The Values of The Black Man

In Ecclesiastes, it was written that a Preacher professed out of the mouth “there is no new thing under the sun.” Times have changed since the time of Mr. Booker T. Washington and myself, but I see that that preacher was more correct than he will ever know. Even here in the year 2018, I see that the essence of our arguments still lives on and continue dividing the black community. From a sociological perspective, I will express how the members of the African American race should be striving toward feeling equal and being treated as such, not just financially, but socially and educationally.

Among all my grievances with Mr. Washington’s address, the most disheartening was his push for us to bury ourselves in occupational matters rather than educational endeavors. Booker T. Washington fails to realize that vocational training does not take precedence over a well-educated African American. For hundreds of years of enslavement, African Americans proved that we knew how to work. Even after our emancipation, we worked tirelessly at every skill in order to establish ourselves in a country that already had us counted out. We did more than “dignify and glorify common labor” (UFS 573) as Booker T. Washington said we should, but instead, the black man became the embodiment of hard work. “Sadly, our hard work is still not enough to be established in their America. “the ignorant Southerner hates the negro, the Workingman fears his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development.

As I investigate the values of the black man of 2018, I hear the same rhetoric as I did from Mr. Washington. Despite how far we have excelled educationally, there are still black men standing in factories at as young as eighteen years old for the sole purpose of making what the white people make in less time. The goal should not be to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes. Technical schools teach us how to follow instruction on how to complete a task and deem yourself as skilled. As a community, we should be more focused on higher education so that we may lead instead of follow.

Along with Washington’s distorted view of the importance of education, he also misrepresents our longing for equality. What he fails to realize is that if we are living separate, there is no way we can be equal. Someone must be the lesser of the two, regardless of how hard you work with your specific skill. In my day, I was certain that it would take us being socially accepted for us to reach our true potential in white America. In all aspects of life, we are forced to walk behind the veil, so often that we sometime believe that we are inferior.

Despite it being claimed that we have total integration, the truth is that we are still very much so separated. In response to injustice that was plaguing the black community, the Black lives matter movement was born to explain that we also matter just as much as white people. Black Lives matter then sparked Blue Lives Matter in support of the cops that are responsible for the senseless killings of black people. In the justice system, people of color and white people are sentenced differently to accommodate their white privilege. Total integration should leave no room for the disenfranchisement of any race if we are all connected by one closed fist.

In 2018, the white man still has the aid of privilege on his side; nevertheless, there is no room for Black Americans to be mediocre. Now that we can do whatever we set our minds to, we should want to do more than just knowing a skill and doing a job. There are African Americans who are excelling in law, medicine, arts, and many more endeavors. “Shall we teach them trades, or train them in liberal arts? Neither and both: teach the workers to work and the thinkers to think; make carpenters of carpenters, and philosophers of philosophers, and fops of fools. “Being a laborer is okay so long as you are doing it for the purpose of having something to be proud of, rather than for the love of money. In the end, we should all be able to bring our own respective assets to the table so that we are thriving in society as a collective.

With time on a constant cycle of repeats, I notice that the issues of my day still resound among the black community. In every era they are given new names, but the same issues swirl around and divide black people. If not for likeminded people who share my vision for the nation there would be no civil rights movement. There would be no stand taken against the disenfranchisement of black voters. In this new era, there a Kanye who shake hands with the president as if he is the voice of our people yet still misrepresent our needs. There is an Angela Rye who recognize that the modern race prejudges and inequality that is hidden within the justice system. There are more black mothers encouraging their sons to become basketball players and entertainers, when we are in desperate need of layers, lawmakers, and thinkers to promote confidence among our race. Although the separation of our ideologies has found their way in another generation, it is wise to understand that success can be achieved on either side with so long as we learn from one another and continue to progress.

To conclude, vocational training cannot do for the black community what a well-rounded education can do for us. We should not get comfortable with having to struggle for everything. There needs to be a want to move upward, but we will not if equality is not achieved. Instead of excusing the other race for not acknowledging that we are their equals, we should push that they afford us the same opportunities as they have been allotted since birth. This idea should be understood for 2018 and the years beyond.

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