What do we tell our Black children about their cultural heritage and identity? As a Black, Colored or African-American young adult male, the depiction of cultural placement can become confusing, at times. What should I do? Where should I work? Who should I actually be? Questions of this nature beg for answers. Only many of these seem fleeting or lacking proper substance. Since I reside in a nation where our history was stripped for European exploitation, much of that history is forgotten. So how can I gain some bearing on my true cultural identity. Oftentimes the answer is, "I can't." Too much of it has been tainted, mixed up and messed around. Instead of wrestling with my heritage, it may be more pressing of a concern to find myself today. Unfortunately, that view is just as confusing as my heritage. As a Christian, I realize most of that identity is hidden in Christ. However, racism is still real, Whites still seem to rule and my cultural heritage is still tainted.
This dynamic probably won't change anytime soon. As long as the damage is done, it's done. I can't stop slavery from happening in the past. I can't make Blacks less subservient to Whites. Neither can I make Black men be placed on a higher priority chart: We're last on the totem pole after White men, Jews, White women, Asians, Latinos, children, other races, Black women, elderly, and then lastly, Black men. I can't stop Africa and Haiti from being the most used up places on the planet, where everything is took, yet nothing is returned. I can't get the police to stop harassing us. But I can at least speak up about it, about it all.
Rapper, activist and magazine contributor Sho Baraka recently wrote an article on
KING Internet magazine (not the paper one with the half-naked Blacks chicks). He alluded to this issue in more precise verbiage. Check out his article
here.
