Recently conversations, and a commentary by DeWayne Wickham as well as seeing the Beloit College Mindset List, have had me thinking. The youth of today, with particular emphasis on the Black African American, Hispanic and other minorities, have no idea about what has happened in the past. There is no appreciation of how things were and thus no concern of how things today could affect their future.
Let me take a step towards what I mean. I am 38, which is not old though some might think me as such. I was born 2 days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. Many of the youth today have no concept of that and it’s impact any more than the assassination of Lincoln. There has always been cable, and always channels that focus directly minorities for the youth of today. It wasn’t until the late 70’s that cable was even an idea (one that was said at the time to never be able to catch on). BET didn’t appear until the 90’s as I recall. And when I was a kid minorities on television were about 3 shows (Sanford and son, Chico and the Man, and on All in the Family – which had the Jeffersons as recurring characters only). The only Black African American comedian that was spoken about was Mr. Bill Cosby, and the main way to hear his routines was on a 12” record album.
The only way to reach someone was via a rotary phone call, and virtually nothing was so immediately important that not reaching them couldn’t wait til you could get them to pick up the phone. There were no foreign players in major league sports, and few Hispanics. R&B was called ‘black music’ and the only other format readily available was Gospel. Mr. Louis Gosset Jr. and Mr. Sidney Poitier were almost the only Black African American actors to play non-comedic roles, virtually limited to co-stars. America didn’t exist in World Cup consideration, no athlete was worth a million dollars except Mr. Muhammad Ali, and most Black African American youth that went to college were maybe the second generation to do so.
Segregation was still a reality being disabled in parts of the country. The only reason that there is a holiday for Dr. King is due to the national walk-outs conducted the day before Election Day, which included parents not sending kids to school, in honor of Dr. King and it took over a decade for that to have effect. There were no video games, gangs and gangsters were always bad guys, and when computers became available as PC’s most couldn’t afford them.
When considering all these things, many of which have only changed in the last 10 to 20 years, there is a different view seen in the world. A lot of things are not taken for granted, or assumed as normal – as if they had always been this way. And it makes the thought of what isn’t known by the general Black community, or emphasized in the current Black culture, gravely sad.
The fact that some college players have no idea about the Negro Leagues, or that there was a long time that Blacks were not allowed to play Major League Baseball – or that there was segregation in EVERY major sport – is frightening. The realization that entertainers of every minority, to varying degrees, fail to advance their respective cultures and people in lieu of making money is disgusting. Kayne West may want to be ballsy enough to denigrate the President on national TV but why hasn’t he had the balls to support candidates that can improve things. Political commentary is useless if there is no political action. Entertainers seem eager to point a finger, but where is the action to actually improve things?
And I don’t mean all entertainers. Some are striving to make changes. But far too few, far too infrequently. The world is not simple. Things take time, and change is slow. But to turn a blind eye stagnates the process. To forget what has happened is to repeat it, and to insult what was earned. Viet Nam may be as relevant to some today as WWII, but to me it involved my father. The N-word has never mean anything but the worst insult in any of the 5 languages I’ve learned. The internet isn’t just a neat way to get free music, but a way to increase my knowledge and share it. Insulting terms aren’t endearing to anyone, and gangsters don’t deserve respect or emulation.
So for some of my readers, take this into mind as you read.
This is what think, what do you think?
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