‘Do Work, Son!’
Posted by bigced on September 7, 2008
Written by Daina Richie
September 2008
In this coming election, I am not voting for “hope” or “faith” or “change”. I’m voting for good decision-making. It is my true hope that we will vote for the same in ourselves.
My greatest concern for the black community as we approach this coming election is that we will wait for history to happen and not bring it to fruition. I’ve observed a hopelessness in my colleagues and peers, my mentors and mentees. The affluent, the middle-class, and the disenfranchised poor all have different angles but we frame the same picture – apathy.
This election is posing a lot of questions to our collective community – questions about value. For the past few years, the youth in the black community have had different levels of agreement on our goals. We all aspire to affluence, but many of us lack the knowledge of the process to achieve and maintain it. I assure you, it will not come from sitting around waiting for a deal or trolling parties waiting for an athlete, producer, artist, or manager to adopt you. The scenarios seem trite, but they are chosen career plans for many people, including the educated! Everyone on every level wants to be granted a free pass because of their brilliance. They are waiting to be noticed and invited into the affluent illuminati.
Pssst – that ain’t how it works.
If we’re going to ride this train to prosperity we have to change some of our mindsets. Believe it or not, black people prospered prior to hip-hop. Although hip-hop’s rise has been an amazing era to witness in the black legacy, it is not a lifestyle for everyone. The values were for entertainment, not instruction. Some of us need to hang up our jewels to save for a home. We might need to turn off the cable to pay our car payments. We should consider passing up on buying video game consoles, flat screen TVs, designer shoes, designer bags, liquor and smoke to pay the student loans. In short, to get to where we need to go we need to change our priorities and review our values.
Barack Obama is not the coming of the risen savior; he is merely a good decision maker. His importance to the black community goes beyond skin tone, heritage, and racial association. Above all things, he is of sound mind. We have not been caught up in his platform because we’re still impressed by the power of his leadership – we trust his judgment. In these times when the creative universe of the black community, hip-hop, depends on the monetary vote of the white female teenager, it is empowering to see a black man whose judgment is heralded above his bank. But just because a man of mixed heritage is headed for the White House does not mean that you’re getting an invite to the lawn White Party. Just like Obama, we have to build the house we’re going to live in. We – the hip-hop generation – must align with the movement toward change in word deed and in word.
I’ll share this observation with you from my pastor, Bishop David G. Evans: “It appears as though we are the victims of one of the greatest scams in history. Did you ever think you would be happy with gas prices at the mid $3.50’s? It was in that range the oil companies made record quarterly profits. So could it be the hike to four dollars and change was to make the $3.50’s acceptable? Now we are grateful for the mid three’s and the oil company’s can make more record profits without consumers screaming about high prices. Your expectation has been expertly managed!”
A growing number of our black community, especially our youth, is just happy to ‘get by’ by the grace of serving the ‘man’. Don’t fall for it! Similar to the U.S. gas consumer, circumstances beat us up so bad that our ambitions are lower than the generations before us. The black population of the U.S. fought for equity and access during the Civil Rights Movement, which ended in revised U.S. policy. We then battled drugs, welfare dependency, education disparities and a litany of other constructed evils introduced into our communities to take us over the edge from the ‘70s to present day. Notice the words “fought” and “battled”. Our current generation is upset with our state of being, but settled in our problems. We accept our squalor. We are tied to working lives with little choice as how to allocate what resources we have. Didn’t we already fight to not be in this state?
Turns out, squalor is a choice. Inactivity is a choice. If you don’t ever move your hands, how can you say they are tied? As we go into election season, let’s have the hip-hop community walk in as members of the society and not observers waiting for the outcome. Free men do not wait for instruction to act. Change doesn’t happen through faith and hope alone. You have to make a decision. In as much as you won’t eat if you don’t work, if you don’t vote, Obama won’t get elected. If you don’t work AFTER he gets elected, NO ONE will eat. If I hear the words “I’m just waiting on a deal, you know” after November I’m going to lose my mind. When the call comes from the Obama administration for you to actively change your household and community economics to gain and sustain wealth, don’t turn your back. It’s time for the hip-hop community to make the deals, not wait on them. The power is in the doing!
As we like to say down my way, “Do work, son!”
