The revolution got busted
By Mychal Massie
Posted: December 7, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
2004 WorldNetDaily.com
There is a mindset in the black community that is as invidious and specious as
the verbiage of those who viciously direct racial epithets toward whites and
Koreans.
It is the idea that conservative blacks in our nation – especially those in
the print and talk-show media – get ahead not based on their talent,
experience or meritocracy, but by "trashing" other blacks (read: making public
the truth of about them).
This is unfortunate not only because it isn't true, but because it continues to
undermine the freedom of a segment of America that no longer has any legitimate
excuse for failure ... save they themselves.
It's worth repeating: There are problems in the black community that cannot be
attributed to anyone but the individuals personally. It is criminal and
detrimental to personal initiative to suggest accomplished conservative blacks
today are recognized because they kowtow to whites.
I posited to a militant social worker from the Oakland, Calif. area the
following question: Had Bill Cosby achieved his gargantuan stature because he
spoke forthrightly about the critically deficient role of parenting in the
black community? He could not respond to my interrogative because to do so
would have been to prove my point. So he rambled about needing to be patient.
I, with no apologies for being heavy-handed, challenged a young Vassar
"academician" (his word not mine) to step into the reality of the 21st century.
His collegiate mind wrestled with my specific assignation of the cartoon
character known as Aaron McGruder. Following his puerile logic, it was
legitimate for McGruder to attack Dr. Condoleezza Rice, but it was not so for
me to call him on it. This is the prevailing shameful mentality of far too
many. It is a travesty that these young anachronists and those who sired them
live in a self-imposed shadow world of accusations of white injustice and black
inferiority.
Black hero worship must move beyond militant revolutionaries. Angela Davis'
reality never materialized in any capacity and Gil Scott Heron (militant
composer of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised") at last notice was once
again being arrested for drugs.
People attacked Bill Cosby, not because what he said was untrue, but rather
because he said it publicly. The problem with that rationale is that the public
is quietly thinking and whispering the same thing. How is it helpful to pretend
that said problems do not exist?
The black community must get beyond the fist in black leather glove
retrogressive militancy. They must learn to embrace productive educational,
linguistic and social skills, not the "please be patient with me while I behave
with complete anti-social abandonment" mindset.
It is a sin against the God their pastors' preach to embrace the hatred,
debauchery and heathenism of Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson, Sheila Jackson Lee and
John Sylvester over the accomplished. It is incomprehensible that a people can
be so blinded as to argue in support of victimization over participatory
attainment.
We have a problem when I receive mail from a black man in the Atlanta area,
claiming to have worked on Wall Street, castigating me and other black
professionals for speaking proper English. We have a problem when a student at
Vassar, who boasts himself an academician, cannot conceive of a person being
able to effectually communicate without the help of a thesaurus.
It is a judgment upon the zeitgeist of today when people hate and malign
another because they choose to be intellectually liberated, enjoying the 21st
century, while others don dark glasses, red, black and green hats and set off
to "fight the man." It is a judgment against a people, when learning is not
done from a love of knowledge, but rather to get even for decades-old ills that
the majority today had no part in.
To be successful one must emulate success. Success is not $10 in your pocket, a
cheap gold chain or the latest CD by an alleged pedophile who was nominated by
the NAACP for an Image award. Success is striving to be the very best one can
be. It is staring adversity in the face, realizing it is not color sensitive;
rather, adversity is a challenging reality of life.
Disappointment, bitterness and resentment are the daughters of despair.
Education and social skills are two primary keys to success. The resentment of
those who think differently will not help the person so inclined. Hemorrhaging
venom does not improve one's lot – it simply raises one's misery quotient.
There comes a time when one must ask the question: Where have my attitudes
gotten me? Of course, the answer to the question is dependent upon whether one
refers to themselves by a rap moniker or as a person of letters.
Mychal Massie is a nationally recognized political activist, pundit and
columnist. He is host of the widely popular talk show "Straight Talk." He has
appeared on the Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, Comcast Cable and talk radio
programming nationwide. He is a former self-employed business owner of over 30
years and a member of the conservative public policy institute National Center
for Public Policy Research-Project 21.
.
|
