Quote:
Originally Posted by 101stAirborne
Its simple, get of the pig, leave the fast food junk alone leave the alcohol alone,wear your natural hair, nad leave the fake nails alone. Its not like we a gun pointed to our head making us buy and ingest these things. You don't need Nat Turner, Marcus, Malcolm, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, Farrakhan, Khalid Muhammad to rell us that. It just a matter of self love, self respect and common sense. We don't have to sit down a wait for any big white or Black hero to save us from our selves.
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PART I
First, please understand that I'm not being facetious. I really want to know, but why is it not that simple? Why is it not just 'common sense, self respect and love'? And if it is, then why has it eluded us for so long, or are we just stupid and weak as a people? Or is the problem that we still keep thinking in terms of 'the masses', 'the people'?
But before I start rambling, I must say that personally, I'm at a point where I truly believe that a lot of black people are stuck and won't admit it. Especially the so-called 'conscious' of us. We can break down what's wrong and what went wrong and even give reasons why, but we can't figure out, really, why it's taken so long for 'us' to get our act together, unless of course, we give the usual 'common sense' reasons. You know, crackers, coons and swine... And apathy and self-hate and the system etc... Or for that matter, even tell what 'The Problem' is and if it applies across the board? You feel me?
And then, don't ask us where we're going, because we don't know. Or we cant get there. And that's what I wonder about. Why? Why can't we take it to the next level, whatever that is? And if there is another level, is it for all of us? Should it be a mass migration to that place?
I was watching Cornell West on TV the other day and I might as well have been watching Farrakhan or anybody else because it's always the same message. I could play one of my Daddy's tapes from meetings in the sixties and seventies and it all sounds the same, copy of what the brother on the corner of Fulton and Nostrand will be preaching today...
It ain't like we don't know 'The Reasons'. It's 2007. That's a whole bunch of years to know why we're still in this mess... Or are they really the reasons?
A lot (if not all of the time), we get on these boards or sit around in the house and yell, point fingers, dissect or just recycle shit. The hot news item to get us mad at crackers or the one to get us glad at a charitable brother. Or the one where we get on a coon. We come in and get riled up and talk about this or that and how good/bad we are, we say "this is why blah, blah..." or “how to be blah, blah”, and then what?
I know a whole lot of 'African-centered' folks that abide by those rules you listed but they're still walking around mad, confused, still struggling financially, still in broken homes, in prison etc. They've read every kind of revolutionary book, have been revolutionaries... profess self-love, stay away from every cracker ‘vice’ etc.
And it’s got me to think for a long time. About whether there's a set of uniform solutions...
Sometimes I wonder who got it better? The confused (at least they can still get 'conscious') or the 'conscious', who can't seem to take it to the next level en masse?
You say we don't need Malcolm, Angela etc, so then without them, without Farad…