October 7, 2014
It would seem that common courtesy and respect to elders is a thing of the past.
In my most recent travels I have noticed more and more, as I greet strangers, especially youth of color, that they rudely ignore me and even stare at me indignantly.
A colleague of mine, Norma, actually overheard a white woman tell her children “Oakland is a dumpster. Oakland is part of California, but it is the worst part because all the poor people from all over the world come to Oakland.”
It would appear that the youth of color are somehow being influenced by their white peers noy only to look down on their own elders of color, but also not to identify with them!
Thankfully there are places like DEEcolonize Academy in Deep East Oakland, as part of the landless peoples movement known as Homefulness, that teach eldership, respect, and appreciation for indengenous values as part of its curiculum.
Sadly enough it would seem that the rest of the youth of color are doomed to assimulate into the dominant culture in addition to coming to actually believe in its superiority over ancestral ways.
By briefly looking at widespread trends like crime rates and destruction of the enviroment, we can't help but realize this so-called "superiority" is so far from the truth. These trends are rather an indictment of how horrible and destructive the dominant culture really is.
Our youth of color appear to be doomed to learn the same tired old lies that their ancestors were savages fortunate enough to to be enslaved and conquered so they could become “civilized.”
As one of the greatest revolutinaries and ancestors Malcolm X once stated, “They identify more with their master than they do with their own Black selves....If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, 'What's the matter, boss, we sick?'...If the master's house caught on fire [they] would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would."
The biggest tragedy of all is they think they are the “master's” peers, and feel no kinship whatsoever to their own forebearers. What will it take to wake these young people up?