“It is very nearly impossible…to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind. “
— James Baldwin
Last Thursday, the community launched its own campaign to restore respect in the way we speak to each other, about one another, and in how we relate to one another. In a culture obsessed with the text message and dumping your “ex” on Facebook, the Community Standards Initiative is right on time [see front page story “Campaign proposed to curb disrespect”].
A woman is crossing the street on a green light, and a man in a pickup is halfway into the crosswalk; she barely touches toe to curb, and he is already well into taking his right turn. No more “excuse me,” no please and thank you.
Keeping racial myth alive depends in large part on the repeating of the White superior/Black inferior myth over and over until you are certain that it must be true. Repeat it often enough and I will repeat it too. Then we repeat it to everyone we know. We teach it in our books. We put it into our language.
(We have a 2011 Webster’s that still says Black is bad and White is right. This is the legacy of the lie.)
There was a time when upon entering an African village, the formal greeting was, “So, how are the children?” — an indication that the health of the whole community was determined by the health of its children. If your eyes are open in the village, you see our children in some real trouble.
Today’s young people didn’t grow up in Jim Crow segregation. Instead they are growing up in Jim Crow’s great-grandson’s segregation where your opportunities as a young Black person are severely limited by media, music, social media; by legislation, economic oppression and incarceration, in theory and in practice.
But we have a Black president, Ebony and Essence, BET…right?! This battle is for their minds.
It is beyond time for us adults to stand up again, to defy the myths. Black people have always been in the reinvention process. If we could not reinvent ourselves continually, if we could not adapt as a whole, we would have been wiped out by now.
Slavery alone took countless of our Ancestors.
We reject a language that comes from someone else and is built on a lie so lethal that James Baldwin said (speaking of the lethal consequences of race), “It seems that nothing you have done, nor indeed nothing you can ever do, will keep this from happening to your son or your daughter, your niece or your nephew…”
I hear you, James. I start the movement to reclaim our young by calling all parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, mentors, pastors, preachers, and play cousins if they can help too! We must reclaim the future for our young by starting with self.
It will take the village to heal the village. No one else can do this for us.
Our language must change. People who love young people and children must take the responsibility to learn and speak a new language, a language of respect and response. Young people want what each of us wants — for someone to see us, to know our name.
When you see me, acknowledge me. If we know our babies won’t be affirmed outside the village, why do we withhold that affirmation inside the village?
We need to learn a new language that repeats the words of Malcolm X: “Black is beautiful, and talented and smart. Black is magnificent and powerful, and calls us to learn our roots. Who are you? What did you have? What was yours? What language did you speak?”
We must rebirth in our young a love of all that it means to be Black. We must return to the time before we were bred apart and sold apart, to a time when our health was measured in our response to “So, how are the children?”
This movement for liberation costs us nothing but could be the “everything” we need to restore ourselves for ourselves. If you can’t do it for someone you love, then do it for Fannie Lou. Do it for Maya. Do it for Harriet Tubman.
Do it for the nameless who paved our road in their sacrifice. Just do it…now.
Can you dig it?
Hear Lissa Jones’ radio show “Urban Agenda” on 89.9 KMOJ-FM Thursday nights at 6 pm, stream her live at www.kmojfm.com, or read web posts from Lissa at www.kmojfm.com. She welcomes reader responses to ljones@spokesman-recorder.com.
Support Black local news
Help amplify Black voices by donating to the MSR. Your contribution enables critical coverage of issues affecting the community and empowers authentic storytelling.