Painting by brotha Vanness Johnson
Greetings family.
I have one question for
you all today. It is an on-going question - and one that troubles me, if I may put it that way, and you will see why in a few moments.
When our recent
ancestors like Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Patrice Lumumba, MLK, Steve
Biko and so on, take time out from their undoubtedly busy schedules in the next world, and look down at us as a community that
they fought so hard for what do they see?
Are they happy with
what they see?
Lets look at what they
fought and stood for – at great peril to themselves, and for no
monetary gain in every instance.
They fought for our
right to self determination and freedom.
They fought for our
dignity as a people.
They fought for us to
be respected as human beings.
They fought for us to
have access to a decent education and to be able to define our
futures.
They fought to help us
free our minds and to learn to think clearly and positively.
They sacrificed their
lives, often painfully, abjectly, and brutally, for these causes;
they were prepared to die in prison; they were prepared to be
ridiculed through anti black propaganda by the dominant forces in the
world just to see their descendants get a chance to get ahead and
make progress in this harsh world.
What do they see?
They see an
over-sexualised youth dressed like pimps and hoes, and, apparently,
proud of it. They stay out late at night, and some don't even have
the decency to sit down at the dinner table with their parents and
general family. They don't study in the evening but, instead choose
to spend time on the plantations that this new generation know as
play stations. Knowledge of self appears to have died.
They see an increase in
single family households caused by irresponsible fathers who run away
from their responsibilities the moment a woman gets pregnant. Who
will then give guidance and advice to our seeds if their parents
couldn't care a hoot about them?
They see black on black
violence at levels never seen in living memory. It seems fashionable
to gang-bang and kill each over something as petty as an area code or
a color and splash bundles of money all over social media when these
men would, and did, teach us to stay humble, save money, not to be
vain and flashy if we were to proceed and improve as a community.
This saddens me.
They see poorly governed communities, cities and countries in which we live where we appear to have abandoned ubuntu and mutual kindness, and to have let avarice, cruelty consume us. Something that almost never used to happen before we were "disturbed".
Where did it go wrong?
We are the authors of
our own destiny, and we have the tools we need bequeathed to us
through the sacrifices of our elders, despite the odd pot-holes here
and there, to write our story positively and yet we seem not to be be
willing to live our lives productively and inspirationally.
Shall all their hard
work and sacrifice be in vain?
Brotha Afritude.
