Speak Out!

I found the topic interesting and the comments, so far, enlightening. I also watched the CNN special that Soledad did and I found it to be informative as well.
 
What is interesting is that we continue to talk about improving the gap between whites and blacks in the educational arena, but we don't do anything else but talk. I think, that as a society, blacks have a way of excusing everything that happens. We excuse infidelity and blame it on the "player syndrome". We excuse illiteracy and blame it on a lack of opportunity. We excuse crime and blame it on a troubled upbringing.
 
The issue, or should I say the additional concern, should be that we need to become familiar with the word ACCOUNTABILITY. We do not hold ourselves accountable for our actions. No one understands us largely because we don't understand ourselves.
 
I was watching Jamie Foxx roast Barack & Michelle after the election. He made fun of the way Barack spoke and it is perceived that the first family isn't black enough to be called black. White people did not start that hate. Black folk were the ones that were vocal about referring to Michelle as a black-white girl because of the way that she spoke.
 
If we can't agree on who we are then why are we screaming and complaining about the fact that others are clueless? What is and isn't black enough? Who determines that? What determines that? When it comes to education we fought like hell to have the right to sit alongside white children and learn what they learn.
 
The Brown v Board of Education case was historical. It was monumental. It should have served as a lesson to all of black America about how important education really is. We fought, and died to have a right that no one takes advantage of anymore. Does that make the fight redundant?
 
I was raised as a foster child in Evansville, Indiana. It was a brutal upbringing. I was tortured, burned with cigars at the of five, and raped repeatedly. My autobiography "The Road To Me I Now Know Why That Caged Bird Sang" chronicles my life in the foster care system in Evansville, Indiana. I was raised, with a slave mentality, by black foster parents that were never slaves. The first time that I ever heard the word "university" was when a white woman, Barbara, said it. I was placed in the home with Barbara after running away numerous times from my black foster homes. They called it "Emergency Foster Care". Barbara taught me things that my black foster parents should have taught me. I should have learned about my history from my black foster parents. I should have learned about becoming a strong black woman from them, but they taught me nothing. They became hated representations of what I never wanted to be when I grew up.
 
I'm on twitter and I had a fellow friend tweet me and ask "when will the history books change or be updated" I sent him a message back that said "when history ceases to be just that". It took him a while to get that but when he did he RT'd my response over 100 times.
 
All of this is the reason, and basis, for my new book titled "Raising A Black-White Girl: Myths, Stereotypes, Fake BS & Other Black Baggage" due out in September of 2009. It is written as a wake up call for black America. It will be interesting to see who's alarm clock goes off and who hits the snooze button...again. A legacy is the sum total of what you have done, what you have learned and what you leave behind for those that come after you. If nothing is learned then nothing is passed on. If nothing is what we leave behind for those that come after us then nothing is what we will continue to be viewed as by others...