We’ve done the 80s, 90s, and 00s Babies a real disservice by not pushing Black Nationalism, Pro-Blackness, Race Pride, and AfroCentricity as hard and relentlessly on them as the Old Heads from the 60s pushed it on us 70s babies.
Even the biggest Negro from the 60s and before would tell you, “watch out for White folks now,” or “Black folks gotta stick together, the Man ain’t about to give us nutthin.” We were fed a constant diet of distrust of the System and the Man, told Black is Beautiful regularly, forced to look at old Afro pictures of our parents, uncles, and aunties and hear their stories of The Struggle; and other Pro-Black and soulful shit saturated our lives. We take that shit for granted now, but it was like a cultural vaccine for what we’d face as we entered adulthood.
When I started doing traveling theater in high school my Christian Grandmother, who ain’t got a militant bone in her body told me, “you be careful around them White folks and going around them White areas boy.” That shit stayed with me, and when they started popping pills and doing other “White shit,” I knew to keep my head about me.
There was a base level of anti-establishmentism, anti-White-ism, and Black Unity back then that only the most vile Uncle Toms would sink below, and it was the job of every elder to instill the basics into every youth.
Today so many Black youth have no concept of Pro-Blackness, no level of resentment, hostility, or animosity towards the System or the Man, and Race Pride is equivalent to Racism (to them). They don’t see any differences between themselves and their White peers and friends. That’s very dangerous people. These youth are quicker to call out “Reverse-Racism,” than White Racism! Just talk to some of them if you doubt me, I talk with youth all the time.
We better do better with the 20Teens Generation or all will be lost…if all hasn’t been lost already.
(I ain’t dissing the 80s-00s Babies, because many of them found their way to Pro-Blackness and Pan-Africanism on their own, with little help from us they got there, and those that ain’t, those are the one’s we failed to teach.)
