Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Generational Divide: Our 'Sinful & Fallen State' Whose Responsibility Is It?

Let's Go!



On a personal level, my father failed me as his father failed him. My maternal grand father(pbuh) failed me just as his father failed him. They failed because they refused to bond the best of their potential with the best of my potential. Earlier today I asked my mother what she could tell me about her paternal grand father and her reply was, “nothing at all!” Though I can only speak from my perspective, this polemic isn't just about me; this is about Humanity as a whole, and from my studies, travels, observations, and intimate experiences with every class, ethnic, and cultural segmentation, there is one constant ethos, one perpetual theme:there is a gaping chasm, a fractured fault-line, that exists and persists between the older generation and the younger generation; be they Afro-Asiatic, South American, Native American, Pacific Islander, African etc. we are all suffering from the same generational plight. To be fair, I have met older men and women who have gone the extra mile in instilling within me the vital principles and precepts of self awareness, familial, fraternal, and communal fealty and love and self-determination. These beautiful and honorable men and women have become like family to me, filling, if but only partially, the burdensome paternal void I once labored to bear. As remarkable and commendable as these people are, the fact of the matter is, people like them and character like theirs are few, far, and in between. As a result of this compassionate minority having become the accepted and expected norm, family and society in general has split at the seams, resulting in the widening of the present generational gap. Who is to blame? Whose fault is it? Better still, who's responsible? Be still and listen! Of all the trees on this beautiful but fading Earth from the smallest and frailest to the tallest, biggest, and broadest...all of them began as a seed that, in order to grow apace, needed perennial nourishment from Father Sky/Grandfather Sun and Mother Earth/Grandmother Moon. They are unquestionably the eldest! Once the Trees have reached full maturity after centuries of blossoming, withering, and blossoming again, yielding its finest fruits, and begins to deteriorate back to the soil about its root, does the Sun, Moon, Sky, and Earth cease supporting their complete transition back to its essence? NO! They continue to support life, nourish life, feed life like and as if there is no such thing as dying, no such thing as an ending to the carrying out of an eternal duty, and no such concept as a final contribution. Some trees have lived to see the rise and fall of many empires because of the unwavering carrying out of the universal principle of perpetual support. These Trees are the Families of Man! “I'm done being a mother or a father to my children: I'm no longer anyone's child:my child doesn't need a Father!” There's no such thing and this foolishness is unthinkable and a sure recipe to the youth's undoing! The same participants in the civil rights movement who championed the cause of human rights, often cast an indignant eye toward the younger generation and say, “you all just don't know how good you have it, you all have no clue, you all have it so easy, you all are tarnishing our legacy, wasting our accomplishments.” Well now, what would the enslaved African, back bent, laboring in the scorching sun, still cognizant of his regal heritage, growing weary from but fighting to stave off the yoke of the slave-master trying to tear his ancestral knowledge from his soul at the point of the bamboo, salt wrapped whip...what would he say to the arrogant, pompous heirs of civil liberties disguised as rights begrudgingly bestowed upon the recently freed slave? The same civic milestones of the 1960's held out to the younger generation today as evidence of having 'arrived' are the same vestiges of which Dr. King was referring to when he lamented, “I fear I may have integrated my people into a burning house.” Not only does a person make mistakes, whole peoples make mistakes, especially those up from slavery and alien oppression. Oh! The young still need the old...need the old to come down from that dinner table in the heavens, stop feasting on that pie in the sky, and start keeping it real with the youth, not only about what's right, but about how wrong they were and how far left they went before they regained their sensibilities thanks to someone older or younger than they! Oh! These are the last days and times alright! The last days we're going to pretend children don't need a mother AND a father! The last days we're going to perpetrate as if we're working as hard and as intelligently and as together as we could be to bridge this familial chasm and generational divide that keeps our families hovering on the brink of total insolvency. The last time we're going to look somewhere else for the authority of self-determination other than right in our own chest and within our own souls and within our own minds. Whose to blame? The Oppressor! Whose fault is it? The elders! Whose responsibility is it? The responsibility is OURS! If you're a teacher then TEACH! Stop sitting behind the desk pushing rote, outdated, irrelevant lesson plans that have no bearing on the child's immediate reality...get creative and quit milking the clock for a pay check while doing a double disservice; dulling the youth's most supple and ideal years for learning and squandering the tax payers dollars! If you're a doctor or physician or nurse, HEAL, and quit allowing the bureaucratic red tape to prevent you from upholding the Hippocratic oath! If you're a statesman or elected official, SERVE! Bravely, do the bidding of We The People's collective will and stop filibustering, philandering, and political posturing...push the necessary agendas to re institute sound faith in the political process by enforcing the Constitution! If you're a mother then NURTURE, and stop allowing television, the internet, and people off the streets to rear your children...get out of the mirror and get in front of the real mirror...your children! If you're a father, then GUIDE and SUPPORT your progeny, be it phone calls, letters, quality time, money, supplies, advice or what have you. Single parents, get out of the way of the other half, release the grudges of divorce and separation and wake up to the reality that no one will love the child like the flesh from whence he or she came. Obama being in office has not stopped the crime rate from escalating, unemployment from sprawling, profiling from terrorizing, or you from getting out of your own way to make a difference in this crumbling world most of us struggle to eke out a living in! The, “I got mine, now you get yours” mentality is debilitating at best. WE NEED EACH OTHER!!!! The old needs the young and the young needs the old, but it's incumbent upon those that know better and are capable of doing better to make the first move. Otherwise, the worst is yet to come! Most of the older generation got their 'rights', their pensions, their tenure, and comfy positions within this faltering establishment and fell back, as if the coast was clear. But lo! Just over the horizon came this teetering economy that unmistakably showed people the world over just how fragile that nest egg really was without investing in the hearts and minds of the youth! If the older generation is going to stand on our shoulders their going to have to lighten the load by giving back a whole lot more. I'm just saying.....


If you can help yourself, don't just read this...join this great debate, respond, re-post, and pass this on...add on!




PS...

Why did the emancipation proclamation only out law 'involuntary servitude' and not voluntary servitude as well?

Let's make this a viral debate!

B. Holi

1/20/2011
4:11 pm

6 comments:

  1. I agree 150%. Far to long have we set back and let this society dictate our agenda. Far to long have taken the seedy nature of the oppresser and try to duplicate his success only allowing him to further ensare our young men. Our women following in foot steps of the oppressors vile and untrustworhy mate. Our own self indulgence and well being be the most important thing to us and not the well being of our people. Losing our own beautiful langauge and not fully grasping this new one. I like your words and their elequence and incourage you my brother to expand your ideas, proposals and beliefs in a full printing..please write a book that tells it like it is. It's ridiculous that we see the truth in everything because we've been lied to the most but yet still can't see what's right in front of us.

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  2. Selah Broter Salim!!! Expand....I will! You give me Inspiration and that's all we need to continue!

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  3. WOW!!...Powerful I n t a k e ...(Still Uploading) Reading again...it's going to be a minute. Must read again. It's the changing of the times...the last days as some would say...People could care less. Did you not know "It's All About Me" affiliated with "I'm Too Blessed To Be Stressed". So many are covered in this one liner--Used repeatedly from those who claim to be genuinely golden. Can you revive LOST SOULS? Maybe, maybe not.
    But you are definitely giving a many something to think about. Be back to take the edge off--great history lesson indeed.
    I Love You SON
    (To Be Continued...)
    Mother (A.K.A. Mah)

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  4. Thank you for sharing this powerful piece! You have expressed my mind and quite eloquently at that! Allow me to babble a bit, I feel you wrote a very important reminder that should be posted in all our homes, schools, churches, even jails, so we recognize our duty. No matter where we are in life, we need to step up and be the example our children need as they course through these challenging times. It's ridiculous that so many blame our youth for behavior they are imitating. Brian, you really nailed it when you pointed out that there are too many going for the pie in the sky while our children are down here starving! Our folks must chose to WAKE UP, LIVE UP and it can only be done if we CHANGE THE MINDSET, NOW! We need to stop living the Willie Lynch mentality and love ourselves, each other and connect with moral standards that speak to self-respect and empowerment, not self-hatred and denigration. It's a step by step process, our growth. The mighty oak tree grows from an acorn. We need but plant the seed, tend to the soil, and keep be the light we want to see in the world.

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  5. Hotep! Brother this is what is needed. In my travels being in the military and picking up on different frequencies, this has made so much cents (sense). It's like the Willie Lynch Address of 1712 and I believe strongly in what is being said in your writing. Im 27 still seeking any knowledge I can about myself, and still feel so far behind, but I do attempt to talk to the elders and listen to their words because they have lived here before us and there is youth out here that looks up to us literally...Peace and Blessings, Guidance and Protection.

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  6. I am deeply touched and moved by your piece. Divine love, Goddessz Love

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LET'S GO!!!