Sunday Evening Thoughts

Mad Men
Wow, what an episode of Mad Men. Just when I thought this should be the final season, they wow us with two doozies. Great writers, great story lines, great characters. This show is threatening The Wire as the great American story of the last ten years, and one of the greatest series ever.

Racial Identity
At a recent social gathering I was given the opportunity to have a rather lively discussion with mixed company about race, social identity, and the post Obama year(s). Here are my thoughts…
I find some people’s perception of race (more specifically black people’s experience in this country) perplexing. In a country where children go to years of counseling to deal with their parents’ divorce, where alcoholics and drug addicts go to rehab to end addition, and civil courts hear million dollar lawsuits to remedy disputes, time after time, black people are told to “forget” and “move on” about racism, as if somehow, magically, if blacks forget it happened, then everything will be better, and suddenly, it will never have an affect on your life. If one does talk about it, they are branded a whiner, someone that has a chip on their shoulder, a person that lives in the past, and part of the problem.

This is not only wrong, but the root of our racial problems in this country. Here’s why:

1. Since racism stems from racial superiority (whites to blacks) and was used to justify trans-Atlantic slavery, the subsequent establishment of the economy of this nation (free labor = easy southern planting and profitable northern shipping), the legal denial of rights based on skin color (which still governs the way we live our lives, from the neighborhoods people choose to settle, to whom people choose to marry, to who we choose to socialize with), thus it is not black people’s responsibility to fix racial superiority. We didn’t start the fire; it's on other folks to deal with that issue, not black people to “change peoples minds” about us. Fuck that.

2. Forget? Who tells people to forget stuff? When’s the last time you heard a logical person get on television and tell Jewish people, “Why do you celebrate Passover? That was such a long time ago. Why don’t you just move on?” or “Why are you still talking about the Holocaust? It was a long time ago. That’s just the way some people thought at the time.” Exactly.

And just what exactly are we forgetting? My Grandfather knew his Great-Grandfather, born in 1853 as a slave in Virginia. Hell, he went to a baseball game with him. I’ve spoke to my Grandfather about his Great-Grandfather, again, a slave. To put it simply, my mother’s father knew a slave. I’ve seen the man’s picture, know his name, and, share the same prolific eyebrows and dark circles around my eyes. Every morning I see his face. Sorry, can’t forget that.
Moreover, one forgets what they don’t want to remember. I, for one, want to remember what happened to my relatives, my ancestors, and people I never met. I want to remember what happened to Jack Johnson, George Stoval, and Nat Turner. That is history, it is what makes us strong, knowing that all the hell folks went through was not in vain, and the ultimate disrespect would be to forget what they went through. Again, Fuck that.

3. Our racial issues were not solved by electing a black president, although some people would like to think so. We’ve never had a national discussion about the impacts of racism through slavery, segregation, and economics. Our country has been built on an unfair playing field that generously benefitted white males for centuries, yet, we don’t talk enough about it, and how we can move forward to even out society. In today’s world, networks still rule the corporate world, networks that often are based on where you when to school, where you daddy when to school, and how much ass you can kiss. Have you seen Wall Street lately? When my parents when to college, schools were just being “desegregated” and blacks were just starting to go to traditionally white colleges. I’m not the exception to the rule.
Contrary to popular belief, being an angry black man doesn’t make you a self-destructive, unproductive individual. In fact, the anger can be used to motivate, and turn you into an amazingly productive and driven individual. Anger, intelligence, and strategy can turn you into a force.
See also: Booker T. Washington, Jack Roosevelt Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Eldrick Woods, Serena and Venus Williams, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, Huey P. Newton.