“How long? Too long!!”

Anonymous

My man Asa wrote a beautiful post just the other day entitled: “On Responsibility, Accountability and Values: The Process to Change.” And it was beautiful, not because he quoted me, but for his consciousness of where change must begin in our communities. That would be with US!

This message fell on and continually falls on deaf ears in my view. Even with something as egregious as the Jena 6 situation, the fact is we do that shit to each other ten times a day. Checking the Field Negro’s blog, how many homicides are we up to today? 176 DEAD in Philly, the overwhelming majority, our people. How many of us died in Jena? HELLO?!

How many of us died today in DC? Oakland? LA? NYC? Atlanta? Miami? Chicago? Detroit?

Where are our BIG leaders, our black organizations, black progressives, the Afrocentrists and militant nationalists, handkerchief head Republican-Shelby-Steele-Flava-Flav-type muthafuckas, when it comes to healing and dealing with this Black Holocaust we confront and have confronted since the slave ship?

Getting P-A-I-D that’s where, being turned out like the $3.00 crack ho’s that they are, pimped by foundations, corporations and pseudo-religious government entitlement programs. Selling their soul to the devil, that’s where. Jesse wasn’t so wrong with his little Fox aside; he’s still trying to be the Head Eunuch In Charge, the nutless chumpion. All of our so-called leaders with one or two exceptions has been neutered, made harmless before white capital. They don’t die, they multiply. And they lead us steadily to the showers of the concentration camp, serenaded by the sound of Reverend Michael Eric Dyson aka Nas-lite, rapping and hambone fiddling, the narcissistic academic, BEOTCH!!

What can we do, those of us who live in the real world? Brother Asa reminds us that it begins with us. We have to look at life in terms of spheres of influence. The closest spheres to us are us; our life, our habits, our failings, our strengths, our families, our communities. We can change ourselves. We may have some influence on others, perhaps not so much by what we say but by what we do. Ditto for our community.

The major problem we face is that too many of us carry around violins poised and prepped to strike up that same old ‘white folks done me wrong song.’ Its like some of us can’t wait until the next white outrage so that we can have an excuse to take the focus off of ourselves and place it back where it belongs: white folks.

Nothing motivates us or stirs us to phyrric action faster, nothing gets us out in the street, gets our hearts pumping quicker than a white racist incident.

Well, there are a whole lot of otha racist incidents, filtered through us, filtered through OUR behavior. They call it “internalized racism” and it is perpetrated by people with a darker hue, though it is rooted in our oppression by the white man. Today, white folks outsource much of their vicious racism/white supremacy through black subcontractors: think the US military and Halliburton. That’s what they call “renting a negro.” You think I’m wrong? Take a look around you…

“To understand the intent, look at the affect.”

If we don’t address the poison in us FIRST, we will NEVA address the R/WS “out there” properly, with clarity, or with wisdom. We’ll simply have another ineffectual march, call on some other political charlatan to ‘represent’ you, represent ‘us.’ And these fakers will continue to steal your precious marrow that you sell like the Bowery bum looking for enough coin to get a half pint. Your half pint is your self-delusion, your addiction to whiteness.

Yes, you are addicted to white people. Your addiction is the other side of the coin to assimilation. You hate white, track whites, see all the wrong that they do to our people. That’s where your energy goes, that’s what animates your political organizing, or lack thereof. Its the foam around your mouth when you launch another diatribe that puts the white folks in their place when they come to this blog, for being white and ignorant which is par for the fucking course.‘ (Right on, baby’)

And this kind of militance is perfect for the armchair quarterback that you are. It requires no organizing, it requires no work. Its fucking Afrocentric Muzak piped in on cue.

And we are addicted to someone else carrying our water. Obama?! Negro puhleaze?! That man ain’t for you. He love Israel more than you, he just said so at the AIPAC slave auction meeting. How many billions will he send to Israel when your broke ass is praying to an Obama altar for some heat next winter?! J. Edgar Hoover knew something about us when he said he wanted to prevent the rise of a “Black Messiah” who could unite the race.

Their savvy response: create a Negro Messiah themselves, give the niggas a Trojan Horse, black on the outside, making noises like he is one of us. Hell, he plays basketball for chrissakes, he’s got to be down! And when he gives you the Rev. Wright treatment you’ll blame white folks for that one too.

No, blame yourself; when you can begin to do that you’ll be ahead of the game. When you can take responsibility for your misplaced thinking, your delusions, your shirking of your role in changing you and becoming more and more awake – you’ll be on your way.

And don’t think that I’m not talking about me here; I’ve been as deluded, confused and irresponsible as anybody. I was blind; now I can see. Temporarily. That’s why I need my brothers and sisters with emerging sight, to give me a little bit of clarity regularly. None of us can see the whole picture, but together, if we’re rigorously honest, we can see much if not most of it.

Why don’t we talk to each other about our dreams, our vision, our plans? What are your dreams, visions and plans? Where do you see yourself, where do you see us, five years from now; on the local, state, national or international level?

Where do you see black youth? What legacy do you want to leave them – “I’m a habitual complainer about what white folks do?!” Or, “I’ve begun building institutions, smalls ones that have morphed into larger ones, that feed black people spiritually, emotionally and intellectually?!”

OR, much more importantly, “I’ve begun looking at myself and how family and societal bullshit has fucked me up and now I’m getting some serious therapy to address it so that the harm stops with me.”

We’re at one of those Booker T./W.E. B. moments. We’ve got some hard choices as a people – and they are about us and only us. We must ask ourselves some very hard questions and grow the fuck up. Then and only then can we be of use to others. Can we ‘pretty-please-with-a cherry-on-top’ have a moratorium on talkin’ bout white folks? Can we create a methodology that respects ourselves, our gifts, our power and cease this voodoo like attachment to ‘all things white folks.’ Fuck them and their missteps; we’ve got plenty of our own to own up to and deal with.