An Angry Black Man

I tend to shy away from racial articles, for they are admittedly not my forte and they are so fully embroiled in controversy. I am of the belief that race should not, and ultimately does not, matter. The only reason it matters is because we make it so. I am, by definition, what you would call a redneck. I am overly fond of Texas, my truck, jeans, cowboy boots, NASCAR, guns, country music, and Budweiser. But, if you have never seen me, you would not know that I am a black man. I do not like what I like in effort to “be white.” I like it because I like it. However, you will tell me I am the “whitest black guy” you know. And I laugh and carry the joke. But not because I think you are funny. I laugh because I know your ignorance knows no bounds. Certainly, I will be the first to rail against the stereotypical black man, the stereotypical group of black people. But not because I want or need your approval. Not because I am “trying to be white.”

 I decry the stereotype because as soon as I walk out my front door, that is what you expect me to be. I decry the stereotype because too many of our young black men and women have fallen prey to the stereotype and believe that that is what they are supposed to be, so much so that, in many respects, it is not even a stereotype anymore. It saddens me to watch this happen to our black youth, to watch them grow up, to hear them called “angry black men.”

In truth, these are not angry black men. They are lost, misguided, and self-destructive black men. Our original angry black men marched in the south. They were lynched, chased by police dogs, dispersed with fire hoses, imprisoned, assassinated, mutilated. They fought and died to prevent what is now happening to our black youth.

America’s first angry black men witnessed and were victims of the racial injustices of the American social system. They realized that these injustices had to stop. Their hearts were torn at the sight of the reality of the times. Not for fame or glory, these angry black men refused to bow their heads and avert their eyes from the crimes perpetrated by the system that told them they were less than human and no better than cattle, only good for manual labor and service. Their eyes blazed with the fires of equality and justice and their hearts were burdened with glorious purpose.

Some advocated non-violence and civil disobedience while others took a more direct approach-an eye for an eye-by any means necessary. Nat Turner, Malcom X, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Dr. Martin Luther King. These are just a few of the names of these angry black men. These are also the names of men that we, as children, learned about, talked about. These are the men that we flocked to hear, that we followed down roads and across bridges in Alabama, that we were imprisoned with, that we emulated.

For decades, an angry black man refused to accept the status quo that told him his place was in the ghetto, or the cotton field, or the sharecropper’s shack, or in prison. For decades, an angry black man fought to get an education. When he succeeded, we applauded him, we praised him, we aspired to follow in his footsteps. This angry black man would put on a suit, get his education, and enter the world to which he was previously forbidden. He would make this world his own. Then he would take a younger angry black man and guide him and teach him so that he would one day surpass him.

I was fortunate enough to have a mother that, from the time I could recognize words, simultaneously taught me Scripture and Black History. As an adopted mixed child, I did not have the benefit of tracing my ancestry back through many generations. My mother did the only thing she could, as all great mothers do: she made sure that, while I did not know who conceived and birthed me, I knew full well the caliber of the people from whom I descended. From the kings and queens of Africa, to Hatian princes, to Moorish scholars and warriors, my mother made sure I knew the history of my people. It had partly to do with pride. I was taught to be proud to be a black man when the world told me I should be ashamed. But, it had more to do with knowing that I stood on the shoulders of giants, that these men and women paved the way for me to be great and to do great things that will pave the way for those that come after me, like my son. It was so that I would know that even though the world, and my own country, tell me I am of little value, those who came before me built and shaped the world and that I am capable of the same.

Sadly, as I see and hear our black youth today, these lessons have been lost. The stories are not told anymore. A majority of the youngest generation only knows Dr. King as a holiday, a day they don’t have to go to school. Most of them do not know who Brothers Malcom X and Huey Newton were or what they did. They do not know the names of Marcus Garvey, Daniel Hale, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Dredd Scott, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Generals Benjamin O. Davis Sr. and Jr., or Lt. Henry O. Flipper. These men, and more like them, are what we used to idolize and look up to. These were our role models, men who lived their lives and served their people and their country with distinction and honor. Ask our youth who these men were and what they did and you will be met with silence and blank stares while they try to google them. Yet, they know Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Jay-Z, Weezy, etc. They know all the stats and lyrics to men who have made fortunes either putting points on a board or rapping about hoes and money and drugs. These are our new role models.

It is a great thing that the major sports leagues desegregated, it truly is. But I feel it has done more a disservice to us as a people. Once, college, an education, an opportunity to service your community and to change the world were our ambitions. But for quite a while now, our ambitions have been to be an athlete or an entertainer. Of all the doors that have opened to black men and women, these are the top two, many times the only two, choices of most of our youth. Again, I was fortunate to have a mother and father who taught me that knowledge and character are power. While I was athletic, I never had an ambition to professional sports. And while I have always been gifted with words, I am by no means a rapper or singer. First through the military and second through education, I have been able to see just how vast the opportunities can be.

Up until recent decades, black men and women have always been proud people through all situations. They have been proud and righteously angered. They have fought to prove their greatness. They have fought to leave a better world for their children and their children’s children. Somehow, we began to defeat the very purposes of those battles and those sacrifices. We began to lose sight of our history. We cannot say the white man took it from us. We cannot say it is because the white man enslaved us. It has been controversially said that no one can enslave you unless you let them, and I firmly believe that to be true. We were once kings and queens who built, conquered, and ruled nations, until we sold ourselves into slavery for trinkets and empty promises. We brought ourselves out of slavery and we still demand compensation and special treatment. We demand what we have not yet earned. In older times, at the age of manhood, a young boy was sent into the wilderness alone, to fend for himself until he came back as a man, wearing the skin of a predator and having communed with the ancestors. Our youth today grow a few pubic hairs, impregnate a young girl, get a gun, smoke a joint, and demand to be recognized as men without ever truly learning what it is to be a man. And the fault belongs to no one but us. The fault lies with our parents for not being parents and with our children for the choices they make. We can only blame it on the economy, on the financial and education systems, and everything else for a short time until we must accept that it starts with the choices we make in our homes, in our schools, in our streets, and in our lives. We must realize that being proud to be hood, or ghetto, or rachet, is NOT what it means to be a proud black man or woman.

We were once a beautiful, strong, proud people, and we can be again. But we have to take responsibility for our own destiny and we have to choose to be strong and proud black men and women.