Has The Sting of Racism Become Dull For This Generation?
Racism has been a part of African-American history since we first arrived to this country. From the atrocities of slavery to the bigotry of the Jim Crow laws, we have seen all the ugly faces of racism. For African-Americans over 45, the memories of having to use the colored restroom are very real. However this is not the same for the children of this generation.
Today we live in a country that, although not racism free, is a place in which African-Americans are free to advance as high as our imagination and determination will take us. We are living the dreams of all of those that sacrificed for us in prior generations. The Black middle-class is the highest that it has ever been in this country as well as home ownership. This is just to name a few of the many achievements that we have made as a people since the civil rights era.
If you take the time to talk with the youth of today, it would not take you long to see that their knowledge of past American history is very limited. Unlike the culture of yesteryear in which it was mandated for someone in the family to pass down the history of the family to the children, we live in a culture in which many of the older generation amongst us want to be like the younger. This, of course has contributed to the breakdown of our family structure as well as the loss of our ties to our past history. All this generation is left with are old, faded black and white documentaries on public television that show black people being sprayed down with fire hoses or being bitten by dogs. For this generation, unless the documentaries are in color and have a phat beat in the background, they will not see the connection. Cross burnings, lynchings, and the KKK have become part of ancient history to this generation.
At one time, the word nigger was one of words that sparked all kinds of emotion from fear to rage in any African-American that heard it. Today’s generation has adopted this same word a cool saying, especially within the world of hip-hop. Today, it is not uncommon to see White, Asian, Hispanic, and other youths of various cultures using this word freely in their daily conversations in the presence of other African-American youths who on most occasions, will not feel any inkling to say anything. There was a time when African-American men told the world “I am a Man”, refusing to be called nigger.
With all of this being said, why is it that black leaders continue to invoke the horrors of jim crow to this generation as a means to sway them on how to vote? The truth is, many young African-Americans have no clue of the definition of jim crow. Some of them even think that jim crow was a person. As I said earlier, racism still exist here this country. You will always find someone out there that does not like Black people no matter how many times we may change our title (African-American, colored, Negro, etc.). Some of these leaders have even made the declaration that they will not let White people off the hook from the past until anything that smells like racism is removed from our society. Proclamations like these to this generation are no better than trying to sell someone the moon. If you do not know by now, life is rarely fair, no matter what color you are. This is not my attempt to marginalize racism. Instead, I am saying that we need to stop lying to our children by telling them that they can never make it in society until all that is bad has been eliminated. If African-Americans such as Frederick Douglass who not only experienced slavery first hand, but saw his mother almost whipped death by her slave-master, was able to ignite a national movement that played a large role in dismantling the system of slavery in this country, we have no excuse whatsoever to succeed.
Although few in number, there are emerging leaders within the African-American community that have moved beyond the use of racism as a tool to galvanize our community.These leaders will look at what has been accomplished versus our failures during this generation and help construct a solid path for the future of the African-American community. The self-appointed leaders in our community see this emerging trend as well. That is why they will continue to do things like use every bad interaction between the police and a black youth as a battle cry saying “See! See! Jim Crow lives!” instead of taking the time to find out that lil’ man was arrested for selling crack to more innocent black youths. Yes, there are the cases where police force does cross the line (in cases like this, the abusing cop needs to be dealt with), but we cannot allow instigating leaders to sweep us away with the assumption that racism was the blame.
The story of the boy that cried wolf is a story that we can all take note. Unsubstantiated claims of racism not only marginalize the real cases, but sooner or later, people will stop responding altogether. Even our own children.
