Cultural Suicide

Black people, we are killing ourselves.

Not the “man”, not “them”, US, one another, OURSELVES.

And I am not talking about the astronomical black on black crime rate, or our poor state of health. Culturally, economically, and social WE are the ones pulling the trigger of the gun that we have pointed at our own head.

How are we doing this? First of all, we devalue anything that is considered “black” by calling anyone who is doing the opposite “white”, “oreo”, “sell-out”, “Uncle Tom” (which is the wrong term by the way as it was Adolph who was the suck up to the master). You know how to speak somewhat proper English? You’re talking “white”. Don’t want to live in the hood? You want to live “white”. Go on a diet, exercise, and eat healthy? “That’s what white people do.” Have mental issues and seek help from a psychologist or self-harm? “That’s what white people do.” So, by this argument, being “black” is living with mental instability, having poor health, living in a bad neighborhood, and speaking in a vernacular similar to a feral human who has never had any contact the outside world.

Black has always been linked with negativity. In the early days of the Roman Catholic Church, they refused to play the black keys on the piano, the passage in the bible which states something along the lines of “light shall not interact with darkness” was used as a justification of slavery and no tolerance of interracial dating. Former emperors and rulers who were known as “The Black” were called such because of their ruthless and heartless nature. This video from the film “Malcolm X” where he reads the definition further shows the negativity of anything “black.” This is “their” view of us, but why do we do continue to do this to ourselves?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE84dHl5Nr0

Now, I’m not ignorant to the Willie Lynch syndrome that we have been suffering from. But something is wrong when we spend 3-5k fixing up a car while still living in the projects our or momma house, which more than likely is a Housing Authority owned unit. But nope, we just “hood rich”, we really broke and have no finical support but “hey, everyone in the hood see we got money so we good!”

Miley Cyrus at the VMA’s last week, at the time of writing, shook her ass all over Robin Thicke doing the dance known as ‘twerking.’ The “white media” put her down in every way imaginable, calling her “out of hand” calling the dance “out of line.” Know, as someone who doesn’t have cable, I have no clue if it has been brought up yet, but I’m pretty sure someone, somewhere, has brought up that this is a “black” dance. Everything the “white” media has said about Miley Cyrus doing a dance that I have had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of MANY of times in my clubbing days, further shows how anything “black” is negative. But its not going to stop us from posting videos on Facebook and YouTube of our women and girls doing the same dance, in a more vulgar fashion.

A white girl told me one time that I didn’t “act black.” When I asked her to elaborate, she said it was because “You have manners, you’re not rude or loud and you know how to talk.” In middle school, I hate a white classmate tell me “You’re a black person, but those other kids (the “ghetto kids”, the one’s who always got in fights, picked on everybody, had the nicest name-brand clothes, barely passed their test”) are niggers.” (Don’t think he actually said “niggers” but its all the same.) This is what “they” think of us. But we continue to perpetuate these exact stereotypes on a daily basis. In high school, when I transferred from a predominately white school district to a predominately black school, a girl in my Spanish class said, after we got our interim report cards on which she had a grade of a 45, “I’m not doing anything in this class cause the teacher gave me a 45.” Really? Like you were doing anything before? But we get mad when they point out our low high school graduation rates. We get mad when they point out our low exit exam passing rates. But due to our culture, its awwright, because “you’re down, you didn’t do your homework and study like them white folks and bougie niggas!”

Black people. Do you see what we are doing to ourselves? This culture of adopting nothing but negativity is killing us as a people. For the past 200 years, in America atleast, we have been on the ledge, and every passing day we seem to move closer and closer to its edge. We haven’t jumped of completely, but we are slowly slipping farther and farther down. Its time we reject this negative culture and make “being black” “acting black” STAND FOR SOMETHING uplifting, not for everything that is wrong with society, but what we defend as “our culture.”