What should be the role of Black people in this time of political despair?

Just because the world puts empathy for Black people at the bottom of the rung, does not mean we ought to expect the world to put empathy for us at the middle-point or highest rung. No doubt, empathy everywhere by everyone is needed.

Just because empathy for Black people is at the bottom of the rung does not mean I ought to sadly accept the place I ought to believe I am in (or for which I am conditioned to believe). If you wish to stand above it, then you must. Just stand above it. Work to move and guide the world. Do not aid in its destruction, spiritual degeneration and ignorance. Black people can lead, do lead and should dream to lead even bigger.

I accept that no amount of success or “Black excellence” as a race will end racist patterns and habits of thought, or the rationale which leads to it, and do not care. I do not act, think and write as I do to appease, but to inspire. Do I dress as I do, or talk as I do, to appease any people? No. I do it, because I have reflected on my upbringing and ways, and have undergone my changes, and have certain values. I don’t want to project myself a certain way to the world. I move against it, and maybe a little in spite of it, because of the stupidity, the prejudices, the stereotypes and racism. I grew up around people who wanted to do nothing but fade into the mass influences, and independent thinking was discouraged. Love of learning was discouraged among our own! So, I escaped into art, literature and history. There was nowhere else to go.

Now, in the present-day, the attitude seems to define American culture more and more. Should we slavishly follow in the footsteps of the general culture, or do we have the power to elevate it?

Acting like children, wanting the pity of the world from a race that has governed, conquered and set their feet over all the world, who walk the earth like they own it. . .I am sick of us begging them to see us, to put us here or there, when firstly, we do not see each other. What about the diversity among us, in both body and thought?

We act like we live in the world of every other race, and we are collectively separate from the fate of the world or this country!

The attitude post-election has been “you people chose him! You did this. You didn’t listen to Black people. You protest, well, I am going to sit this one out. This isn’t my problem. This is White people’s problem.”

Who elected these people to speak for all of us? Why is there not as much a diverse voice for us, as there are in general in the society? Why is race treated like it is something you can take and give to “your own people?” Who gave you the belief you have the power to designate who and who does not have a voice to speak among us?

There are even those among us fixated on seeing themselves as the Jews of the world, forgetting the suffering of other people’s here, that bind all our stories on this continent. Both White people and Black people fail to understand their history and instead choose to see the worse of the history. Some await the destruction of this place. What convenience!

An idea extremely powerful is not being expressed to its fullness. American communities have been pitted against one another and driven to apathy. Whether it is deliberate and controlled, the Republic will die, and we will all suffer with it. It tremendously therefore depends on any one or more of us to contribute, lead, guide and correct its course.

Politics cannot solve everything. Your favorite elected politician cannot solve everything. We need more cultural movements, philosophical movements, and so on pushing and challenging people to think differently and profoundly than before, not giving into despair.

Chicago has a great contribution to the general history of our Renaissance in the U.S., and I have long believed that we need a new organic flowering expression of literature, scholarship, music and art, particularly in a time these things are being crushed out of students and people.

Is it possible to get there through the same perspectives, that have characterized this period in Black American History thus far? I argue that it cannot. We must develop upon and even beyond our established great intellectuals and literary writers.

In this political era, we have allowed the historical circumstances to shape and dismantle the foundations of our sense of connection to this country and its fate. In some, even their belief in representative democracy. Instead, many have accepted the place of a subordinate to those who represent the racist and colonial side of American history.

I want us to step into a sense of power, not cope. This is the attitude I want to leave us with.

An encouragement of a radical break from certain patterns of thinking and understanding our place (or position) in the world and in this country particularly away from the hyper-capitalist materialistic illusions and concerns in and from pop- and celebrity cultural influence. I want a dreaming and terrible swelling or stirring of creative genius in our numbers by means of literature, art, music and philosophy in critical reaction to American materialism, the rise of artificial intelligence, tech feudalism and trans-humanism.


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