Parenting for Black America

Is it a joy or is it a great inconvenience? Is it a match made in heaven or is it a shot-gun wedding? Is it a young girl trying to get away for home or is it love at first bite?

My mom had 8 boys, no girls and I still wonder why, based on our economic and social situation. I love them but I can tell you, love is and was not nearly enough. Not that it was any better or worse than our neighbors, but certainly increased stressed for all concerned.

As I listen to success stories from Black America, most seem to begin "I came from the hood". They often involve a story of extreme poverty. So, if the successful people do not want to go back from where they came, what about the rest of us?

You know how most want to go home, there was something about my childhood where going home was always a bit depressing. All those ideals of having dinner, family time and preparation for tomorrow seemed to bypass us. What was being taught in school and what was happening at home was as different as night and day and no promise of them ever coming together. That is the reason why I chose to write like I do because this is the language in which I grew up. It was good enough for me then, it is good enough for me now. Talk about some confusing times!!!

Don't think the school was right because much of what they taught I can't use today. The same for what I was taught at home, so what am I to do?

Times are changing so much and so fast one hardly knows what should be taught any more. Do we keep robbing our people and creating environments in which we do not want to live? As a people, are we sensitive to our own needs and wants?

How do you cope with corporate greed, racism, gated communities, same-sex, single-parent, outsourcing, removing prayer, terrorism, fast food, gun control, politics, education, mass media... how does any of this look like a brighter future?

How do you teach "do what you can to survive"? Find somebody who's in your same economic and social class? I'm not even sure some citizens will continue to be allowed the "right" to vote?

Our parenting styles are so different from all others and each other. Can we agree on anything other than racism and police brutality?

(((your inner voice.com)))

"Colorism In the Black community"