By any means necessary....I have a dream...

****re-post, I deleted it by accident...Original post date: January 18, 2011****

I don't think we get it!

Somewhere along the lines we missed the point of it all.  We missed the point of the struggle.  The sting of the pain.  The way the sweat burned our eyes.  The many tears that flowed, and the blood that spewed senselessly from the veins of our predecessors.   We seem to have forgotten the burnt crosses in our yards, the lynching of our babies, and the killing for no reason other than hatred of the beauty of our skin.   We seem to have forgotten the struggle, that really isn't completely over, it's just disguised in various forms.

I watched Malcolm X today.  I movie that I know many people blow off because it's 3 and a half hours long. It's amazing that some of us won't even sit through 3 hours of history. *foodforthought*

It brought tears to my eyes to have a visual representation of what our mothers, fathers, grand mothers, grand fathers, etc went through.  It pulls on that spot in my heart that aches and groans when I think about the past.  When I think about how lucky I am that I was born into a time where blatant racism is somewhat a thing of the past.  But strangely enough I wish I was there to experience the struggle first hand.  A part of me identifies with that time in history more than the age I'm in. 

It's hard to think that the greats like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks etc walked among us only 45 years ago.  Just 45 years ago we were still fighting for our rights and freedoms. Being told to use the back doors and being chased by dogs on the way to get an education.

Now looking around we have forgotten what it means to be Black, African American, African Canadian, Afro American, Negro, and dare I say it...Nigger.  Not to discredit anything that US President Barack Obama has done...because he has and is accomplishing great things in the position that he's on right now.  But seems like we treat him like an exception; as though the only reason that he got where he did was because of his lineage, not his merit. He has definitely continued the dream we all dream about and has in many ways renewed the faith and hope for a better future.  (Keep in mind this has nothing to do with whether you think he's doing a good job in office....that is not the point of this reference...that's for another blog another day!)

To me it seems as though somewhere along the line the memory of all the hurt, pain, tears, fear, sweat, and blood got shoved to the backs of our minds and we don't even think about how much our past effects our future.  It seems like we somehow treat our roots like they didn't exist....kinda how we straighten our hair(I admit I'm guilty of that one BUT once again....another post for another time) if we can't see it, it doesn't exist. 

In a few days will be Martin Luther King Day and a few weeks we'll celebrate Black History Month.  We'll all wear the T-shirts and shout the slogans and sing it loud 'I'm Black and I'm proud!' but so what???  Come March 1st we go back to disrespecting each other.  Not caring for our brothers and sisters.  We go back to killing each other and the vicious cycle continues!

"It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual." -- Martin Luther King Jr.


.....as always .....comment.....discuss.....let's start a dialog.....peace n blessings.....