The truly ironic thing is that as the public attacks upon us by white society have decreased, it is our self-negating and self-destructive that have increased due to the deliberate destruction of a peoples mind. There is a huge rise in media consumption on our part. We have bought into someone else's definition of reality. We have allowed our "reality" to be shaped by the mass media. We have forgotten how to think for ourselves.
The hopelessness and frustration we see in our communities is the result of our ignorance of self, not understanding who and what we are. We are being taught to loath and denigrate ourselves. We think we are who our adversaries say we are and portray us as being. We have to begin to redefine ourselves as powerful beings that the black person is. We have allowed our greatest assets and gifts to waste away or be used against us by our enemies. We overlook the choice to believe that we are powerful beings as witnessed by our glorious African history. Our enemies don't want us to ever discover the power of independent thought, that we don't need them to define us or shape our reality. So when we do show that we can be intelligent, educated, well-spoken, career-oriented and successful they must find another way to try and knock us back down. Who is it easily done through? The media. They make it part of the norm to be ghetto-fab, and use ebonics in place of Standard English, fight and cuss each other out on National televison. We need more blacks who love themselves and our people enough to do the laborious work to restore their awareness to wholeness, become role models, help us tone ourselves up, transform ourselves morally and physically so we are prepared to do what is necessary to raise ourselves from our current state and predicaments. We need more trailblazers who have the courage to challenge the indignities and injustices that have been woven into the fabric of American life and stimulate people to take action on their own behalf. As we enter this new decade and this new century we need leaders who will stir us from this stupor, and redirect us away from mindless into concrete ideas, values and behaviors that will stimulate improvement in the overall quality of our self-image, self-esteem and lives.
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