Showing posts with label Frank Tannenbaum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Tannenbaum. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

negro comfortable up in here

One book that left a lasting impression on me as a child was written by Samuel Yette. It was called the choice. In summary he suggested that people of African descent in America had a choice to be proactive or inactive in sustaining their survival in America in light that many in the majority would not lift a finger, if the government proffered such, to enact measure to repress African Americans.

I say this for as some of you all know, I am proud to have been raised in a strong family. My aunt was arrested for sitting in a library to study in the late 1950s. My mother and her siblings marched and were confronted with dogs being unleashed on them as well as the forceful pressure of water from fire hoses sprayed on them. I have learned that the weapon of choice in the war with injustice and hate is the mind as facilitated with words seasoned with serious rumination and historical precedence. So it is not surprising II feel it is my duty to protect and enunciate my beliefs as eloquently as possible in forums with those who preach hate and intolerance. This is why I frequent and post to the Nazi, and racist and skinhead websites/blogs and read them just as much and if not more than blogs run by African Americans.

And you may also be aware that it frustrates me when I share these blogs with others, in particular African American men, and they on the surface appear afraid to post for whatever reason. I had one fellow inform me in query, why post and address such ignorance? My response was that Martin Luther King Jr, and out parents confronted such ignorance in the face of death but it did not stop them for freedom most be aggressively pursued as Frantz Fanon wrote and cannot be given, for if it is it can also be taken back.

As men we must protect and serve our community as a collective. Meaning when we see any form of injustice we must assert our thoughts objectively in the stance for self determination. To do no such thing is unacceptable. Many of these folks, like the skinheads who were just recently exposed to have plotted to kill 88 African American college students, behead non-whites and murder Barack Obama; do so for they know that African American men will not stand to confront them as our ancestors did, men such as David Walker, Martin King Jr and Malcolm X.

They know and smell our aura of weakness and insecurity. And this makes no sense to me, for we will fight our own for calling us out of our name, or will tell a person who is washing our car that they missed a spot, before we would tell a skinhead that we don’t get down like that.


But they do what they do, for they know we Negro comfortable up in here. Yep, we got our Iphones, our 25 pair of air force ones, our big cars, but we don’t have the appreciation of knowledge when we know that there was once a time when folks did learn to read, if found out, their eyes would be removed from their heads and their tongues cut out. That alone should show one the importance of such. Instead we wait for other to tell us instead of have the patience to inform ourselves.

Maybe Frank Tannenbaum was correct when he wrote in Slave and Citizen about the history of America when he asserted “We have denied ourselves the acceptance of the Negro as a man because we have denied him the moral competence to become one, and in that have challenged the religious, political, and scientific bases upon which our civilization rest…and this separation has a historical basis, and in turn it has molded the varied historical outcome.” Yep we still thank we free, and even worse, are Negro comfortable up in here.

and this poem is for we:


Is my mind clear can I see?

I hold my TV and radio dear

Im Negro comfortable up in here

So what I care about the other

About stars and actors over there

Im Negro comfortable up in here

Yea, I don’t read, I listen to what they say

The drop date for lil Wayne’s new cd is near

Im Negro comfortable up in here

Yea im voting for Barack

Don’t know how he differs from McCain real clear

Im Negro comfortable up in here

Stocks and bonds and economics, say what

To busy waiting for VIP in club and BET with cold beer

Im Negro comfortable up in here