FLIPSIDE : The Children Are Our Future

How wonderful do we have it now? If you are a teenager or younger, things are seemingly impressive for the black culture.  You have seen black lawyers, black doctors, black politicians.  You have even seen black rappers come from the streets to the stage and into the corner office. There are even a few black people who have made it into partial ownership of some lucrative sports teams. Then the ultimate event occurred.  There is a black president! Things appear to be going just fine.

It can now be true when a young black child from the East side of Detroit is told, "yes you can be president."  Since being coined "the land of opportunity," America is finally appearing to be just that. So, with that in mind, do we remind the youth of the trials and tribulations that made us cry the day President Obama was elected into office?

Of course we have all heard the saying that you can't go forward without knowing where you came from, but can we do so without taking away from the advancements we've made thus far? It's a very thin tightrope to scale between moving on and disregarding the past. It may be true that if we are not smart that history may repeat itself and ignorance of our very brutal history may incline our youth to take these very monumental accomplishments as meaningless.  So, we do what we think is right and that is educate our youth on very humble beginnings of the black community and our African ancestors.

What some fail to do though is while educating, you must also instill in their minds the fact that these sometimes horrific events are meant to make you stronger and more determined to succeed. Unfortunately in today's society, the glitz, glamour and bling has somehow given some of us the idea that something is owed to us.  This is where the thin tightrope becomes more slippery and until our sense of entitlement and lack of self-determination improve there may not be a safety net at the bottom to catch us from our fall from grace.  Catch ya' on the FLIPSIDE.