Black Male: Endangered Species Theory

                                     

It seems every 23 seconds a black male is harassed, shot or stabbed. The statistics are staggering...23 is the age they we rarely see... 21 seems to be scratching the surface... So yes on my 21 first birthday I grew nervous...didn't know if we were a hex the media flexed upon me... Naive me... The indigenous black man... We fall like trees in autumn now... The bibles we spiritually depend on can’t support this thought on life...Lord knows who imposes there will... If the meek inherits the earth... Who will the cowards feed on? Who will they follow...? The endangered species theory. We FOLLOW twitter we LIKE Facebook, look at the facts of life, we are in a changing state of technology that is leading us into a new wave of responsibility. Yet these Rapid advances of resources has been the catalyst to the demise of our endangered species. Yes our self-inflicted wounds, presumed theorist right, we are the reason for our extinction... The transparency of the truth has been molded and shaped to fit the evening news. So what do we tell young Jamal in junior high school...? Should we blanket the truth in order for him to realize his endangered youth? Should we allow him to figure it out for himself instead...Too many times we lead our troubled black youth down the path... Leaving them alone with no options... The truth has many faces and phases...

"The idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating --pretty soon we're not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They're all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two." John Edwards, MTV political forum, September 27, 2007

The source speaks for itself or lack thereof...have we succumb to our own stupidity? By allowing other ignorant specimens become Picasso on our lives.

The portraits of opinions and conclusions that are drawn with invisible proof ... We think we know... Who is to say that John Edwards isn't right...? This is in fact the road that we are driving without any headlights or hazards.  The math tells us that every 30seconds a black male is getting arrested... I smirk at such facts in sarcasm, we continue to dig our own grave of stupidity...can you blame them... We sag out pants to show our ass... To the world... We degrade our women with synonyms of hatred and disrespect.  And we expect the media to respect us!?

  I remember when I was riding the number 6 train downtown. And an elderly woman eavesdropped to a book I was reading, it was Black Boy by Richard Wright, and this elderly white lady asked me did I know who and what I was reading. I replied “yes”,” a book”, sarcastically “and it's from a black author”, she looked at me with such confusion and befuddlement. I presume she was astonished for a teenager to be reading a book of such prevalence to black culture and language, my reply to her didn't fit her optical mode of curiosity.  As I look back on that moment, maybe I should have indulged in her faint curiosity, maybe I should have shot down her preconceived notion that most black male teenagers read only rap magazines, or just the sport sections prepared for eighth graders. I spare the disparaging stereotype and in retrospect maybe my short sarcastic reply was just enough to satisfy her ignorant taste buds.

 Nigger or Nigga... Is there any difference ... I have used both words a plethora of times. Does that make me ignorant? The more power that we give words... It will eventually take on its own meaning... Could be your meaning, his meaning, my meaning, her meaning, this can go on forever as long as we allow it to. Al sharpton believes other wises, so does Kwame Kilpatrick, we urge our youth to do our homework and revisit the times of civil rights Movement... I urge the feeble teenage mind to think critically just what the Move- Meant to US! Lynching’s, dogs biting the black off our asses... Our black woman raped...yes that very same black woman you degrade...Yes young Negro we all were once slaves, picking cotton till the sun left us... Picking cotton till our finger tips were thawed out rotten ... O lord what have we done for our lost black male to be so forsaken?

They Proclaimed to the incarcerated that there GEDS... Weren't Good Enough Degrees... So we settle for self-tutelage. Manuscripts written by MAN... Lord why are they misguided by the bling of a chain... Whips and chains are the ones to blame...is it Lil Wayne, rappers rapping about dreams that are merely unattainable unless there are a couple of stains in your record. Ironic enough these words they have different meanings now but are the same words that set us back hundreds of years...if the revolution were to hit today I would rather die in the arms of a coward than live to see our endangered species live vicariously through mirages of wealth...they say they want a revolution huh?

We roam in a world where we are judged on how fast we run, or how well we speak on the contrary of where we are from…we are subjugated to only receive GED’s…Athletic Scholarships, warrants, random pat downs, Uncle Sam’s hand me downs…and yet we have the audacity to walk with a smirk of work that amounts to worthless efforts to propel a stereotype that rises above…the police sirens we effortlessly dodge.

I often wonder the plight of our endangered species; we believe that we made it once we hit the big screens…no matter our flight to the top…it will never be enough. We set our precedence from which our history has in fact bestowed upon us. Do we ask to be great…? No we do not? Do we ask to be stereotyped…no we do not? Yes some of us may speak well…what you may call white talk…may just be talking with sense, what you may call struggle…we call it survival.  We live in different times and the masses steers us in a direction we have yet to discover on the globe. I wonder what tales will they tell of the Black Male when we are extinct…will they tell tales of a hero…will they tell tales of a revolution…we accomplished so much but have very little to show for our accolades…you see a Black Man’s GREAT…is a White Man’s Thursday…these are not words of prejudice or sour words…merely words reflecting portraits of our society. Our black men are in dire need of inspiration, we can’t allow our president to play the role of daddy to all young black men of America…

Wake up Black Male…you are dying…yes every day you are fading, further and further into oblivion…to nothingness…so thereon you will be a memory of nothingness…where only the mute can only speak of such atrocity…YOU… your last life line…through your trials and tribulations…through media humiliation’s…they were never able to cut off the two feet you stand on …be strong…be your own shoulder to lean on. How can they hold you back when you are walking against the wind! Then again how can they hold you back when you are the leader amongst MEN! Wake up Black MEN…Wake UP!

Write to make it right!