After The Vent...

I still hold to the sentiments I had before...I think the Black community needs to raise up seriosuly and get off this whole talking, whining, and crying thing. It's just not cool...I think that the same civil rights leaders that we hold up in a demi-god light would be ashamed of us.

I spoke with the woman who I wrote the letter to (Andrea, creator of www.UppityNegro.com) and she started to break it down to me. Basically...it came down to a big ole 'DUH,' because what I felt yesterday has been the same things she's been seeing, hearing, and living for the past 3 years in trying to get Uppity Negro (which is a movement, NOT a fashion statement) up and running. She wanted to mobilze us as a people, have each of us in our own way take part in some activism and start making the changes we'd been whining for. But at the end of it all there was a lot of talk, and no action on our part, and so she's given up on UN. I don't blame her...it's hard to mobilze people who don't want to be mobilized because in mobilizing them they just MIGHT have to let go of some of the 'comforts' of life.

I'm not exempt...I saw her story in a paper a few years ago and contacted her with a willingness to help, but when she responded and I heard all she was going through, I don't think I was prepared to step up to the plate. Why is it so hard for Black folks to help each other? To come together for a greater good? To struggle and appreciate the fact that the sacrifices made as an individual are for the benefit of the collective? What's happened to us? Why...are we so non-trusting and even hateful towards one another? Where is the REAL Black love? Someone let me know something...because I just do not see it.

I'm still tired of the talking, the intellectualizing, the postulating, and posing. I still want action. So then I have to turn inward and ask myself if I, ME, am ready to take action. Am I? And the response that comes to my head is 'but what about law school? grad school? what if this action thing leaves me destitute?' 'Cause admittedly, no one nowadays really wants to struggle, suffer, or go without. It might sound messed up, but at least I'm being honest. So I don't know WHAT I'm gonna do. More than likely, I'm gonna try and conjure up someway in which I can have my cake and eat it too. Meaning, I'll prolly try to go and get more education (because I DO think I'm gonna need that in my arsenal) and still take action. But...where do I start? We all have specific gifts and talents that we should use for the greater good of society...I just haven't figured mine out yet.

I still love my people. I'll die and go on to heaven still loving my people. I guess I'm just waiting for the answer to a question to magically appear, when it very well might be right in front of my face.