Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Head Bone is Connected to the Neck Bone

What is Black culture? The Fool wants to know. I hear a lot about the "black Community". Okay. I'll give you that one. Somewhere in this country there are black people who have their own businesses close to a neighborhood populated mostly by other black people. Harlem immediately comes to mind. I'm sure there are more.

One of the definitions of culture found in Wikipedia is: (and I can hear you kneegroes-with a small k now. Don't this fool ever stop asking these damn questions?)

In the twentieth century, "culture" emerged as a concept central to anthropology, encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human genetics. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively. Following World War II, the term became important, albeit with different meanings, in other disciplines such as cultural studies, organizational psychology and management studies.

My interpretation of this definition, as referring to black people is... culture is the shit that is left over on our racial psyche after being supplanted with the bullshit of the for-bearers of the Big Giant Heads. Meaning, stuff that we can call solely our own, stuff that we do that has somehow survived more or less intact. For instance, Jumping the Broom would fit into this category or Kwanza, which defines how we celebrate and give thanks. Our music which has always been unique. Or the phrase and it's only a phrase that we pay a lot of lip service to: It takes a village to raise a child and incidentally, white people have taken that too. Those are parts of OUR culture. I don't expect I'll be seeing white people jumping the broom any time soon.

Are we known as a physical people? Are we known as a musically inventive people? Are we known as comedians? Are we known as the people you go to to get shit done? Are we craftsmen, warriors, writers, weavers, rich men, poor men, beggar men or thieves?

Does the black man have a moral code of honor? You know- scruples, a conduct of how he lives his life, stuff that he just won't do under any circumstances. I've never ever heard this question discussed before. I mean... all of our moral standards are Judeo Christian in nature. It would seem to me that something would have rubbed off on us black men. What do we pass down to our children? What do we pass on that's solely ours as a race? Are our religious beliefs our own or just another overlay? Oops! Sorry. I got a little too close to the line that time. Just how do we define ourselves in such a manner that would bring us together as a culture? How do we get the neck bone connected to the head bone and the shoulder bone connected to the arm bone? What is it in the black Diaspora that will bring us together as a people? Are we doomed to follow the path of self loathing from generation to generation? Is this the only legacy that we have to pass on to the future?

Surely those of you who are of the black persuasion and have achieved a modicum of success in the white world have no need to consider such things. You have actively sought out and pursued your vision complete with your white partner and soul mate. That was your choice. I don't judge. But please stop the whining and complaining about those of a less tolerant disposition of your life choices, because you burned a lot of bridges and sucked a lot of ass to get to that point. You're only conscious of your fellow black travelers when you're reminded of your blackness by those self same individuals who aren't so in love with your vision of your success.

I guess you figured out a way to connect the arm bone to the shoulder bone and the knee bone to the leg bone and the leg bone to the foot bone (oh dem damn bones!), because you sure got up and ran the hell away pretty fast. What is that they say? Keep your eyes on the prize and don't look back, because as Satchel Page said: "somebody might be gaining on you". You are the black man who puts the handle on the watermelon or carries it home in a bowling ball bag and cuts it up into very small, very neat uniformed slices so that it doesn't drip onto your linen napkin.

Culture to black people is a fine woman covered over in scented oil that slides from our embrace every time we try and reach for her. She's just out of our grasp and the few time we do manage to get her to bed, she's so oiled up that she just slides from between our arms and back onto the carpet, rises and runs merrily away. We never get the chance to tell her how much she is needed.

We all make choices. We make the choice not to make a choice. So how can you make the choice to abandon something that is possible that you didn't have in the first place?






No comments: