Black to the Future.

Okay I'll come out and say it since no one else has the balls to...

No one over the age of 12 and under the age of 40 really cares about Black History Month. Now don't get me wrong, if you mention taking it away then everyone and their mother will be up in arms about how important it is, but I just wanted to let you know that you don't really have to spend so much of your budget on those "Channel 4 salutes Black History Month" five second promo spots.

Now back in the day Black History Month was really something. The teacher used to roll out the old gray film strip projector, prop it up on a book and point it at a blank wall somewhere over Dr. Martin Luther the King's picture. Depending on how poor your school was, she'd either sync the projection to a tape or a record player. Eyes on the Prize would start playing and she'd turn the film strip at every chime.

Growing up in the 80's during the bull market phase of the crack epidemic, I found these film strips disturbing. It wasn't really the injustice of the water hoses and dog attacks that got me. I was more confounded by fact that they allowed it to happen. All of the Black people I knew growing up were violent as hell. DC averaged something like 400 murders a year in the 80's so my thought, however ignorant, was reflective of the times: Why didn't they just shoot the police like they do now?

In 1988 my generation was so far removed (mentally at least) from everything pre-Civil Rights Movement that it's a bit lofty to think that kids who came after me would really pay any more attention, especially now that we have a Black president. I'm not one of those people who thinks that racism ended in November 2008. Racism is a Twilight vampire that will never be killed off. Unfortunately, a lot of us are supplying the blood that's keeping him alive.

For one, my understanding of the mission of the Civil Rights Movement was equality. The goal was to one day live in a world where there was no discernible difference between races as far as potential and options available. Why then is it that Black people seem more openly racist these days then anyone else? We hate everybody from Whites to Hispanics to Asians. We even hate each other, hence the whole Black person vs Nigga thing. Every Black comedian has a bit about what White people do that Black people don't.

If we don't really hate anyone then we do a hell of a job killing what little opportunities there are to foster integration into mainstream psyche. Black Entertainment Television, Ebony, Jet, TV One, The Afro, Black Enterprise--The titles basically scream Hey, this aint for you! People talked shit about the Cosby Show for not being realistic, but it was the number one show in America for several years in a row. The goal of any decent actor is to not be seen as a Black actor, but rather to not be seen at all. The audience should just see the character. That's where I think our culture was trying to go. Somewhere along the way we just got distracted by the difficulty of the dream and settled somewhere between bitterness and not letting it go.

Call me an Uncle Tom, say I don't know what the hell I'm talking about or whatever the hell else you want to say but how can we ever move forward if all we do is rehash the past? We've been celebrating Black History Month for a while now and things for us seem to have gotten worse. There are way more Black doctors, lawyers, artists, engineers, politicians and entrepreneurs than EVER before but we don't highlight that. We talk about how White people didn't want us to eat at a lunch counter fifty years ago, but that means nothing to a generation that doesn't even use the term lunch counter anymore.

The average grandmother today wasn't even alive when that stuff happened. Instead of talking about what White people did to us, we need to address what we did to ourselves. How about the whole moment of silence the NAACP took when stuff like BET Uncut used to run all the time. Jena Six brought back bad memories? Well they aren't memories for us. Why don't you talk about why the younger generation seems so comfortable saying nigger and yet you constantly take it upon yourself to remind White America that they can still use it to hurt you. You somehow feel that having a funeral for a word will change the way people feel about us. Address the coonery in movies, music and television first.

Address the fact that there is so much garbage in our neighborhood to eat and no healthy options. Since you love the Civil Rights Era so much, restart some of the Black Panther Party's school programs. They used to take food to poor schools so the kids could eat. They did tutoring and mentoring for the kids. Maybe the law (and common sense) won't allow you to drop off bags of food, but you can do so with your vote, tax dollar and your influence. Get on TV and talk about that. You can volunteer after hours for tutoring. Maybe you could do some real drug reform and legalize half of the stuff that they're out here killing each other for so that the prison industrial complex won't profit from something so dumb as murder over a fucking plant. Maybe you set the wheels in motion so that one day being able to throw a ball won't make you richer than being able to design a building or a bridge.

I could go on and on (1000 words so far) but I guess what I'm really trying to say is: Enough with Black History, let's focus on our present because our future is looking grim right now.