This was an old post from 10 years ago that I forgot about…
Food for thought – If we were talking about baby seals certain segments of the community would be in an uproar, there would be protests in the streets, a website set up to fight the to stop the killing of these seals, hell there would even be a telethon to raise money and awareness. An endangered species gets a lot of attention from people who will go to great lengths to save them.
So today we should be swamped with calls, emails, and post on Facebook by people who are willing to sacrifice time and energy for the solution to saving the one of our own species, young black men! Black boys are an endangered species, if you watch the news or follow any media the evidence is right in your face. Black boys are expendable in the eyes for society; their lives are not valued equally with the rest of the human race. In the hierarchy of today’s society, they continue to be, and maybe always were at the bottom of the totem pole. It is heartbreaking!
Deeper still think about sharks, considered one of the most dangerous predators on earth, millions of dollars are spent each year to study the habits of sharks, what they do, where they go and what makes them such a fearsome force of nature.
This part may offend a lot of people:
Black people have been conditioned to be self-loathing, to differentiate based on our skin tone, and worst to turn on each other if it means getting ahead. As young black men gained that sense of self-worth, acquired a thirst for knowledge and started moving up the totem pole it struck fear in almost everyone. In the Black community we started accusing our own children, especially boys of “acting white” or “talking white” and if was uncool to show intelligence in school in front of our Black peers so boys became fearful that if they showed intelligence, they would be ridiculed for being smart! In the White community the fear was self-preservation, the systematic approach of first breaking the spirit of black men, the methodology of division and separating families, and beating and killing those who would not conform was vitally important in making sure these strong, intelligent men never had a chance to realize their potential.
Bottom line, until we remove the biases, the stereotypes and the FEAR of these boys growing up to be at the top of the totem pole, until we teach them that it is ok to be the brightest in the classroom, until we remove the preconceived notions that these boys are destine to follow the path in the wrong direction, until we stop locking our car doors when we see a group of young black men and roll down a window instead, until we teach them that violence is not a long-term solution and it only amounts to more problems; the killing will continue and even escalate and those seal hugging, shark loving folks will not bat an eye because what’s one more extinction.
