I beseech you to liberate yourselves from the vestiges of ignorance and rid yourself of the paralysis that infects your mind. Move from living a life based on the lowest common denominators and elevate yourself to higher ground, which is more than just keeping your head above water. Understand that the victory is beyond simply winning the battle. Warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
If you choose to admire or follow those who make empty statements that are of no value to the individual listener or to a community of African Americans, and then without reservation opt not to speak to or acknowledge one another, you have lost sight of those concepts we once embraced — community, intellect, moral value and accomplishment. The skill sets that Tuskegee sought to instill at that revered school of engineering is surprisingly without mention in contemporary music. There is no reference in popular songs to being an engineer or a professional. Although we are free we insist on enslaving ourselves time and time again.
Intellectually we no longer want to live, learn and work as a collective. We are no longer appropriately awed or walk in trepidation for the blood that has been shed, not just by Martin Luther King Jr., but also by Medgar Evers, Vernon Jordan and Malcolm X. They have acted as shields who have fought valiantly on the battlegrounds for social progress and for the integrity and honor of thinking and sensible African Americans who are not slaves to initials — like BMW, or LV as in Louis Vuitton. They would work to forge and make a connection with the least of us regardless of pedigree and intellectual capacity. They would urge us to make distinctions between what is real and what is perceived, and false images, like the distinction between a 4 percent conventional loan rate as opposed to the outlandish and exorbitant interest rates on furniture rental and pawn shop loans of 18 and 27 percent, respectively.
The miseducation of the millennium Negro has given rise to a perverse subset of African American celebrities who in the name of a musical genre and lifestyle called hip-hop forgot about the African American journey and the victory dance. The movement of African Americans leaping ahead of their parents like a game of generational leapfrog, ascending from the ghetto but not so far that they expunge from memory their cultural identities in order to be surrounded by those who look differently from them, and only appreciate the African American when he scores high on the SAT, and soars high on a basketball court.
Collectively, we must measure ourselves and celebrate our black history beyond the month of February. And we must never question the necessity and validity of Black History Month. The accomplishments of my dear good friends, W.E.B. Du Bois the first black Harvard graduate; and Booker T. Washington, who established Tuskeegee Institute; and our other friends like the founders of Miles College; or Dorothy Height, who headed the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years; and all of those other historic and iconic figures who held us to the course.
Why are we as African Americans declining in the number of individuals attending institutions of higher learning? Why would we question the value of HBCUs and self-impose the dilemma of what is noteworthy and valuable in our culture? Anyone born after 1949 should push for African American history year. Black Americans should have developed an entire calendar that would highlight the achievements that we can reflect on and use as the foundation to erect the legacy of nobility on. We will remember with dignity those who came under attack for integrating uncharted territories, we will remember those who were first. Those who drank when they came home, who cried while they slept, who worried and were gray before their time.
Oh, the miseducation of the Negro who now yields submissively to being petted and patronized. He wants to be the single Negro speaking for the millions of unemployed and unskilled who know nothing of Du Bois and Booker T Washington. If they did, they would mirror that behavior and come to a new and heightened appreciation for Black History Month and Dr. King’s birthday. They would follow the trail of blood and tears to the final destination. The angels are still questioning why we are falling prey to social ills inflicted on ourselves by ourselves.
I end this discourse on the plight of African Americans as Carter G. Woodson would in a Letter to a People. Why do you insist on creating a maze of confusion in your mind, and then look on quixotically as others celebrate your culture and your history? Fashion yourselves as a collective, and as a group to surpass the tea party, to collectively move any group of individuals who are working together for the advancement of their people.
Peace.
Munson Steed
