I was having a conversation with Mr. Black this afternoon and I shared with him how on CNN a young principal of a charter school from Connecticut shared last night how tired he was of people giving their autobiographical responses to the issues and problems facing the youth of today. He referenced the old standby, “When I was young if I did wrong I would get a whipping all down the street, by strangers”.
He went on to state that a great part of the denial of so called black people is that their children have lost respect for them based on their own behavior and that they are in denial of that impact. Now that’s a paradox inside an enigma and something I think needs some serious and analytical thought.
As the conversation progressed Mr. Black said something that resonated with me to my core and I am paraphrasing, he said, “With the exception of so called black people and so called Hispanics why don’t other groups have spokespersons for them?” He went on to say that your news networks and in particular CNN trots out a cadre of black experts including, but not limited to, Dyson, West, Gates, Smiley, Martin, T.D. Jakes, Eddie Long and others as if they and they alone have the pulse and understanding of every so called black person and their problems in the country.
He asked me did I ever see panels of American Koreans or Japanese on these shows? I responded that I did not and that I don’t see panels of so called white people experts either. Why not? Are the news networks suggesting that so called white people are not poor, are not ignorant, and don’t experience crime and other issues plaguing the people of this country?
What do you think the consequence is of this? What impact does it have on the brains of those watching these panels of pseudo subject matter experts? I don’t ever remember CNN contacting me to ask if I am selecting any of them to speak on my behalf. Of all the (PSMEs) only the young brother from Connecticut makes any sense and even he isn’t aware of how he is being used.
Mr. Black, shared with me that this has been going on a long time from Merv Griffin inviting James Brown on his show as a PSME to CNN inviting Gatling gunned mouthed Negroes on with a host of clichés but absolutely no solutions. Now I loved Mr. Brown’s music especially his “Say it Loud”, but that doesn’t make James an expert of the problems and issues facing so called black people.
I might add if you live by cliché you die by cliché principally because few people know and understand the vital contextual nuisances of the cliché they are quoting. They sound good as sound bytes, but as they say in 12th step programs, “You can’t work them off the wall.” In other words how do you make them applicable when you don’t really know what they mean.?
Take for example the much touted, especially after Hillary Clinton, used it, “It takes a whole village to raise a child.” For a time during that period it was hard to attend an event peopled by Negros where you wouldn’t hear this as if it was applicable in an urban environment in the first place.
First off there would need to be a continuum concept present to nurture and expand it to a reality. Secondly if a group truly wanted to do that they had better gain a clear and deeper understanding of language because if not they will be setting their children up to be ab-used!
Most people will assume erroneously that the word whole, in the cliché “It takes a WHOLE village” to mean ENTIRE village. Okay then act on that assumption and in no time at all your babies will be returned to you beaten, sexualized, stupefied and zombified because you would have entrusted them to an entire village of damn fools without employing any vetting process.
Now if you take the word whole for what it really means and please don’t act as if you already knew this if you didn’t, whole means healthy, and now apply the cliché, you get an entirely different context. Yes that might work if you indeed had a village of mental, emotional and physical healthy adults caring for the little ones.
However, the converse is in effect in the remnants of what used to be community. You’d be putting the cart before the horse and in that with crystal clear clarity I understand Mr. Black’s deep desire and angst at trying to get adults to see that they must learn the language so that they may think critically to prevent someone else, CNN, to do their thinking for them.
That way when our children are presented with the dilemma of seeing and hearing people who look similar to them, but are saying things that are contrary to them having a healthy and productive existence on this planet, the adults relative to them who have learned how to know can point out to them that what they are seeing and hearing is falsely constructed, how it is in error and that it is basically bullshit that has NOTHING to do with them! Now you have a healthy village folks….
What do you choose to do?