sagaciously is...

myBlogline:: well, really - it's like a line that directs you to this chain of thought. My boy Heru (well, actually my blog-husband, so keeps yo grubby mits offa him) wrote this very insightful post about our personal responsibility within the framework of oppression, and the fact that oppression is still "a part of our very DNA". His post was inspired by Brian Jones' post about accountability and personal responsibility within the African-American community, and our raising the proverbial bar. So, Heru and I are talking about this idea of responsibility, and the legacy of oppression, it's after-effects, etc...etc. Which is how this pearl starts to take shape.

That blogline, along with my daily date with Michael, the op-ed pebble in the AJC about intelligence being "un-black", World AIDs day, the affinity stirrings at work, my new volunteer tasks and altruistic motives, all keep driving me to this...

theProblem:: in my mind, is that there isn't one "problem". The problem isn't just the spread of AIDS in the African-American community and the African diaspora. It isn't just the misogyny in hip-hop music, as well as the community - via hip-hop music's influence on the greater culture. It isn't just whether it's "un-black" to be intelligent. It isn't just about the DL. It isn't just about the declining marriage rate, or the preternaturally high divorce rate. It isn't just about whether we're socially/culturally responsible, or holding "us" to a standard worthy of us, and not selling ourselves short or the oppression in our DNA (although they both play a huge part of it). It isn't just this, and it's not just that. theProblem is all of the above.

Would you take aspirin to cure cancer? Of course not, the idea sounds ridiculous. If you had a headache, and went to the doctor, who did an MRI and found a large malignant tumor, you wouldn't go home, take two Bayer, and hope the whole thing blows over, right? Then why do we expect all these side effects, these symptoms of a much greater problem, to simply go away, when we treat the symptom, instead of its cause? Every social organization working within the african-american community has an agenda, and for the most part, they address a symptom - whether it be literacy, hunger, at-risk youth, AIDs, fighting for Katrina victims, teen pregnancy, gang violence, etc...etc. But the more these cultural topics appear in the media, the more they scream to me - symptom. Side effect. Not "the" problem.

what is it, again?:: that's the thing - it's nameless. It's faceless. It's hard to pinpoint, and describe, because as soon as you name it, it shifts shape. Let's call it racism. Suddenly, affirmative action doors open up, we're given the vote, and told that racism is gone, so we should "get over it". Let's call it self-hatred, but then that ignores the oppression that inspired the self-hatred in the first place. Besides, there are many amongst us who are in denial about that self hatred, calling the term detrimental to where we're trying to go. Let's call it classism, or the American caste system, or economic de-powerment, or the industrial complex, the need for cheap labor, George Bush, the New World Order, the Federal Reserve and its families, globalization...or Foo. Yes, let's call it Foo. Because the name really doesn't matter.

It's too almost too big to categorize, but what really scares me, that if it's too big to name, does that then make it too big to address? Maybe, maybe not. But I just don't think that addressing any of the ISSUES will really solve any of the Problems. Hell, we started working on some of these problems 30-40-50 years ago, and do we really see theProgress?