The Revolution Got Busted – From My Vault

Following is a syndicated article I wrote December 7, 2004.
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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.