Allow me to preface this by saying that I am NOT the end all be all. I am not issuing, nor am I attempting to issue the quietus on this subject. I do not intend to garner any amount of fame, love, attention, or anything of that nature. This is but a young man’s feelings, strewn out into words and sentences. If it doth interest you to read beyond this, please do so. If it does not, then may you take away that I am only one man, one mind. If I should represent anything greater, it would only be the hearts and minds of those who sympathize with my views; that will only happen if they decide on their own to support me. Any use of collective pronouns such as “us” and “we” are in reference to myself and my supporters; I assume that I shall have some, or at least one. All of this being said, I’ll begin.
I speak to you coolly, as I emerge from the shadows of martyrs. Their inexorable tree-like places in my mind have helped to block the searing rays of ignorance, and house the songbirds I call morals. These songbirds sing the euphonies of righteousness, love, truth, justice, and reality. Morals are nothing more than once sedimentary ideals that have become ingrained in the parts of our minds that hold the perception of ‘good,’ ‘just,’ and ‘right.’ And that is where I would like to begin this. There is a dearth of morals not only in the world, but specifically in the Black community. Such paucity can be appalling for a bevy of reasons, but the most pertinent one is this: if a moralistic individual is one that tries his or her best to do ‘right,’ and to be religious or pious is to be a devout doer and believer of what is ‘right,’ does this not show that there is a scarcity of truly religious individuals in the Black community? I would definitely posture that to be true, on the shoulders of this definition of a religious individual: someone whose belief in a god is tied not words, but to actions. By THAT definition, the Black community is clearly lacking religious individuals. But this is not an attack on religion. This is not about who believes in God and who doesn’t. This is about the lack of morals themselves. And that introduces us to the crux of this piece, the burden or the beast. Now you may ask yourselves, ‘What is he getting at? Sounds like a rock and a hard place.’ You would be correct in that observation, but it is not so concise. The burden or the beast offers a glimpse into the main issue of the Black community: either face the [perceived] burden of parenthood, or tangle with the beast of socialized children. So many of our brothers and sisters have chosen the beast, without knowing what that entails. Yet, they complain when they see young brothers killing brothers, young brothers killing mothers, young brothers killing others. That is but the beast in action.
The beast is a creation of the White man. I love White people, and I have nothing against them; however, it is well known that some of the most evil men in this country and in this world are White. This is also not to say that men of color are not evil as well, but the diabolical evil I speak of is solely of White parts. When our brothers and sisters choose the beast, they are essentially choosing not to be parents, but sperm and egg donors. This leaves the child with no father figure, which means a boy has no viable role model, and a girl has no sense of what a man is. If the child is left motherless, the boy has no idea of what a woman is, and the girl has no role model. This means that two of THE most crucial parts of development, emulation and recognition, are relegated from the family out to the outside world. This ipso facto is horrible, for the simple fact that the family is supposed to be the hand that strokes a child’s innocence, which is its bastion from the ills of the world until it is ready to understand and face them. So now you have children exposed to things they cannot HOPE to quantify, all while still trying to grasp the concept of maturation, or while still learning to respect elders, or while learning any other major concept. No longer are they being raised by parents. They are now being raised by television, music, and the Internet.
The White man tends to control what’s on TV, he’s usually the bigwig behind what you hear, and we all know he has his hands all over the Internet. As a Black child, it is important that you understand your particular situation…you must know where you come from, where you are, and where you need to be. TV, music, and the Internet aren’t going to tell you that. The Internet might, but that’s only when you’re not on uploading pictures to Facebook, not posting your life away on Twitter, and not uploading songs on Myspace. A Black child that does not know its heritage is like a lion that does not know to hunt; it is capable of excelling, but does not understand the point in doing so. As we all know, a mind is most malleable in its early years. By the time someone is in puberty or beyond, it is basically impossible to change that person’s beliefs. Even if you were to take one of the misguided youths off of the street, and present said youth with a slew of reasons why they should turn their life around, it wouldn’t mean a thing. WHAT they know is ALL they know, which is the ‘hood’ that the beast is under.
The dearth of Black fathers has created a black hole in the Black child, which is THE main home of the beast. I have no father to love me, but I bet this gang will. I have no home, so these streets will be my home. My mother slept around, so I might as well. I don’t need a dad, men ain’t sh*t. The father figure represents the rock, the stability. History shows that Black men are strong and family-oriented. He has been supplanted by the forms of entertainment that the White man feeds our children. Lil Wayne saying Birdman is his father is fairly harmful by itself. But, when you have young men out here looking to emulate that by entering the tutelage of some OG gangster or whatever, you have a huge problem. That only exacerbates the current issues, and guarantees that they’ll be passed down to the son of that boy, should he choose to be a father. (Note: the issue of Black men “choosing” to father children, is directly related to Black men not being responsible or accountable for their actions. Being wanted by all races as well as FEELING as though they’re wanted by all races has given them an inflated ego, which has combined with the desire for instant gratification as well as the lack of fathers to create this irresponsibility.)
Let’s not be too one-sided: the beast is not discriminate. Young ladies are just as affected. With no father, they don’t have a true sense of a man’s love…and they run around for a lifetime trying to find it. Be it prostitution, allowing men to treat them any type of way, treating themselves any type of way, or just looking to find love in sex. They are just as lost as the young men. The greatest difference is that while men join gangs, women take up materialism. They draw all of their confidence from being vain and love whatever they can buy. They don’t have love, so they try to have everything else. Possession makes them feel important like a “you’re daddy’s little princess” would have done when they were younger. Even more so, they feel like success replaces anything a man could do for them. We hear enough about this from the media, so we won’t delve into it.
The beast is just that. A beast. It is a monster that seems impossible to contain, yet all we do is talk about containing it. At least once every six weeks, if not more often, we have discussions about what’s wrong with the Black race, or at least what’s wrong with dating in the Black race. Allow me to tell you: a discussion is like a plan: it sounds good, and it reads well, but it is nothing without action. And it just so happens that NONE of these discussions speak on action. Why? Because the people that speak are just that. People that speak. They don’t actually care. Their purpose is to remind you of how dire your situation is, so that you feel as though you can’t change it. So far, it’s been working. It would all change if you chose the burden though.
Stop letting the White man and others who have been influenced by the White man raise your children, and do it yourself. It is a very arduous thing to do, but beside it being your JOB since you did what it took to make the child, it is the best thing you can do for your people. If young men had fathers, they wouldn’t need gangs to feel special. They wouldn’t use women to feel like men. They wouldn’t depend on sports to have stability. Young women wouldn’t be so materialistic; dad would tell them that TV is just TV, not where they should be getting their values from. They wouldn’t open their legs as quickly. They would have more self-esteem. This may not be true for all young men and women, but with all of the Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brother Big Sister movements, and the like, it’s obvious that these children are crying out for something. And that something is guidance. If you set someone on a path, and that path leads to their destination, they aren’t likely to stray; and if they do, it won’t be far. They need guidance, and they need stability, which parents provide. I’ll stop short of preaching to you though. Hearkening to one of the most powerless heroes in the history of cartoons, Captain Planet, I must say that the choice is yours.
You must choose: the burden or the beast. The burden offers gratification later in life, the beast offers instant gratification. We are accustomed to getting what we want when we want it; however, we often forget that our desires must be checked, or we run the risk of putting them ahead of something important. In assimilating…ahem…integrat
-A. Lewis
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