Bow in the presence of Greatness

Props to Mizzo and the Good folk at The Starting five for moving out of Blogland and onto the net as a whole.  

As a blogger, I really believe that us amateurs play around on WordPress and Blogger, but the pros got their own .com.  And when I grow up, I, too, will be making the jump.

In the meantimeinbetweentime, I was invited to add my voice to the brilliant Five Questions Post 

I will also be posting my answers here and commanding asking all the rapidly growing list of folk on my blogroll to ponder  and answer these questions as well.

1. What does Martin Luther King represent for you personally past, present and future?

 

Dr. King was my first celebrity role model.  He was intelligent, he loved God, and people loved him.  I didn’t really have hopes of being quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, or second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but I could conceptualize being a leader of my people.  As I got older and the myth and legend were broadened to include his flaws, I began to understand the humanity of Dr. King, and he grew in my eyes. As I reach the age Dr. King was when he was killed, I am humbled by the sheer volume of his accomplishments in such a short period of time.

 

1. By not speaking out, did Tiger Woods blow an opportunity for America to discuss race more objectively? Is it his responsibility or any athlete for that matter?

 

We are a long way from the shadows of Jim Crow, the hearts and minds of individuals notwithstanding.  The words and deeds of Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe and the like were a needed because they humanized the movement.  A different era calls for a different tactic.  More importantly, it is a matter of choice and not a universal charge to take upon.  Tiger Woods is a singular individual in a unique circumstance.   I cannot MAKE him be offended.  It borders on hypocrisy for him to act like he is offended when he is not will only complicate this matter needlessly.  To elevate the words of Kelly Tilghman to a level that requires a whole lot of discussion on a macro level is to give Ms. Tilghlman a stature that she doesn’t deserve. It was a callous and insensitive remark made by a rookie broadcaster who was solely interested in being witty.  Tiger’s priorities are clear, and have been since he came on the scene.  He isn’t a hypocrite, that’s for sure.  He does what he does, and he does it better than anyone ever has, or probably will.  For some of us Golfing is a hobby, like blogging.   For some of us, Golfing is a Job, like….blogging.  I barely know enough about blogging to tell someone how to do their job, so what do I look like telling someone about being a golfer. 

 

1. How do we persuade our children to firmly understand the need for thorough knowledge of English, math and science?

 

Knowledge is power.  Not money, not weapons, not strength. 

 

Knowledge. 

 

Our people perish for the lack of knowledge.  Our children only walk the path we lay out for them and set them upon.  We as a people (no, not JUST Black people…we as a PEOPLE) continued to substitute convenience and technology for through knowledge and our children are only fulfilling the sad cultural legacy of anti-intellectualism this country has set out for them.  A nation that willfully enslaves people by withholding knowledge from them sentences itself to a future of ignorance.  Any change in our children must begin with us.  Anything else amounts to hypocrisy.

 

1. We all know if there were persons of color in the noose cover shot decision making process, the art wouldn’t have been approved. Please explain passionately why there is a need for progressive Black ownership in journalism.

 

A man who doesn’t own his own story is a slave to his historian.  No amount of money should be able to separate a man from his story. If my experience online has taught me anything, it has taught me that we are little more than the sum of our RSS feeds, our DVR schedule, or the memory slots in our radio, or our ipod playlists.  If you don’t dig deep into the soup, you won’t get any meat out.

 

5.      Do you agree with Congress having hearings on steroids while our men and women die in Iraq?

 

On Thursday, The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is having a hearing on HDTV.    Congress’ job is to hold hearings, I don’t have an issue with that.  My ISSUE is the fact that it seems to garner so much more attention when celebrities and stars and athletes testify as opposed to people who actually KNOW stuff. 

First Day of Black History Month: The Importance of Context

Despite what my knees and back tell me, I am still a young man.  A cursory conversation with my ninety year old Grandmother will put to rest any ideas of reaching out to AARP for the privileges that come with membership.

But while I haven’t reached geezer status, I have accumulated a fair bit of tread on the tires and I have been around the block enough times to say I got a pretty good grasp on how the last 40 years have played out in the lives of Black folk.

And to say that it has been a historic period for Black folk is to greatly understate the bittersweet nature of the time.

Black folk have made a major come up in the past forty years.

Black folk have also woke up to find themselves on the Sole end of a foot in the ass from the the very institutions that coalesced to bring about the foundation  of an America that lives up to the true meaning of its creed.

You know, that whole “All men are created equal” stuff.

1968 Marked a watershed moment in my History, and when I say  MY History I mean the history of the American People which I have always considered myself a part of.

People have the whole notion of the Whys and wherefores of Black History all screwed up.

For the cheap nickel tour of Black History month feel free to get your Wiki on, I will deal with my own history with it.

While Black History Month has been in February as long as I have been in School, I have had the unique opportunity of having History be taught to me with ME included in it throughout my life.

No one ever tried to sell me that line about Columbus discovering America.

No one ever told me that Lincoln freed the Slaves.

No one ever told me that Martin had a dream and President Johnson made it  come true.

From the door of Pre-School in the projects of Pittsburgh; from the day I was Old enough to turn the channel and see the news; from the day my mother found out that I was clearly not the average 3 year-old when I took to phonics faster than I took to the potty, I was blessed with the real story.

The Tooth Fairy put a quarter under my pillow, but My mother showed me her invisible wings that protruded out of the back she carried our household on.

I always left cookies by the tree  for Santa Claus, but I knew my mother would be the one wiping the crumbs  from her chin in the middle of the night.

I was a child in the sense that my mother allowed me to maintain my innocence organically, but when real life intruded, she let it, but not without her watchful eye.

When i was 6 my bedtime was about 8:30, but for one week in January, 1977, I stayed up and watched Roots with my mother.

There was no ongoing commentary that I am aware of, just me, a precocious boy who had more brains than sense, and his mother, a woman of intelligence that no test could measure,  in the projects of Pittsburgh, PA, watching history unfold on a screen.

Momma Ink raised me as though God told her that life was going to be like this.  She left me in public schools that white folk would NEVER send their children to and those teachers taught me a history that apparently doesn’t get taught to most children.

She never missed a chance to send me somewhere to add on to the story.

We attended a church where the Pastor had a passion for the Word and a passion for the History of his people.

I emerged into adulthood with the full story.

I may have grown up in the shadows of the last gasp of the industrial revolution, under the cloud of a neighborhood that was strangled and then devoured by the the changing times, but I understood what was happening and why.

maybe YOUR history was a tale told by the victors, but mine was told by the victims with the sweat of their labor, the blood of their Savior, and the Tears of joy in anticipation of the victory that time and diligence would bring, as surely as  it came in a different incarnation for them yeas ago.

It’s that most wonderful time of the year

I love February.

Something about Black History Month that always inspires me.

It usually gets buried underneath the torrent of responsibilities that amounts to my real life, but this year, thanks to a Blogger who appears to be a Homey of mine, Mamalicious, I am signing up for 32 Days of Black History Month and hope to use this as a spring board to being more productive.

Now if you will excuse me, I have some homework to do.