A DAY OF RECKONING-6 Tommy Green – Mobile Beacon City Editor This is the sixth and last article in “A Day of Reckoning.” I am praying and hoping that my words will raise African Americans consciousness to a heightened level to make a positive difference in their community and their lives. I was born in 1939 in Marion, AR. My parents were sharecroppers on a farm where they were exploited by the White owner. This was during segregation. The entire curriculum in school from elementary through high school didn’t reflect Black people’s history, and the books had been used in the White schools. Therefore, Black people felt inferior to White people because we weren’t validated in the textbooks. During the Civil Rights Movement, we began to read about ourselves, which caused the majority of Black people to walk with a certain pride in themselves. Before the 1960s, if you called someone black, you may end up in a fight. However, since the 1960s, it is a badge of honor to be called black. We started to feel good about our hair, color, and nose. As I reflect back to the 1970s while I was in the U. S. Navy, I could see a marked difference in African American youth compared to the pre-1960s. They begin to have less respect for their elders, which was very rare before the Civil Rights Movement. I can understand a people who had been restrained for most of their lives, allowing their children more freedom. I had a vision and feared what would happen to our children with more freedom without responsibilities and boundaries. A large number of African American parents started to raise their children as White Americans were raising their children. One example is how our mothers use to look with disdain when they saw White children running in a store at will without their parents instructing them not to run. Another example was a White child telling his/her mother, no or walking out of the room and slamming the door. We can see the result of a lack of parenting by Black parents today. How do you raise a Black child similar to a White child when if both of them commit the same crime, the White child will receive probation while the Black child will receive mandatory sentencing? Another example, Black children wear expensive blue jeans with holes in them as White children do. Black people wearing pants with hole in them don’t reflect their history because we didn’t come from a culture of wealth, we were denied opportunities for wealth building. The style of clothing with holes in the pants reflects a society with an overabundance of materialism. After the 1964 Civil Rights Bill and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were passed, we starting partying like never before. We also received some nickel and dime job, and we were able to marry White people. The latter one was similar to going too heaven because we had been denied the right to marry White people. However, if we had read history after the Civil War, we would have discovered that we had rights, which were taken away from us completely by 1910. We didn’t gain the right to vote again until the 1960s. If we had known our history, we may have considered not partying like it was 1999 (Prince’s Song). With our history, we don’t have time to play foolish games. I am writing this series of articles for a reflective look at what has gone wrong with African Americans since the 1970s. I have commented on leaders in the Black community taking a stand against oppression, but African American parents who raised children during the 1960s and later bear the major responsibility for what happened to our children. I am talking about African American parents who decided to ignore Black history because we were desegregated into America. Today, there are African American youth who believe that all Americans will receive the same justice, in the criminal justice system. This is a lie. Parents, you must inform your children the true history of America and don’t let the media be the primary provider of information for your children. There is, at least, two to three generations of Black children who were raised without boundaries being set for them, so they go to school or church and will not sit down and act respectively. Without teaching this generation correctly, they will raise dysfunctional children. I had a conversation with a retired teacher, and she related a story of one of her students. Later on, she taught his children, and they reflected their father,s dysfunctional behavior. “THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!”
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 21:34:41 +0000
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