THE ACCEPTANCE OF OUR NEW BLACK REALITY

It is must be understood that package and presentation are paramount in this county. Style, image, and symbolism mean a lot. The Wall-Streeter’s and the moneyed interests know this fact. The political circus we call campaigning and elections are rooted in package and presentation. That is why the media talking heads are always commenting on how Presidential a candidate looks. When you place the Obama package next to the Michelle Bachman and Herman Cain package for example, it is a no brainer who wins that contest. The problem is that we get so wrapped around style, image, and symbolism, and completely miss the dynamics that drive the imagery that we see all the time. Black folks have a real bad case of the Stockholm syndrome (you are in love with your oppressor). Now that there is a Black man in the White House we have gotten so full of ourselves, and started using the twisted logic to think and believe that him being there means that we somehow have arrived, (The question I want to ask is arrived from where to where)? The reality that surrounds us says everything but that; we are still looked at with disgust, disrespect, still despised, displaced, and disowned. How in the hell can you conclude anything other than that is beyond me! It is a clear sign that we are tap dancing in the twilight zone and or skipping down the yellow brick road to the land of delusion. Last time I checked the prison industrial complex is still rolling along culling Black males/females like there is no tomorrow. Last time I looked, Black unemployment is still through the roof and moving to outer-space. Since the housing bubble burst, the damage is still being felt from sea to shining sea. And lest we not forget that Black home owners (who by the way were the primary targets of all those subprime loans, you know the ones that blew up the housing bubble), have been smashed with no help in sight. Yes, it is nice to see Black folks in the high places of power and influence, but if their being in those positions doesn’t manifest into actions that improve the lives of our people, then that admiration is greatly misunderstood and misplaced. We need to break out of this abusive relationship with the current Black elected officials and stop trippin on all the symbolism that it represents. Package and presentation is like eye candy, it’s good to look at, but is it good for you, much less good to you? Symbolism is like virtual-reality, it recreates mental imagery that looks good and titillates the senses but in the end it is only a distraction/diversion from the real world that you live in. The few of us fighters/activist who have gotten the message are now ready for a new message of what to do with what we have now accepted as the truth; our new reality. I for one am tired of being told that Obama is a nice person. I already know that, and am waiting for any creative ideas that Him or you may have as to how we can save ourselves. Secondly, it ain't that Obama is or is not a nice person. What we have here is a systemic and institutional problem, which in the end can only be solved by replacing those people, systems, and institutions with something more humane and human. This brings me to the third thing; solutions, what we can do. The answer is, carve out some time from your family and survival obligations to help organize your neighbors, friends, co-workers, fellow students, or whoever you circulate among to demand and work for a better deal for all of us. Pick an area of concern to struggle over, pick some friends and associates, and pick a damn fight, become vocal! This is almost becoming too depressing for me, because it seems like there's no way out. And that's exactly what they want. If we join together, we can do anything (sadly said quite a bit in our circles). And I don't mean join together in voting, I mean doing something that actually works. The joining together I’m mentioning is right in front of us. We have to create some form of a instant hyper- connection to all Black people, people like myself who are not wealthy, all the working class, all of the working poor, and desperately poor Black people of this country. In 2008, we saw an African American run for the Presidency as a viable contender, and at the same time also witnessed a truly remarkable silence. While there were millions of words written about the political ascent of one Black man, there was virtually nothing about the descent of Black leadership into ineffectiveness. Barack Obama’s personal itinerary was mapped to the minutest detail. The larger itinerary of African Americans was mostly ignored, and is still being ignored. Let us now create our Itinerary.