What can I do for my people?
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What can I do for my people?
This question is asked by blacks in every walk of life. From young gang members looking to watch a brother’s back; to an 80 year old grandmother folding that hard-earned $20 bill in to an envelope which destined for faraway grandchildren caught in a web of welfare and poverty; to the successful entertainers who give away millions to ensure that black youths have the opportunity to opportunity. Even during our daydreaming, we lottery of life winners imagine giving back to those who unlike ourselves, never had a chance.
In colleges, black students and professors strive to redefine the canon of literature, the pages of history, the definition of art. Why? To give back. To reopen roads to self-respect and self-knowledge closed centuries ago by slavery. These students often go out in the community to help by teaching and showing other less fortunate young people that there is a way out of violence, poverty and despair.
Everywhere dreams of success or survival include the element of helping, improving and defending the race. This desire to help, I feel was developed in those dark years when all we had was our fair share of little or next to nothing. In that world, everything passed between us. Our clothes, our old books, even our food. If there was a party, and food was left over, everyone went home with a heaping paper plate for tomorrow when hunger returned.
The subject of people helping people is not unusual among poor people in North America, or poor people anywhere. What is unusual is that it was never white people helping us, or rarely it was so. White people cheated, robbed and killed us, it still happens today. Even when we were helped by whites, it was usually an act of charity not a sharing between equals.
If you wanted help and self-respect, you looked to black folk. You didn’t have to bow your head to a brother. He helped you because it’s right. He helped you because he understood what you needed, and he knew that was only a slender breath away from the same need. He knew that he may have to come calling for help before long.
But a black millionaire can’t send out plates of food or pass down his grown children’s clothes to his neighbors. He can’t put up 50,000 poor grandmothers in his kitchen. He can’t do these things and he knows it. So instead he gives his time, his money and his intelligence. His heart is with us. And we’ve take his aid; we’ve expected it. Expected it because your expectation ride on our backs. A black man in a big house is me in a big house. A black man with a million dollars is my dream.
So we enter a new phase in our history, after years of fighting for our place in this land, we find the body of our people beleaguered. The scars are deep on our communities. The burned down buildings and boarded up stores. Our young men have been idled by unemployment and jailed for the privilege. Our young women carry on the battle with one arm, while cradling their children(our future) with the other.
Still we’ve made great advances. Our entertainers and sports heroes, CEO’s and literati. We’ve taken back the music, conquered the world with jazz, rock and rap. While the Government and the police wage war on our black communities, we have sent our pioneers out into the world of capital and culture. These women and men are the hopes and dreams of the main body of our race. But using the phrase “Having a foot in the door”, we only have a toe in the door. After all it’s a white man’s world.
Or is it?
Maybe there’s a new world out there waiting to unfold. Maybe it’s no longer a dream but a reality awaiting us. A part of this world belongs to us now. Our history is open to us through small black presses and a growing number of black bookstores. We have a toehold in the television industry and a small interest in the movie-making market. An educated, hard-working computer literate member of the work force can land a job in spite of her race, religion or sex.
Maybe survival isn’t our only goal anymore. Maybe we can aim at success
If we do love each other and we love our race, then we have to be critical of ourselves and honest. We don’t need charity or self-pity or defense. We can’t expect our brothers and sisters to crucify themselves for us. We can’t reach out to someone who is not putting out his hand.
Love is an act of recognition, empathy, and sharing. Love is not the act of giving, but is, in itself, a gift.
We can’t go to Africa with empty suitcases hoping to load up on a culture that we left behind four centuries ago. We must go with full hearts hoping to share what we’ve learned, which is quite a bit, with what our ancestors have become.
We can’t expect our children to have pride in themselves if we can’t give them a stake in building their own lives.
We can’t support the men and women who say that the white man is too much for them. We have to say, “No sister, No brother. You’re wrong about that. You’ve got the power in your hands.” There’s love in that phrase, but many people will be angry when you say it. Angry because we have lived through many generations in which white society has done its best to disable our love for ourselves. The expectations of love are too much for many of us. It’s easier to share the feeling of defeat; the false blues. To love someone is to believe in her or him. To believe in someone is to expect the highest standard of her or his humanity. If we can achieve this kind of love, we can do anything.
My goal here has not been to lecture. I don’t believe I have many, if any, answers to our monumental problems. I just want to open up the discussion a little bit. I want to throw out some possibilities that we might discuss in the weeks, years, decades and centuries ahead of us. I wanted to say that I feel positive about myself and my people. We have the heart, and we have the ways. I believe that we can love each other without pulling ourselves down. I believe that we can love each other without feeling sorry or sad.
This question is asked by blacks in every walk of life. From young gang members looking to watch a brother’s back; to an 80 year old grandmother folding that hard-earned $20 bill in to an envelope which destined for faraway grandchildren caught in a web of welfare and poverty; to the successful entertainers who give away millions to ensure that black youths have the opportunity to opportunity. Even during our daydreaming, we lottery of life winners imagine giving back to those who unlike ourselves, never had a chance.
In colleges, black students and professors strive to redefine the canon of literature, the pages of history, the definition of art. Why? To give back. To reopen roads to self-respect and self-knowledge closed centuries ago by slavery. These students often go out in the community to help by teaching and showing other less fortunate young people that there is a way out of violence, poverty and despair.
Everywhere dreams of success or survival include the element of helping, improving and defending the race. This desire to help, I feel was developed in those dark years when all we had was our fair share of little or next to nothing. In that world, everything passed between us. Our clothes, our old books, even our food. If there was a party, and food was left over, everyone went home with a heaping paper plate for tomorrow when hunger returned.
The subject of people helping people is not unusual among poor people in North America, or poor people anywhere. What is unusual is that it was never white people helping us, or rarely it was so. White people cheated, robbed and killed us, it still happens today. Even when we were helped by whites, it was usually an act of charity not a sharing between equals.
If you wanted help and self-respect, you looked to black folk. You didn’t have to bow your head to a brother. He helped you because it’s right. He helped you because he understood what you needed, and he knew that was only a slender breath away from the same need. He knew that he may have to come calling for help before long.
But a black millionaire can’t send out plates of food or pass down his grown children’s clothes to his neighbors. He can’t put up 50,000 poor grandmothers in his kitchen. He can’t do these things and he knows it. So instead he gives his time, his money and his intelligence. His heart is with us. And we’ve take his aid; we’ve expected it. Expected it because your expectation ride on our backs. A black man in a big house is me in a big house. A black man with a million dollars is my dream.
So we enter a new phase in our history, after years of fighting for our place in this land, we find the body of our people beleaguered. The scars are deep on our communities. The burned down buildings and boarded up stores. Our young men have been idled by unemployment and jailed for the privilege. Our young women carry on the battle with one arm, while cradling their children(our future) with the other.
Still we’ve made great advances. Our entertainers and sports heroes, CEO’s and literati. We’ve taken back the music, conquered the world with jazz, rock and rap. While the Government and the police wage war on our black communities, we have sent our pioneers out into the world of capital and culture. These women and men are the hopes and dreams of the main body of our race. But using the phrase “Having a foot in the door”, we only have a toe in the door. After all it’s a white man’s world.
Or is it?
Maybe there’s a new world out there waiting to unfold. Maybe it’s no longer a dream but a reality awaiting us. A part of this world belongs to us now. Our history is open to us through small black presses and a growing number of black bookstores. We have a toehold in the television industry and a small interest in the movie-making market. An educated, hard-working computer literate member of the work force can land a job in spite of her race, religion or sex.
Maybe survival isn’t our only goal anymore. Maybe we can aim at success
If we do love each other and we love our race, then we have to be critical of ourselves and honest. We don’t need charity or self-pity or defense. We can’t expect our brothers and sisters to crucify themselves for us. We can’t reach out to someone who is not putting out his hand.
Love is an act of recognition, empathy, and sharing. Love is not the act of giving, but is, in itself, a gift.
We can’t go to Africa with empty suitcases hoping to load up on a culture that we left behind four centuries ago. We must go with full hearts hoping to share what we’ve learned, which is quite a bit, with what our ancestors have become.
We can’t expect our children to have pride in themselves if we can’t give them a stake in building their own lives.
We can’t support the men and women who say that the white man is too much for them. We have to say, “No sister, No brother. You’re wrong about that. You’ve got the power in your hands.” There’s love in that phrase, but many people will be angry when you say it. Angry because we have lived through many generations in which white society has done its best to disable our love for ourselves. The expectations of love are too much for many of us. It’s easier to share the feeling of defeat; the false blues. To love someone is to believe in her or him. To believe in someone is to expect the highest standard of her or his humanity. If we can achieve this kind of love, we can do anything.
My goal here has not been to lecture. I don’t believe I have many, if any, answers to our monumental problems. I just want to open up the discussion a little bit. I want to throw out some possibilities that we might discuss in the weeks, years, decades and centuries ahead of us. I wanted to say that I feel positive about myself and my people. We have the heart, and we have the ways. I believe that we can love each other without pulling ourselves down. I believe that we can love each other without feeling sorry or sad.