I don't know if you've noticed, but when I'm speaking to a particular person, I quote what they've said that I'm about to respond to. Fact of the matter is, the opinions in my post came about after reading ALL the posts on this thread, not just yours.
Let me make clear that I agree that each generation of blacks make mistakes which if they listen(ed) to their parents - and
wise others who came of age in previous generations
with their best interests at heart - they could avoid. I agree 100%.
The problem is that just as black elders who have gone through the fire of racism and oppression (and lived to tell the tale) are now older and wiser, so are the racist, white supremist beneficiaries of slavery they went up against who are determined to pass down the power and privileges they enjoyed to their children. Just as black elders who went up against the white Powers that Be, through trial and error, disappointment and heartbreak, learned how to get through or around roadblocks, obstacles and barriers set up by white supremists to black self-determination of their lives and futures.... racist white elders
who hold the reins of power today learned NEW ways, devised NEW strategies to crush black aspirations from those battles (they lost), as well.
I understand that many will say - but po' w'ite trash ain't GOT no privilege! To which I say, "yes, they do." They have the privilege of being able to change their circumstance and move into the middleclass mainstream. Blacks have to change most everything about ourselves to make ourselves
presentable just to get a job: sistahs straighten our hair, bruthas cut their hair short to fades (it's rare to see a white man with a crew or buzz cut these days), we change our speech patterns, i.e., drop the ebonics and speak Standard English, we wear Western clothes, etc. All po' w'ite trash has to do is show up.
Po' w'ite trash also has the ego-boosting privilege of feeling superior to every black person they meet, to "know" that no matter how much they are an outlier in white society, or how much they are despised by other whites, they can STILL "look down" on black people as their inferiors. You can't take a black person's "education" from them? You can't take a white person's (lack of) color from them. Our elders pass along "get your education"; white elders pass along "white is right." And because wherever you find them, no matter what country
or continent, white is on TOP, the world agrees.
At any rate, the strategies for dealing with white racist oppression of black aspirations perfected by older generations do not necessarily work for today's blacks precisely because whites have learned from
their mistakes. Because they want to KEEP their privilege, and have the
power to do so, they simply change the rules of the game. New rules call for new strategies. It is today's generation of blacks who have to devise new strategies to counter the NEW rules whites come up with for keeping us in our "place", i.e., on the bottom of the barrel wherever in the world you find us.
Think of it this way, James: Did your parents, raised in an era of Jim Crow laws, legal (black) lynching and black men
escaping North from the South.... raise you to step up in white faces and say "Do what you will, but I'm not moving and I will NOT be moved!" Or, based on
their experience, give you the "wise" counsel to not "provoke" white people.... because
they will KILL you!? Did your parents tell you to be an OUTLAW, to break tradition, the rules, the Law itself, ANY law.... just because YOU thought it was unjust? Or based on their experience as LAW-ABIDING people who knew what kind of future blacks with a prison record faced, tell you to keep your nose clean? stay away from rabble-rousers, social unrest agitators and trouble-makers? Where would we
and the WORLD be if you and other young foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement had lived your lives by what your parents WISELY counseled you.... instead of stepping out on conscious and faith and following Dr. King?
It's like I tell my kids - "this is MY life, it's not yours. Just because something didn't work for me doesn't mean it won't work for you. But you NEED to know the pitfalls (of what I went through) and let them guide you." Forewarned is forearmed. Unless and until you start up a movement that excites the imagination of the young such that they get on board, the role of the elder is to arm their young with the lessons of history, to "help" them refine those new strategies they come up with (and bug the heck outta them for being a d**m
fool until they do!). For black elders to drop out, or throw up their hands at their young "reinventing the wheel" is the
"gift" those who would destroy them, i.e., white racists, most want.
A luta continua.