Diss-Connected

It is critical to make the connection to success and to the continuity of ideas that constitute communal as well as personal progress. Connection — the word has so many uses, as in drug connection, or flight connection. But what of the connections that actually propel us to a higher rung on the ladder of economic success? To make that connection requires reaching out without reservation for mentors to readily draw from their reservoir of knowledge and historical perspectives. Rather than reject them as cultural relics and dismiss their social relevance, we should eagerly absorb the lessons they have to offer. It’s a disgrace that here is a connection that is becoming more and more removed with the passing of each day. The concept of me precludes us from volunteering to be part of a larger national or even global movement and hinders our associations with the senior and more learned members of our society that have seen so much more than we have.

What is this strange and counterproductive social phenomenon that dictates the decline and erosion of institutions that have long been the fabric of the community. I am woefully underwhelmed by our individual and collective appreciation for social cornerstones like Ebony magazine. And I am absolutely dismayed by the dismantling of institutions like the NAACP and the Urban League where the sentiment is too often echoed, “They are no longer relevant.” The invaluable connections that are made in these hallowed institutions have meant the salvation and the advancement of our culture.

Conversely, we have not heard grunge bands or white hip-hop bands or country western groups advocate against their history so vehemently. They don’t diss Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich openly and adamantly. We impugn our accomplishments and invalidate our own worthiness when we denigrate African American leaders on the world stage and besmirch them in song and music.

It is more than a little unsettling when historical figures enter a room and not only do we not recognize them, we really don’t know who they are — and we’re not trying to find out. All that is relevant to us is what we have heard on a CD or an iPod promoting ill-conceived notions that perpetuate our pursuit of materialism. Suggesting to an entire generation that education is not necessary and intelligence can be replaced with cool — worse yet — that social graces can be set aside to wallow in the drunken stupor of fame.  

I happened to spend some time with Rev. Al Sharpton — a man who had just a short time earlier addressed Parliament in London. But yet I hadn’t seen that on a blog. A man who can and does speak with the president, and yet I had heard him dissed on a record. We find feeble ways to justify the  tearing down of the people and things we should uphold. We tell ourselves the lie, that we no longer need our fathers, brothers or grandfathers, for we are men and women now. But the more we proclaim that ill-fated notion, the more we do to weaken our resolve to unite against a Willie Lynch mentality that has infiltrated the economic condition of the Diaspora’s children. That mentality perpetuates self-hate and finds fertile ground where “Negroes” are willing to tear each other down.

Reverse our attacks on each other. Reverse the attack on our institutions. Subscribe to Ebony and other African American publications and find reasons to appreciate those who may not be in the enviable positions you apparently find yourself in. Volunteer to help so that they can move ahead. Appreciate your history instead of reversing it, ignoring it and erasing it. For all of you who think, “I don’t owe them” — whoever “them” are — anything, look in the mirror and think again. From here forward let’s not diss-grace or diss-respect each other by dissing our culture and ourselves.

Peace.
Munson Steed, Publisher