men (as a group) tend to chase education and money and expect women to follow because they've attained a certain level of success. This is the model they learned from their fathers that taught them that ALL women want a man who will provide for them and protect them. So they figured out that the best way to get women is to be able to provide first.

For a lot of black men (these days) it's the exact opposite. They do whatever it takes to get the woman FIRST and have no clue what the other steps are. Not all, but many that are in this vicious cycle of violence and crime and reckless sexual behavior. They grow up seeing their moms and aunts and other women around them gleaming over the bad boys, the thugs, the married men with money, the men with horrible tempers, the men with women all over town, etc etc etc. So even as young boys they see that these are the type of men that get attention from women which is what ALL men want. So they begin to take on these attributes early on. This attitude is projected onto young girls, many of whom have no other example of relating to the opposite sex. So they accept the treatment and the cycle continues.

My husband once told me that the only reason men do anything is for the affections of women. Sure they have their hobbies and interests and goals but many of those things are just to get women, lol. So if women want "good" men, they have to realize that they hold all the cards. If every woman decided today that she wasn't going to give up her goodies to a man with no job, kids all over the place, violent tendencies etc etc etc then tomorrow you'd see a line of men at the employment office BRIGHT AND EARLY. I laughed, but I do think it's partially true. Men are motivated by sex, it is their #1 need and the only thing they really can't get from other men (unless they are gay, of course). So if that need is met without having to do anything then that's what they will continue to do.

[Al From Bay Shore]

Black folks are in dire need of a transformation of cultural values, on all levels. Our Civil Rights legacy, the DuBoisian path, is predisposed towards seeking external solutions to our problems. For example, Brown v. Board of Education was never about having schooling for black children that was superior. It was about having the ability to "go somewhere else" at the expense of repairing something we already had. The same is true for Jackie Robinson. Instead of developing the Negro Baseball Leagues into something that was comparable to MLB, our collective conscious desired to "go somewhere else."

Black culture, on all levels, needs to be reshaped into something similar to that of a frontiersman/woman spirit. When we talk of "systemic inequities", "disproportionate treatment", and "unfair conditions", we take away our power to transform ourselves. This has been the case for decades. Black people are a people dependent upon the man made structures around them. We are dependent upon political parties, "leaders", "well meaning advocates" etc., Enemies are almost always defined in terms of something or someone that is foreign to us and our interests. Those among us who criticize us are labeled as "traitors". Those outside of our culture/ethnicity who do the same are deemed "racist". And the actual victimizers are victims. The only way for this to stop is to reshape ourselves around a core of self sufficiency.

Yes, I just condemned the DuBoisian path. It has been an unmitigated disaster. Its by product has been to identify the causes of black dysfunction as stemming from something other than its actual perpetrators. The response of Al Sharpton and the NAACP (DuBoisian entities) to Dunbar Village bears witness to this.

In order to do this we have to make difficult decisions. This means to give some of our neighbors and family members the cold shoulder for their acts of foolishness, present and past. It will certainly mean to stigmatize certain behaviors. Let's drop the term "out of wedlock birth" and return to "illegitimate births". Let's reclaim the "n-word" and use it in the same way that Puerto Ricans use "spics" and Italians use "guinea". In those instances, "spic" and "guinea" applies to unsophisticated and low class members of that repsective ethnic group. The "n-word" should be seen as a valuble tool to be employed by black folks who possess values.

Its a long and difficult road but we have to admit that DuBois was wrong. The likes of Sharpton, Dyson, and the NAACP are extensions of this perverse philosophy of codependency and "handout activism". Thanks to DuBois, the criminals who victimize us are victims and the dreary plight of our working class neighborhoods are the result of something other than the minority of residents who tear down its infrastructure and impose their tyrannical reign of ghetto culture.

We will not throw off the shackles of ghetto tyranny as long as we continue to look beyond ourselves for a solution. Our penchant for refraining from honest self critique is nothing but the result of percieving the guilt ridden children of our former slavemasters as our allies. They've never been able to completely abandon the condescension towards black people their fathers and mothers possessed. In their eyes, we are pets and servants who cannot stray from the guidance of their watchful eye. Their activism is not activism, its a complex.

[deborah]

As a people, we are just without a goal. What are we progressing towards? Not as individuals, but as a people (if we still are "a people").

For a while, we were trying to stop the importation of slaves into the U.S. For a while, we were trying to end slavery. For a while, we were trying to end lynching. For a while, we were trying to end segregation. For a while, we were trying to keep affirmative action in place.

But what are we really going for right now? We didn't want to be "segregated." "Integration" has destroyed many of us culturally and weakened/destroyed many of our institutions.

Since we no longer have a goal as a people, it's just everyone (man or woman) for self. And this is what that looks like. Not pretty.

Maybe we haven't lost, but the war is not going well. And by the way, who's the enemy?

[Dantresomi]

been at this for quite some time and one thing i have learned (it was a hard lesson and a scary story): you can't save them all!

That doesn't mean we are going to give up.

[miriam]

I tend to agree that booty and bling is part of the problem. Mostly in the sense that it keeps us from crying out -or having that IRI indignation.

There is a saying that in the end of days God will unsheath the sun and the wicked will burn while the good will be healed. Its irrelavant whether we believe this or not, but it begs the question: How can two opposite things happen in the same environment?

**********************
Once, I was taught to teach a child against a particular sin. The teacher asked me, "how do you react when you see a bug?" In reality, I scream and bash it with a shoe -preferably someone else's shoe. So I told him a milder version of this. His response, "if you can react that way to a sin, then -only then- will your child find that sin repulsive!"

I hope y'all can discern what i'm trying to say.
**********************************
I hope Curtis doesn't give up. I also agree that the war has not begun yet. Its only just beginning. Well with one difference --I really believe that Malcolm X was very truthful -to others and especially more importantly to himself. I think he fought the battle. And I think he really made a difference. When his eyes were more opened, that's when 'others' thought he had to go.

[The Angry Independent]

Excellent reading...

This is why I read this blog. I'm in a constant state of indignation... and I like to see Black folks just as mad as Hell as I am.

But I have to disagree with Al regarding Dubois.

"The response of Al Sharpton and the NAACP (DuBoisian entities) to Dunbar Village bears witness to this."

I don't know if you could attribute these cancers to Dubois.... and I don't think he would claim them.

Blaming Dubois for the likes of Al Sharpton, The present day NAACP and all the problems (self inflicted) of Blacks in America? That doesn't hold water.

The NAACP of today is not what Dubois had in mind in the beginning. And he always emphasized the importance of values such as education, etc... And Dubois's thinking always evolved, based on conditions.

If he were still with us he would be considered more of a Conservative, compared to the Civil Rights All-Stars of today. I'm pretty sure he would loathe Civil Rights hustlers like Al Sharpton, and Dyson, and the rest.

Dubois would have eventually focused on internal solutions (stronger values, etc everything that you all have been discussing) once access in other areas had improved for Blacks... more participation in politics, more access to education, economic empowerment, etc. King recognized this himself and towards the end of his life focused much more of his attention on economics. It's just that after King... things stalled, for whatever reason. The evolution stopped. We've been stuck where he left off ever since (economics).

I think it has something to do with the fact that after MLK, folks like Jackson, Farrakhan, and even Young (and later Sharpton) realized that they could make money from their new found positions within the Black community. That's when Civil Rights was incorporated (Pun intended) into a business model. Now these guys have been traveling for the last 3 or 4 decades gobbling up huge speaker fees, writing books for big bucks, etc... trying to convince folks (as if in a time warp) that they have to keep marching... no reason in particular...but we gotta keep marching (so the big bucks can keep rolling in to their organizations.... and as they march right to the bank). In other words, Black America was duped by these guys. I don't believe that the fundamental sea change (from the MLK's and the A. Philip Randolphs, to the Jesse Jacksons, Farrakhans and Al Sharptons or CRIC) should be attributed to Dubois. He would call them out if he were here today. Cosby is closer to where Dubois might be today IMO.

But yes... I agree that the current cast of hustlers (the apologists and Civil Rights Pimps) are not helping their people... they are concerned with inflating their own importance....convincing Black folks that they should be dependent on their so-called leadership.

"The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races." --W.E.B. Dubois

He later changed his talented tenth idea, making it broader... but I think he understood that there were problems within that Blacks had to deal with for themselves.... that all of the problems were not due to external pressure.

I don't think he believed that Black folks weren't complicit in their own failings.

And don't forget that during the 50's, & 60's two monumental changes occurred (or accelerated)...almost simultaneously:

#1. White Flight - Whites leaving core cities for far flung suburbs often taking their jobs, their tax base, and their economic power with them,

and

#2. The breakup of the Black Family began to accelerate - fewer and fewer men in the home.

I don't think the leaders at the time (king, dubois - who had passed on in the early 60's, and others) could have imagined the extent of the damage that this would cause decades later. When the new generation of so-called "leaders" came into their own... they took advantage of these economic conditions in Black communities and used them for their own gain, IMO.

But Amen to all the other points Gina mentioned at the top. That was almost like reading my own stuff.

Refreshing.