Sei sulla pagina 1di 2

Pembroke 1

Overcoming African-American Disposition to Benefit a Race


By: Erin Pembroke

I detest how we as African-Americans feel the need to go back to the days of


slavery. This is a new and younger generation, people! What do you know of slavery?
You were some generations removed from it! I am part African-American and I do not
recall ever being enslaved by Caucasians in my entire life-time. I do not ever recall being
whipped, spit at, hunted down by dogs or segregated based on the color of my skin.

We as African-Americans as a whole need to come off the subject, especially


when we are the new generation that has never experienced the suffering of the previous
generations. How can our generation even discuss something that we have no recollection
of or even experienced? Think about it. When was the last time you were oppressed by a
Caucasian person?

Next, why must we feel the need to turn the N-word into the positive word,
“nigga” with a positive connotation meaning “friend,” “buddy” or “home-boy?” Why
can’t we simply just drop the use of the word altogether? I know I do not want to think of
a black slave every time I see myself in a mirror or see a friend in public. I also know that
I am not lower than dirt, so why must you choose to be? When you use this word, you are
illustrating that you are because you choose to be.

Furthermore, we are only oppressed because we choose to be. Caucasians do not


oppress us, we oppress ourselves because we live in the obsolete notion that “blacks are
meant to be poor” and act a certain way. Why must we act ghetto? What, to appease the
Caucasian stereotypical view on us? When we become this stereotype, we are inviting
other races and ethnicities to also view us in such a manner.

Martin Luther King Jr. stated it is the “lie of their inferiority that is accepted as
truth in the society dominating them.” Therefore, in a way, we are oppressed; oppressed
to the Caucasian stereotypical view on us in which we choose feed into and choose to be
enslaved by. It is sad that we are choosing out of our own free will to still be enslaved.
Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “How passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he
who helps perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really
cooperating with it.”

Additionally, not only are we enslaved by the Caucasian stereotypical view on us,
we are also enslaved but our own mind because we have never let the topic go. We have
never dropped the topic of slavery that has occurred decades ago. The idea is stuck in the
older generation’s mind which causes them to reiterate or plant this idea into their
children’s minds and so forth until it reaches my generation.

Now, my generation has to live with these views that do not even apply to this
new and changed world. We have this false sense of hate that seems very real to us. It is
something we think we understand but we do not because we have never experienced it
and this is the stuff that shows up in music videos and in pop-culture. Martin Luther King
Pembroke 2

Jr. stated, “The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—
must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

We as the younger generation need to do what our predecessors did before us; to
stand tall and fight for something worthwhile that we truly believe in as a group. And we
as African-Americans need to stand tall, have more confidence and better ourselves. We
should want more for our children then just violence, crime and gangs. If we do not want
more for our children, then why did we even bother to continue to raise them until they
became adults? Why do all this work if they are going to die young or waste their life
away? Why do all this work if they are going to become nothing?

They become nothing because they do not have high expectations of themselves
and think nothing of themselves. They have nothing to aspire to become because we
teach them not to aspire to become anything. It is Martin Luther King Jr. that said, “A
nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own
spiritual death on the installment plan.” Ergo, we are enslaved by our own behavior,
thoughts and actions to not become anything or rise against this dilemma. Malcolm X
stated, “a man who stands for nothing will fall for anything” and “without education, you
are not going anywhere in this world.”

Finally, Leo Tolstoy once stated, “we are lost because we told ourselves we lost.”
In response to that, I say, it is the time for us to finally become winners and rise against
these negative views that have been set in our minds or thought of by other people of
other races and ethnicities. I urge you all to rise above all of this and become better
people.

We also need to stop holding one another back when one becomes successful and
work together as a group to help others to succeed in life. We cannot and should not
become jealous of one’s possessions and steal them when they are not home or else it will
lead to our own downfall in both as an individual and as a group. We also need to
continue to follow and take advantage of the path that Martin Luther King Jr. and others
have laid out before us in order to succeed and better ourselves as a group.

To conclude, now is the time for African-Americans to drop the subject of slavery
and choose not to become oppressed to our minds or the stereotypical view that society
has on us. We should strive to become better and rise against the problems that we
currently face.

Potrebbero piacerti anche