Now that we are at the middle of February/”Black History Month” and approaching the fifty-ninth anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X in Harlem, I am moved to share this update.
I remember when I was a boy of less than ten years, coming along at the tail-end of the times of “Colored Only” entrances in American public buildings. It is hard to believe that was once the rule of the day.
Riding with my parents as they drove up to New England, and seeing them wait to (not) get served at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant; the waitress walking by us as if we were not there, and mom and dad leaving after a while in silent frustration. This was in Massachusetts, not Alabama!!
Nowadays, I watch black Americans, much younger than I, re-segregate themselves, choosing to only go to the places where other African Americans congregate, instead of enjoying what we overcame in the 1960s as a result of the efforts and sacrifices of Martin Luther King, Jr, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Roy Innes, Angela Davis and other civil rights trailblazers. They able to go wherever pleases them, while not embracing integration.
I came across this article among my newspaper clippings:
Many of these of the generation I speak of have the wrong mentality, in my opinion.
We integrated American society which tried to keep us on the margins! Do not backslide into that painfully negative era! Many of you don’t or were not taught at the dinner table to “keep on pushin”, as the late singer/songwriter Curtis Mayfield once crooned, but know that as you re-segregate yourselves, we incrementally all lose the gains of unity fought four with true tears, blood, sweat and abuse.
Where I live, I am happy and blessed to be able to go anywhere I choose to, without being questioned or stopped; this wasn’t always the case for our race. Now, granted, I carry myself via principle, word and deed with class and dignity, mixing via conversation with all manner of peoples, as longs as I don’t sense negativity or danger. It is incumbent upon all of us to continue to socialize across racial lines because whether you realize it or not, we opened the doors for women’s rights, Latin American rights and other so-called “minorities within the “melting pot”!
Just be a person and not a color as much as possible. Enjoy all genres of music, not just Hip Hop with its overuse of street curse word commonness – I almost can’t believe that I just wrote that, lol You see I was an on-air radio disc jockey for over forty years and thereby hung-out with everyone “from freaks to famous” as the saying goes. I wouldn’t want to live in a predominately black neighborhood – because may of “us” still haven’t had the kind of home training and educational embracing necessary to truly represent positivity, from the boardroom to the bedroom, without drugs and violence.
Don’t get it twisted, I am no Uncle Tom. In-fact, I was one o f the most militant Brothers of my group during my university days of the early 1970s. We grow mentally and physically, respecting Mother Nature and whatever other deity you desire and must maintain the integration advances that we gained, being ever-cognizant of individuals such as Donald Trump and his disciples, who don’t give a damn about us, getting into the President’s chair.
I have gleaned that some of you might, but please Do NOT, vote for tRrump and his “MAGA” disciples! It would be criminal to do so. Do vote, though; third party RFK, Jr. is also an option. That’s enuff “politikin'” for now.
“Keep on Keepin’ ON.”
Achilliad's Blog! by Jimi B 