State of Affairs

First State of Affairs

   It’s somewhat amazing to me to see us in such disarray.  Such vicious things are happening to our youth, who really believe that they no longer need to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors; they can make it up as they go along.  There is no way you can be strong, if you don’t know where the highway you’re going leads to; for this you need someone who is experienced in such things.  When you go to seek employment, the number one question asked is, “What is your work experience?”  That is to say, they want to know what skill or knowledge do you have and in what area.  If you are heading to a road in which another is coming back from, it is fundamentally flawed not to inquire of its contents from the one who has experienced it.  Strength comes from confidence and confidence can be gained from having experience or knowing something about it.  When you are familiar with something, there are things you get to know through experience.  You can separate the truth from a lie, by observation and experience.  But your desire to know must be sincere.  To know the truth, you must live it.

   They say experience is the best teacher, but someone else’s experience can work just as well; that is, with the right questions being asked and adhering to the right knowledge.  Otherwise, the things we do not learn at first, we’d learn through the pain of doing things twice.  The sad thing about this pain ritual, is that it tends to make one callus, fearful, intimidated and sometimes jaded.  When a person goes through a bad relationship, the experience can often leave a person with a certain “bad taste in their mouth.”  At that point, we’re hurt and probably want to assess what has happened; but the wound is too fresh, the surrounding tissue is too sore.  Oft-times when this happens, it is important for that person to get out of the house and go back out in the company of friends—particularly members of the opposite sex.  Why?  Because if you stay at home, you’ll probably be all emotional; throwing pity parties, licking your wounds and favoring one side—so to speak.  Its like when a cast is removed, after hopping on that leg for a number of months, you tend to favor one side.  Today, pride and arrogance plays a big part in the behavior of many.  So much so, that we can sit in our mess and stir in our own juices—believing that that pungent odor belongs to someone other than yourself.  Best to get out and see other people—develop a litmus test of sorts; not for a relationship, but to get a balanced perspective on things.  Not everybody is the same.  And when you learn through experience, there is always an emotional time period which follows; a period when you are rather sensitive.  It takes a little while before the pain subsides, and there’s usually more things damaged than just your pride.  Learning this way is a very emotional journey.  Mistakes and shyness can be costly.  These ways can often lead to polarized feelings; extreme behavior: Often leading to the maze of the subtraction game—a game where one vows to never have something happen again; often giving the undeserving short-change rewards for gallant behavior on the part of the significant other.

     Today we are surrounded by damaged egos.  The Sexual Revolution of the sixties had all but destroyed the nuclear family in the nineties—giving birth to a hodgepodge of pseudo-relationships of sorts, stemming from a lot of sexual ambiguity and experimentation.  This gets compounded by the fact that after the baby boomers, there came an influx of people who did not want to look backwards.  People who created walls called, “Old School” and “New School.”  Rather crude people who threw away tack, poise and reason for the sake of keeping it “100.”  I often wondered about these “Brillo Pad people.”  Sometimes, you can scrub so hard to remove the dirt, that you can wear out your welcome in the process—as you keep it one-hundred.  Chess is not a one-sided strategy game, it requires that you figure out the possible options and attitudes of your opponent.   We see that circumspection has been replaced with bold approaches without the benefit of the ageless wisdom that has been floating around amongst Black folks for millennia.  What our youth have loss track of, is that we are subjected by White people in America.  Subject because we were part of the underclass in America for 308 years, and traumatized under the post-traumatic stress of the ruling class of this so-called multi-cultural society, who claims itself as the majority, while labelling all others minorities—Blacks being casted at the bottom: Similar to the Sudeans of the Indus Kush Valley in India when they came in contact with the Hyksos/Hittites, Dravidians, Aryans and extended Europeans.  Therefore, it comes as no surprise to see an uprise in police brutality within the United States, while our youth remain ignorant to the causes, simply because they won’t look back into their own chronology—based upon their new philosophy.

    Civilization is built upon the lifestyles of the ones who lived before, giving their experiences in rhythms and sounds, words and deeds, performances and parenting.  The intent is to give those whom they care about, the benefit of their wisdom.  And  for those who don’t know, wisdom is to see the inner-relationship between all things.  The purpose is to give young folks a “heads up,” based upon knowing what happened before, and telling the participant before it happens; but what good is it, if the person doesn’t listen?  All around us, we see a collapse in civilization.  The new attitude is to “make it up as we go along.”  But from the above example on sexual ambiguity, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution: Things that were conceived in the 60s, did not become fully realized until the 1990’s.  Based upon this analysis, the effects of an eighteen year old mother upon her daughter will not be fully realized until the daughter is thirty-two and the mother is in her 50s!   By that time, it’s too late—the child is grown and the dream is gone.  Advice from the grandparents splits every thing by about a third; making the child about twelve when the materialization occurs—giving you time to straighten things out before they are grown.

     Right now, we are living in a “Lord of The Flies” condition, wherein tradition and ageless wisdom takes a back seat to making it up as we go along.  I don’t know what directly caused it, but all “sacred cows” are dead.  Maybe it happened as a result of President Reagan relaxing FCC rules and regulations, because in the past, the social content of what we watched was much more stringent than it is today.  Writers and directors seem to be less concerned about what the overall product will be for the type of viewing they have been providing; but here it is—whether you like it or not.  My concern is, following this pattern, they won’t see the “fruits of their own labor,” until they are adults themselves, and by then their arrogance will kick in; getting them to defend something which is in essence, poor choices.  

     A more amoral society is rapidly being produced, and as Generation X becomes “forty/fifty-ish,” they will not have any children to watch out for them in their old age.  Right now, what I see is the millennials feel that they can talk and treat their young parents any-old-kind-of-way, and their parents must keep providing, food, clothing and shelter: In the past generations, children had their chores and obligations as a reciprocal part of their living arrangements—at least, that’s the way it was amongst most Black youth.  Millennials no longer feel that life has to be reciprocal—they feel the world owes them something; and for the first time in the chronology of Blacks who live in America, Black children are worshipping the same rugged individualism that White society has worshipped for centuries.  They are popping up all over the place, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, JayZ, Beyonce, etc; most rocking their “Blacknuss” as if it is coincidental: That is, until their interests interferes with the interests of the “Moral Majority” of American society; then they find themselves isolated like Bill Cosby, looking for a Black friend and hoping the NAACP will butt in.  But they are free and accepted “Brown” people, who criticize our rough Black ways—publicly; that is, until the American media makes a spectacle of them.  Tiger Woods, still hasn’t gotten over it; nor has RG3—Cam Newton is cut from an older cloth. . .

Its high time, for us to stop looking at these police brutality cases as anomalies, and recognize that America never had our best interests at heart; and it will take Black Unity and not the efforts of Black individuals to change our social condition by safeguarding our interests as a people.  Regardless of what the world is doing, we must rewrite our own destiny.  We need to stop following behind these people.  We will never become number one, playing the game their way.  Time to set new standards.  Freak this X and Y philosophy: We are Black people, time to make our own freedom.  “I am Because We are. .  . “

 

Thank you for your consideration,

C. Be'er la Hai-roi Myers 

Peace