We're about to look like a bunch of Idiots

And the tragedy is, there's nothing we can do about it; or is there? Let's back up for a second. Who is the "we" and why are "we" going to look like a bunch of idiots and "why" can't "we" do anything about it. From my perspective, I look at we as Black Folk. We are about to look like a bunch of damn idiots. For some reason, we just can't seem to get it right. What is "it"? I think if we start at the broadest of terms and work our way down, we might get to the heart of the matter. Let's start with economics. In my honest opinion, there is no reason what so ever that we as a population should be living in and being victims of so much poverty. Not exclusively economic poverty -- that's easy, I mean moral poverty…

Before you begin to give me the eye roll, please allow me to unpack this a bit.

Somehow, we have become grossly afraid of each other and have become notoriously dependent upon too much technology; in short, we’ve drunk the Kool Aid very much like in Guyana. Instead of the grapevine, we comfort ourselves with AOL Instant Messenger. Instead of the family pipeline for discipline of our children, we rely on the state to introduce not only the biologically adolescent father to his children but also the socially adolescent to what is and what is not socially acceptable. Plain and simple, we don't actively engage our kids anymore -- we look to the TV nanny (Super Nanny) to say how to correct our children and demonstrate the mythos of the American ideology. Right now my wife and I are planning a family-- I don't know what made us plan it -- well yes I do, we both came from households were education -academic education was stressed as the gateway to a better life-- so that she being an educational psychologist and I a media culturist we both want the best for our child/children-- where we part ways is that she might get too pragmatic and I might get just a bit impatient. Mo is like--the book says X, this theory says Y and my mind goes Zzzzzzz. I'm more direct. I believe in the hierarchy of parenting meaning-- me pop, you child, you act up, me pop. Where she likes to theorize the book, I like to apply the book. Mind you because we live in an electronic age, it's not unfeasible to think that your child won't call child abuse, especially when you may have called child protective services on your own parents. I speak from experience. My first knowledge of Janet Jackson was through good times when she played Penny. Thinking what happens in TV happens in real life, after a whipping, I went back to school talking about child abuse. Oh what a world of mess I put myself in. But my point is simple; our parents (circa 1970s, 1960s) had the tools required to be parents. They were children from an age of Jim Crow. By witnessing the work of their parents who did what they had to do (not essentially what they wanted to), in many cases wearing the mask that grinned and lied, they made generational sacrifices.  They in many cases went in the back door so we could go through the front.  At the end of those days, our grandparents came home, parented and did this until our parents were in college.  My parents, from the civil rights era, in many cases replicated what they saw and achieved middle class status.  In doing so, in hindsight, I really never knew struggle.  I really didn’t have to work for too much and the cause effect relationship was just bad.  I had no appreciation for process, the past, or the sacrifices made for me. I think now, times are drastically different and being a teen in the 21st century is intergalacticly different than being a teen in 1983. Cable TV only had 40 channels. When it got dark outside, we knew we had to be home, if not our own house, our friend's telling parents when to expect us. There wasn't a lot of stock placed in the material world as there is today. Sure there was Madonna talking about the Material World, but she was also signifying an icon that none of us had a real connection to, Marylyn Monroe. However, racism was not as overt as it is today. At least in the 80s there were some rules to the thing, now the rules are like the Matrix, "it's all in your mind." Violence (among teens) is seen as quick and easy remedy to conflict. Or worse, it's a right of passage, a culture. You're not real if you don't get the beat down. I mean being a kid now is much harder than back in the day when it was safe to walk at night because there was a neighborhood comradery. There was this family tree that extended far beyond bloodlines. There was little back talk from the youth to the elders because the back talk of that type got you a back hand; see the last days of Marvin Gaye. In the economic sense, there was a sense of unity. There wasn't this dog eat dog mentality where before you get yours, I got to get mine.  There was a different code in the street that wasn't issued and decreed by Tony Montana. It was about ownership, self ownership and accountability. Now the code is written by Nike, T-Mobile, Seagram’s and Glock. For some reason, we think we're on time as a people but damn if we're not still late, no map and too damn proud to ask for directions. Just damn stupid some days of the week I swear! We've forgotten that we can go back to ourselves, seek out the destination MapQuest it out and do the right thing and stop the perpetual cycle of bullshit. How long, How long, How long will this bullshit go on?-- I think there is a reason why we don't have a leader anymore-- it falls to the decline of the black church. The black church is in conflict sinking in the river of denial. The black church was the foundation of mobility, spirituality, politics, social activity, pride-- now it's going down the tubes… The black church trained leaders--it ingrained humanity cause it was about love…. Now love is being found in everything--from the computer, to criminality, to corporatisim-- everywhere but where it needs to be -- at least in the Black community-- and for us that was and still is the black church… Back in the day, we as a people were about something, now we're about to look like a bunch of idiots.