The American Dream

A reader notes:"Good post, but at the top of it you wrote:> I will also answer a question here about the younger generation of Black Americans, and some differences, positive and negative, that I see.##
Mike is correct. I DIDN'T answer that. As I've noted several times, these entries are just about stream of consciousness. I don't edit myself much, barely spell-check, and in the above case, didn't read back over to see what I'd promised to do. So, I will now.
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Do you want to know what I think of the opportunities available to black Americans right now? I think that this generation--the post WW2 generation and beyond, are, in those classic words, the Hope and the Dream of the slave. When slaves held each other and lay in their shacks, bones aching from labor, not knowing when the overseer might come and rape their wives or daughters, they could only pray for milk and honey on the other side. Or some few of them might pray for a better day, when bone-cracking effort from dawn till dusk might actually be invested in their own children rather than their masters. If those slaves knew that so many kids today believe that "nothing has changed" they would laugh and laugh...and cry and cry at the chilling, frightening ignorance of that attitude.
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Those born post 1970 have no idea at all of the suffering and deprivation their parents and grandparents went through, and in general they wouldn't WANT to know. I watch how little my darling Nicki wants to know about those days, and who can blame her? There is so much pain there, and so little joy.
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the cynical side of me says that Black Americans gained their rights exactly one generation after large numbers of Black men returned from WW2 knowing how to kill white people. But that's just my cynical side. The truth is that America isn't a nation, it's a dream of freedom that has been building in te human race for about three thousand years, ideas twining together from around the globe, with some major evolutionary bumps among the Algonquin, the Greeks, and with the writing of the Magna Carta, among others. The seeds took root on the last major piece of un-Westernized or Easternized land--the Americas. Unfortunate for the Native Americans, of course, but, heck, almost everybody's gotten screwed in this game.
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Young Americans, especially those who have not traveled outside the country, sometimes have some bizarre notion that America is some horrific, vampiric entity crouching over the planet and sucking its resources, the most evil and dominating force that has ever existed. Young African-Americans, lacking the historical perspective that plagues kids white AND black, often see nothing but the downside, in the same way that fish don't know they're wet. We've got a strange situation in America where obesity is a sign of POVERTY. What? If that isn't the most topsy-turvy bizarro-world reality imaginable, I don't know what is. Black Americans are, in the main, the wealthiest, most powerful, best educated Black people who have ever walked this planet, but it is hard to see that, because our only points of comparison are whites, who have (on the average) even more. Being black in America is like being an abused child in a wealthy house. But that is the material side. What of the spiritual?
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And there, Africans have us hands down. they know who they are. they have their land, their language, their gods (although many of them have accepted Christianity or Islam, every African also knows someone in his family who knows the old ways), their names. They know who they are, and even if paralyzed by the deprivations of colonialism, they know what they lost. Black Americans don't even know what they lost, and often deal with a crippling fear that they ARE as inferior as many whites consider them to be. And that is the most horrific legacy of slavery.
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I remember when "The Bell Curve" came out. I bought and read a copy of that vile piece of propadanda immediately. If the premise was false (and so I believe it to be) then I needed to be able to refute it. If the book was accurate, on the other hand, then the disease needed to be properly diagnosed and remedies found, if remedies there were. One does a patient no favor to ignore the symptoms of a deadly disease. But my black friends gave me ENDLESS crap about reading that book. They virtually accused me of being a race traitor. Remember what I say about anger being a mask over fear? Well, if they were angry (and they were) then what were they afraid of? THAT THE BOOK MIGHT HAVE BEEN RIGHT. That blacks really WERE and ARE inferior intellectually. Hell, we'd been told that, directly and indirectly, every day for four hundred years. You don't think that that sinks in? The most egregious legacy of slavery is the belief systems that kept it in place. Slavery could exist because whites told themselves, each other, and black folks that slavery was good for black people. Heck, these poor ignorant stupid savages were being uplifted by their imprisonment and brainwashing. Rape was good for their gene pool. Go ahead--do your research. This was their position. The real problem is that the belief systems outlived the institution that they were designed to support.
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And there is the problem. As segregation crumbled in the 60's, the integrity of the black community, as a geopolitical entity, crumbled with it. I was there. Once upon a time, pretty much all blacks lived in the same neighborhoods: rich and poor, educated and ignorant, preacher and junkie. It was a full community, with all the strengths and weaknesses of any other community. There were limitations: we were told point-blank that there were schools we could not attend, jobs we could not hold, hotels we could not sleep in, restaurants we could not eat in, neighborhoods we could not live in, women we could not marry--although white males could, and have always, had access to our women. Come integration, the most visible barriers crumbled, and those who could get out generally did. Instead of holding together the schools and businesses in the inner cities, in the "ghettos", they went to good jobs on Wall Street, Beverly Hills, Washington, Century City...whereever else competant, capable, energetic people went. And if it took them 110% effort to get what white people got for only 100%, well, what of it? Their parents reminded them daily that once upon a time, a black man could exert 200% effort and get only 50% of the results. In comparison, that looked damned good!
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And now? There is virtually no arena of human endeavor where I don't see intelligent, well-educated, focussed black people kicking much ass. Are they represented in the proportions I would like? Nope. But the progress, just in my lifetime, has been stunning. And please note--that progress would have been IMPOSSIBLE if the majority of white people were not good, decent, caring people who basically just want to create safety and security for their own families. the number of helping hands out there are literally countless. Liberals want to help you out of guilt and love. Conservatives want to help you because, if you measure up, you can help make a stronger America...and out of love. Yes, there are bigots, but they no longer have the force of law behind them, and just two generations ago, they did.
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Young black Americans are, too often, unaware of their history. So are white Americans, but their safety net is vastly stronger. They don't need the strength that comes from knowing your roots, knowing what you have survived. Remember the Dark Night of the Soul? The accomplishment of ANY goal takes you to that point. And brothers and sisters, if you have ANY excuse for failure,--too black, too young, too old, too short, too gay, too female, too fat, WHATEVER, then your inner demons will whisper to you, and you will succumb to the "I Can't because" crowd. And they are legion.
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So what do I see? I see legions of smart, proud, capable young black people in colleges all over the country. They are starting businesses. They are working their way up the corporate ladders (more females than males, for obvious sociobiological reasons--they're less threatening). they are doing well in countless ways. And, they are also filling jails and projecting negative images through some of the most ignorant, lowest common denominator music and popular entertainment in the history of the communication media. Popular radio now has a far wider spectrum of possibilities, and blacks sing opera, play classical music and jazz and rock--but the specific image systems of rebellion and pain have always been intoxicating to rebellious teens, so white teenage money drives the engine of the Rap moguls. Political rap is driven to the edges, angry and vulgar rap with simplistic beat and zero melody takes center stage, and there is a gigantic money engine keeping it that way for the time being. And young black Americans, if they are as angry and alienated as their white counterparts, can find a hundred times as many reasons to believe they can't make it--even if, as I stated earlier, the answers for how to focus and uplift your life can be found in any Waldenbooks in the country. Unfortunately, too many of these kids, because of the collapse of the geopolitical black community, have no role models of possibility, so they slide into the belief that they cannot.
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I have criss-crossed this country, and seen some of the wealthiest and poorest people in America. I've traveled to Europe and Africa, and seen poverty the likes of which most of these kids cannot even imagine. I know that people the world over have watched America flail like a wounded giant, and make bad choices, but still love us. Still know that, in the main, we have used our power with greater conscience than any empire in the history of this planet. America is a dream worth sharing and preserving. And this generation of black Americans is the hope and the dream of the slave.