Taking Ownership of Who We Are as Black People Instead of Falling into the Status Quo; Giving Them Something Different to Think About when They Think About Us!

How often have you heard that it is always going to be this way because of what Whites think or how they look at you? How many times have you applied that situation to yourself, when on some level, it may no longer apply? How many times have you pushed someone to the side or marginalized or diminished them because they don't fit into the nice neat way of doing things, and dealing with them would force you to have to think outside of the box?

It is easy to fall into the status quo and continue to do things the way that they have always been done. In fact it is so easy to do so, that we continue to do the same things and for the most part, accept curses and damnation upon our own lives because we weren't able to fulfill those expectations, when clearly, that way of doing things, though it may work for 99% of our peers is not going to work for us. The need for acceptance in our lives is so great that we will kill off whatever is unique about us to fit into the myth of who we are supposed to be, a myth that we will continue to perpetrate as hard as it is, as many tears as we will shed, until we get it right and get ahead.

In fact we get the game so twisted that we often loose sight of the end because even though that we know that we are the rule we refuse to subscribe to the ethos of the exception. Take Kanye West for example; his mother was an educator and clearly he was a smart kid and was probably expected to go to college and get a PhD. But instead he drops out of school and becomes one of the largest, most prolific producers ever. However it isn't clear if the need for acceptance is part of why he moved from producing to rapping; clearly, he could have continued to produce and remain in the background and enjoyed a quiet life, but to get ahead in the music industry, the entertainment industry, you need to put a recognizable face and presence to what you are doing. That does not necessarily mean that I should do the same if I am unsure of whether or not I have that talent.

The thing about having talent, is that you can nurture it and learn the methodology of the business and the ins and outs of whatever industry is an incubator for whatever talent you have or you can go at it blindly and attempt to come out on top neglecting what you really should be doing to put food on the table. Kanye West, though he appears to have come out of nowhere, didn't come out of nowhere at all. He was producing for a considerable amount of time before he came out as a rapper, he did carry out the due diligence that a lot of individuals refuse to when they put everything into the basket of their dream, and no one ever discovers their talent. There is always an "Easter Egg Hunt", but is anyone ever going to find all of the pieces of your dream and put it together and realize that you are great. I can write forever, but if I don't take advantage of the opportunities for individuals to find that next egg, how will they ever put it together as to what it is that I can do for them?

You may have dropped out of college like I have and are looking at a long life of work in the service industry and at best, the same $30,000 a year everyone else is getting. What is it that you are going to do because you still have to find that way to make yourself stand out and sell yourself to others, sell the merits of what it is that you have to offer. Some of us are creative in different ways, but the worst thing we can do, is marginalize our opportunities and diminish our existence to the five things that we think we can do because others have done it. No one talks about the fact that we are some of the best doctors in this country and some of us have actually made history with our surgical techniques, and until Johnny Cochran, I don't think most of us even realized that there was as much money in being a successful lawyer that there is. In fact it often takes the trails and tribulations of one of us in a career that we simply take for granted that we can do, in this case it was the fact that OJ Simpson was a football player and an actor and appeared in commercials, things that we know that we can do, to show us that which we did not know that we can do. People laughed at the prosecution, but Christopher Darden was doing a lot better than most of us are, despite having lost that case.

When there was controversy at the New York Times I doubt most of us had realized that there were prolific reporters among us, people that were successful at journalism; yes it is true that he lied and fabricated information to get the story, and that has become what people think of the New York Times. Yet it is still assumed that in order to get ahead you have to fall into that status quo. So there may never be another Micheal Jackson, another Oprah Winfrey, and clearly another Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. or Louis Farrakhan, but it shouldn't matter. I was reading yet another book by Cornell West, and I must admit I was a bit salty; I mean how great would it be to be a public intellectual. But I think there was a time and place for being a public intellectual, and I may have missed that boat; plus how important is it if I can't transcend matters that plague the Black community and get into issues of importance for the entire world. I am proud to be Black, and African-American, but I don't want to be known as that angry guy with his angry rhetoric that just wanted to talk about things of interest to his people, there has to be a lot more than that.

You have to decide early on just how it is that you are going to make it in this world, how to leave your own mark on it, and everyone else will fall in line. It may not fit into the stereotype of what it is to be Black in America, but people can accept it and respect it if you can stand not just as a representative of something different, but a figure of authority. That is really all that it is about; everyone is going to bring into question exactly what the hell it is that you are doing if it is outside of the box, and no one is going to support you. However once you are successful, and they can see that other people listen to you and respect your opinions, they can get with it. Other people may just like the money, and when you are successful, it comes in, not right away but in time it does come in. If you are smart, people expect to see the money; it doesn't matter if you took the traditional route or went through the same old channels that everyone else has, you should know how to get some dollars into your pocket. Smart people are supposed to see the possibilities where someone else may not.

They are also supposed to help someone else to see those possibilities for themselves. If you are that person that everyone goes to for something, then you really are in. It doesn't matter if you dress the way that someone else does, talk the way that everyone else does, or is good at the same things; quite honestly those are things that you can figure out for yourself and master if you really want to, but in time you may realize that those things are not that important after all.