Black People : Older Generation, what influences are you leaving on the Young?

[MsInterpret]

There are a ton of young folks who are longing to have a mentor, because either their father or mother is not in their life...

So who do they turn too?

The streets...

Once the streets have them, it's hard to get them back...But not impossible.

 

[Ankhur]

One of my mentors is the best. Every time I see him he is always encouraging me. He never puts me down or my views, even if they may seem ridiculous to him. He's always like "No matter what, you get yourself an education...Stay ahead of these white folks...They don't like to be in competition with a black person with an education....Finish up school."

He didn't know me from a can of paint, but he helped me get where I am now and has my back to get where I need to be.

He actively hires young black adults and kids in the community who are getting out of school and helps them to find a job.

People in the school district don't like it, because he is black and has some more power than a lot of them do...Also, because he hires black people... And these other ones in the district are selfish and want these jobs for themselves.

He makes 6 figures a year, but he makes time out of his day to bring US (young folks) into his office to mentor and assist at whatever he can. He wants to give a piece of what he got...And is trying to show how he got there.

He doesn't have to do it. He wants to do it. He stays busy. And I mean busy. But he finds the time and doesn't give up.

He's not just talking the talk...he's walking it.

It's too bad and shame that some of these Elders who are so-called, self-proclaimed "activists" in the community, don't and have given up.

you did say he makes 6 figures

 

[MsInterpret]

you did say he makes 6 figures

Yup and he hasn't let the money take away what is important to him...and that is his community.

 

[medusanegrita]

I agree 100%...There are young people who do want to listen, but when our own thoughts and views are disregard we won't listen to you.

It is about respect.

I'll listen to you, if you listen to me.

I won't lie...I will respect an elder, BUT, if they come at me wrong and disrespect me I won't even listen to you any more. And why should I?

I am no more or less valuable than you. I would like to gain some wisdom that the elders have on account that they have respect for my thoughts, views, or what have you.

I don't know if this was apart of the sarcasm, but I agree with it.

Funny thang, have we notice that sometimes people connect better across generations than they do with the one above and below them?
My dad does not get along with his mother, and I do not like him very much... but he gets along better with my son than either me or his mother.

If my dad wasn't a tow-headed alcoholic who didn't lust after the women and the drugs and constantly fight (literally and figuratively) with his mother and more successful younger brother - my son would be a willing sponge to get the knowledge. But my dad, my emotionally wounded uncle, they have nothing to offer.... except to look at them and learn what NOT to do. My son isn't in a hefty need of mentors but he does respect his elders. Just that the immediate ones in the family have little to offer, and I often have to counsel him contrary to what they say and have to offer. Like one of his late-40ish cousins was talking about taking him to a strip club on his 18 birthday - why? Nothing against the strip clubs, I just don't see them as enhancing anything that my son can get and need. Strip clubs aren't a right-of-passage for young men. And the inherent double standards - no woman has offered to take my daughter to a strip club for her birthday - and if they did I'd look at them askew just like I did the one who offered it for my son. Even my son knew better and turned down this offer. Said if he wanted to go to a strippie he could do it anytime he wished, he didn't want to waste his birthday on that. Nudity and sexual discussions is not taboo nor a big deal here so the novelty of nice bodies swinging on a pole - isn't really that novel.

Now my dad's father, my son's great-grand and only one of a couple of direct descendants (all from me) - is a stable, happy, successful retired former military man. He's 78 or so and could offer up a pretty good piece of knowledge I'm sure. But he doesn't get along with my dad, and has a bitter relationship with my dad's mother. I don't know how to foster that relationship because I leave it up to my dad, since it is his dad. My ol' grand has decided he's not much interested in having a relationship with my dad or my dad's kids and grand kids. He's one of those who had totally given up and nearly forgotten about his old family once he got a new one (once he left my grandmother, he remarried later and 'adopted' her kids).

But since I'm writing, maybe I'll look more into that. I'd hate for the old guy to croak and we never had a good gab with him. I learned several years ago his father died in 1995. So here we are, 5 generations alive on my dad's side and I never knew it. On me moms we never got far past 3 gens.

If you could give advice to a young person what would it be?

In my ever so humble opinion, it is not the young people that I would give the advice too but their young parents. As a young(er) parent myself I resent being blamed for all the bad and negative of kids today, it makes me want to literally fight and gag-order those who constantly lament that these kids have 'no home training' and 'look at the parents, it's all on the parents.'

But yet and still it's true.

We lament the parents but nobody is guiding the parents into how to be better parents to help their children - which will make them better and more respectful beings overall. I had a lack of good elder knowledge growing up and I got more knowledge from my own experience and my children than anyone outside of that.

Much of what I would teach and reiterate is here in the thread
115 School Girls Pregnant at a Black Chicago High School

A couple of months ago, I reluctantly had to put my son out of the house for his disrespectful ways. It was the last thing I wanted to do and I'm not even sure if it was the right thing to do, but I did it. And even in doing that, there is ways to do it in the most loving and considerate way possible for all involve - parent and child.

No child is ever a lost cause, and neither is a parent regardless of situation.

 

[chuck]

the system of white supremacy has set us all against each other.
male vs female. light vs dark skin. young vs old. blessed vs not blessed. and on and on.

in my experience any attempt to try to tell something to a younger person is met with rebuff.
i gave up on that a minute ago.

Chuck:

It's taken generations having faced up to their own reality checks/wake up calls, then they did or do realize and recognize that aren't all that or have all of the answers etc. either...

So, if you give up, then who will be left to teach them how to stand up, elder bruh?