Black Culture in America: Who Did This to Us?

There was once a time when young Black men like me were taught the importance of getting an education, getting a job and maintaining a neat appearance. We emphasized good grooming and tried to present a neat appearance at all times. (“No one wants to hire a bum, especially not a Black bum!”)

Whenever we got off the ship during my Navy days it was called “liberty.” Once in a while, the required standard for liberty dress was raised without warning. The typical White Sailor of the time preferred the same outfit most of the time: tee-shirt, ball cap, jeans and sneakers. Sometimes that didn’t cut it and they had to scramble to find suitable attire.

These men glared angrily at the Black Sailors as we were let off the ship. We were not being given special privileges, we were simply appropriately dressed. Rewind two hours earlier before liberty call. Down in berthing the Black Sailors were shaving, showering, selecting a proper outfit for the evening and of course, trimming our hair.
The White Sailors were slouched in the lounge waiting for the clock to run down to freedom. No, it wasn’t favoritism; it was being properly groomed no matter the occasion. Our mothers and fathers taught us that.

Little Jayvon

I saw a handsome young boy in McDonald’s today. He must have been about six or seven years old. He had that calm, placid observant look that naturally intelligent children have. Watching the world, waiting to see what it holds for them as they journey through life.

He also had a head of long, intricate braids pulled back into a ponytail cascading down his back. I wasn’t sure if it was his natural hair (it was not his natural color-light brown tending towards blonde) or if someone had taken him in for a very expensive bonding session. He looked good but I have been plagued by questions from the moment I saw him.

What is expected of him now? What can he do? Looking back over my own childhood I can hardly imagine running, playing, climbing rocks and trees with such things in my hair. Neither do I think the women who coifed him would be pleased if he came home sweaty and dirty as boys his age are inclined to do. So I wondered, “What does he do?”

What is the future for this boy?

He is maturing around women, no male role-model in his life to mentor him, dressed like a doll in someone’s collection and not allowed to play or encouraged to study. He is being taught the importance of looking good at all times and praised for it daily. But nowhere is he being taught the value of being a man.

I see older versions of him walking around the streets daily. Sagging pants, stoop-shouldered and tattooed; they walk aimlessly from one uninteresting place to no place in particular. Life after high school is empty for these boy-men. Unless they have a woman willing to care for them as the single mothers and aunts have done in the past, these lost souls have no future.

Go back to the boy with the braids then look at the 19 year old behind bars or serving food at KFC and wonder “Is this the best we can do?”

Corporate Role Models

The nation is full of successful Black men for these boys to look up to, but nowhere are they presented where they can have a positive effect. Tattooed thugs, gangsta rappers, wild athletes and criminals dominate the media. Even the highest paid, most talented Black men don’t make the news for long unless they are involved in criminal or sexual behavior.

Tiger Woods, for example dominated the gentile sport of golf for a decade. He was only really in the paper when he won some tournament or made a great shot but the limelight quickly faded as he was simply too “clean cut” for the masses.

Once his marriage exploded and his sexual misconduct came to light then Tiger Woods had a place in our culture. How is that possible? Why is it a Black man cannot do anything significant unless it involves screwing someone?

Our culture sexualizes Black people. We never talk about it, here at least, but foreigners see it clearly and are not shy about discussing the topic. I have been told quite a lot by the people I have met during my own global travels. From Asia to Europe and everywhere in between, the people see Black Americans held up as a sexual ideal and examples of physical perfection. So why do we not see or hear that here?

Sidney Poitier

According to his biography, Sidney Poitier is "a native of Cat Island, the Bahamas, (though born in Miami during a mainland visit by his parents), Poitier grew up in poverty as the son of a dirt farmer. He had little formal education and at the age of 15 was sent to Miami to live with his brother in order to forestall a growing tendency toward delinquency. In the U.S., Poitier first experiencedthe racial chasm that divides the country, a great shock to a boy coming from a society with an African American[sic] majority. A determination to find and create opportunities for African Americans was born in him because of the poor treatment he received on the streets of Miami."

Sidney Poitier went about changing the perception of Blacks in America through the characters he portrayed in his movie roles and in how he conducted his personal life. He is no saint but he is more remembered as a dapper, handsome, well-spoken educated Black man which is far better than the thug and clown roles more common for Black actors of his era.
 

I remember him as most people do in his roles as an educated man in a suit. Clean and intelligent; he looked like he belonged no matter the setting. His smart demeanor removed all excuses for exclusion. The White majority was forced to fall back on their own simple prejudices to block his progress. Many chose to release their bigotry rather than embrace it.

That was a contribution to our cause. And it was an example of how racism can be fought successfully. Not with violence or rebellion but with passive excellence in the style of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was also a man of character and stature.

Life was not easy or perfect for either one – certainly not for Dr. King – but it was a sacrifice they made for us to have a chance at a better life today. And what has become of that chance? Sagging pants, tattooed faces, missed education, broken families and crime are all we have to show for the opportunities bought by the pain of Civil Rights.

Dathans Among Us

I will address who a “Dathan” is in another article. Suffice it to say, he was a character portrayed by Edward G. Robinson in the movie THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. His goal in life was to live comfortably among the Egyptians by helping to keep his own people in slavery. Once they were freed, he did all in his power to deliver them back to Pharaoh so that he could go back to his privileged life.

Black Americans have many such people laboring daily to ensure Blacks never rise to a level of excellence rivaling their White neighbors. Russell Simmons, Sean “Puffy” Combs, and the entire hip hop industry exist to market failure in the Black community. What is sold as “our style” is really nothing of the sort. More often than not, the Blacks portrayed on screen and the media are molded to fit someone else's perception of what it means to "be Black."
We had a glorious past filled with influential musicians who made the world that much better for everyone. Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin and other songstresses made a career without sexualizing themselves. Great music came out of our homes and clubs through labels like STAX and MOTOWN without one mention of the “n-word.” The songs were not pure or puritanical but they certainly did not serve to degrade the morals and self-esteem of an entire generation. The worst fears of Whites who opposed “Jungle music” when rock and roll was being born have now come to fruition.

What now?

I worry less about the moral decay than I do about the simple lack of drive, the lack of vision. When asked where they expect to be in five years most young Black men today would answer “Jail.” Many would be surprised if they are still alive.

What future does Little Jayvon have and who will be in his life to help guide him to it?

One thing I do know is what happens to the Black community eventually spreads to everyone else. Young White boys sag their trousers without the slightest idea where the practice came from (prison – with its purpose of making homosexual rape that much easier and escape for the victim that much harder).

I would rather we had a new fade of emulating the best of our predecessors instead of the worst. Imagine if high school boys embraced a fad of wearing suits to school regularly and getting high grades. The worst thing that could happen is they would find themselves fit for hire and (much better) capable of starting their own companies.

It always comes down to numbers. A tall, talented boy with a basketball has a 2% chance of making it in pro sports. But a boy of any size with a love of books has a good chance at going to college. A boy with an engineering degree has an 80% chance at a high paying job and almost 100% chance of avoiding poverty.

Don’t give Jayvon braids, give him a book.

Life After Lottery Letdown

If I Could Have One Wish . . .

Right now Sunday morning is dawning across America.  Tens of millions of citizens (and illegal aliens) are still recovering from the fact that they did not hold one of the winning tickets in this past week’s Mega-Millions lottery.  Three tickets will split the jackpot that finally reached 640 million dollars; that is $640,000,000.00 nearly two-thirds of a billion dollars.  Who wouldn’t want a piece of that – or all of it?

Of course, the sobering reality is the real chances of hitting the winning combination are ridiculously small. The fact that three tickets did seems to fly in the face of statistics, but they don’t.  Mathematicians who created the game give the odds of winning as 1:176 million.  As the pot was over three times that size it almost works out to the three winning tickets.  Nicely done, government bean-counters, nicely done.

Meanwhile the many millions of us who did not win return to our normal lives, somewhat deflated after inflated expectations.  It was hard not to catch “Lotto Fever.” Instead of covering the high gas prices, the Iranian nuclear program, the impending Israeli raid to stop such, the latest Muslim terrorist attacks, the Republican primary and the myriad of other important news items, the mainstream media spent as much as a third of their daily programming talking about this lottery.

I watched the talking heads muse about what they would do with the money.  They chatted about it as they broke for every commercial, dragged the sports and weather personalities into it on their segments, and called in lottery winners, psychologists and statisticians.  It was a full court press like as reserved for major war stories, hurricanes and elections that matter.  No wonder the lottery was on everyone’s mind.

Now back to reality.

“All you need is a dollar and a dream.”

That’s how the lottery is sold in many states.  Who doesn’t have the occasional dollar to spare?  When you get change at the convenience store, it is very tempting to try one’s luck with a ticket or two, maybe a scratch off; hey, somebody has to win, it might be you!  Are you feeling lucky?

Everybody has a dream of how they would spend so much money but the dreams of normal people are inadequate to the task. Consider that each winning ticket will actually be worth only 150 million in lump sum payouts. After Uncle Sam dips his monstrous hands in the pot (again) you will be left with 100 of the 640 million that had you panting breathless Saturday morning – a big step down.  But still it is more money than you and likely everyone you know have ever held in the totality of their lives. And it’s all yours.  Now what?

You can’t spend that kind of money

You can blow through that money, many lottery winners end up broke in a few years with nothing much to show for their winnings, but people of our level cannot spend that kind of money properly.

Back in the 80’s I did this experiment with a shipmate on the ENTERPRISE.  Earvin “Magic” Johnson had just signed a 40 million dollar endorsement contract and my fellow sailors were alternately complaining and dreaming about what that must be like.  I told them, “You can’t spend that kind of money.”

After the protests died down I took out a piece of paper and began to ask specific questions; what would you do with that kind of money.  I listed each purchase a person had.  House, car, bills paid off; the usual things people say when asked on television after a big win. But be specific; what kind of car, how big a house, where are you going to build?  Gifts for mom and dad, share with the siblings – yeah I wrote those down too.

Some big numbers piled up.  We moved into extravagances like jewelry and luxury travel while the big house was under construction.  The Riviera is nice in the spring.  First class tickets and beach front rentals are not cheap.  Eventually that first year winds down and you want to settle into something a little more normal, so you go home.

I totaled up the bills from that big blowout and it came to 2.5 million or less for everyone!  My estimate still holds true today.  A money manager who advises those who are suddenly rich from the lottery or a big athletic contract to take three million in “mad money” and go do their dreams and leave the rest to start working for them.  Thirty years later, just three million can cover the average person’s dreams.  Bill Gates can burn that much money every day of his life and the fire would never go out.

You Can’t Go Home Again

But home isn’t what it once was.  Your friends still have money problems and you want to be generous but you start to feel taken advantage of.  Eventually, money envy turns into resentment.  People think you just got lucky (which is true) and you are no more deserving of such wealth than they are.  One thing the money did for you quickly was reveal who are your real friends. It’s time to move into your new home – and get an unlisted number.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though.  You can find friends with approximately the same standard of living you now possess in your new neighborhood.  And you don’t have to fear bills coming in for a few years – if you are handling your money properly.  Taxes won’t even scare you.

In the long run money in any amount cannot make you happy.  A pundit once opined that big money only makes you more of what you are.  If you are a jerk, you will just become a rich jerk with enough money to be a more noticeable jerk.

But a wise person will still be wise no matter the balance of their bank account.  A fool goes broke in a few years, a wise person does all he or she wants to do in their lifetime and leaves an inheritance to their children.

I didn’t play the lottery.  I don’t play no matter how big the pot gets because I can do Math.  I prefer to work for what I get and, being a Christian, I prefer the odds I get investing my spare dollars in God as opposed to a government run lottery.

But I still dream of a life different from my own. A nice house in the country, a couple of new cars paid off.  I will get them, too.  It will come through effort, through training myself and disciplined investing of time, money and faith, and possibly a little luck.  But I like my odds.

No need to worry about Magic Johnson either. He didn’t win the lottery – except the genetic lottery that made him freakishly tall and talented – but he also got where he is today through hard work, careful investing and wise spending.  Even the rich have dreams.