Lessons From Today!

Two major events occurred today (well, at least major enough to make me think twice and to write a note) namely; an ACS (African and Caribbean Society) board meeting and watching the movie "The Great Debaters." And I know you are thinking to yourself "how might these two unrelated events possibly be linked?." well I am still asking myself the same question and yet I feel a strong connection. There is something that rings in my head and it seems not a positive ring, it seems to be saying that we as a people are forgetting where we came from and how we managed to get so far "why do you feel this way?" you might ask. I would just as surely answer, "I do not know but I feel it." To sit at a meeting in which a younger black generation can look to you so confidently in the eyes and say "we do not feel a strong connection between ourselves and the next black man (or woman), and we certainly do not have to make it a point to make black people around us feel more at home, than we would for any other race" strikes me deep AND bugs the heck out of me.

Some would explain this away as the next generation being "colour blind", (first of all I have a big issue with the phrase colour-blind, the phrase itself suggests that we would rather love to remain oblivious than accept the reality that we are different, and guess what that's not a bad thing) but I would not even forgive the younger generation (by younger generation I mean those boomers of the late 80's and beyond) by annexing the phrase "colour-blind" to their ignorant state because it attaches with it a sort of legitimacy of which I refuse to accept. It is not colour-blind to acknowledge one's history, neither is it colour blind to embrace one's culture.

Yet out of this frustration I have no solution, it is just the hope that just a few get it, just get it...get the fact that without celebrating the reason of our being or the reason for the success of our people we may be lost moving forward. Now some people may be content with living in a world where nobody has historical or cultural roots and everybody just exists, (when we finally reach that point I pray to be reminded so that I may make my exit out of this world...Mars perhaps) but I think it to be a sorry state . The great Maya Angelou illustrated my sentiments beautifully when she said "no man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place."

As I have no suggestions, or solutions to this plague that disturbs me I shall end here, though I feel a pit in my stomach having to do so....