The Real Reason This Generation Doesn't March

What happen to our resolve? What happen to all the passion and pride that African-American's once had in the 1960s? Are we less powerful, sedated or just apathetic? Or have we reached a point where marching and protesting is no longer necessary?

The answer is both simple and complex. Notice the picture to the right? Symbols like these were the physical barriers that demanded protesting and marches. The issues that we face today are much more intricate...but more importantly they are invisible.

Today's racial barriers center around affirmative action, standardize testing, the relationship between public school funding and the tax code, the prison industrial complex, and suggestive media just to a few. Notice that none of these are concrete barriers. In the 1960s you didn't have to explain the problem, you saw it. You knew where you could and couldn't sit and eat. You knew what door you could enter though and you knew where not to be after dark. And because of that it was much easier to get thousands of people to stand up.

To even accomplish that today we'd first have to explain what and where the barriers are, and that's no easy task. Today's issues require research, "relatability" and imagery. We need the last two more than anything else. Why did Troy Davis and Trayvon Martin stir up rallies within the younger generation? We could relate to it and we could easily see it. Skittles and Arizona Tea sales shot up as we rallied around a common concrete purpose. You didn't have to do intense research just understand what happen.

But its what we didn't see that emphatically proves my point. Kelly William-Bolar and Tanya McDowell lied to send their children to better school districts earlier this year. One was convicted of a felony while the other was charged with first degree larceny. Why were there no rallies, no uproar and no attention from the NAACP especially when most who people commit this crime are just asked to withdraw from the school? We shouldn't be too concerned with the two women in this case but we should be more concerned about their motives. Why were their school districts so bad? And how many other children are suffering in those bad districts? And what affect will that bad education have on the future of those kids and this nation?

To find out the answer to that question you would have to do, A) research. To make people care about it enough to do something, B) make it relate and C) make it painfully visible. And this ladies and gentlemen is why my this generation doesn't march, we can't. It is hard enough to even summarize how public education isn't doing its part let alone relating that message to thousands of people. The things in which we fight most passionately for are inherently simple though their consequences may be dire.

It didn't take an essay or national study to explain why segregation was wrong or why African American's should be allowed to vote. But can you do that with the problems in the education system? Can you explain how test scores are used to build prison cells or why we spend more on national defense than education? Maybe you can, but can you do it while making it simple enough and vivid enough to make everyone move in the same direction and conviction? That the biggest problem. Most of can't even see what we should be fighting for anymore.

The Little Rock Nine

Wake up.

The Tim Tebow Effect and Why MJ May Not Be the Greatest Ever

Quick, what do Tim Tebow and Michael Jordan have to do with the Confederate flag? *Cue Jeopardy music* If your answer was, "Both played college sports in the South". Your answer

was...incorrect. Take a good look at the image below. 

Does it make you think of racism, hatred or bigotry? For many this image above is just as offensive as the Nazi Swastika. But why? This is not, nor has it ever been one of the three official flags of the Confederacy during the Civil War, yet so many people including myself a few years ago would become instantly irate just at the site of it. 

Ladies and gentlemen may I introduce you to the immense power of media. Because of textbooks, t-shirts, rallies and uproars this one false image can easily offend and cause debate. Why was this particular image chosen to represent the Confederacy today? I don't know. But I do know that media has fueled us into a misguided frenzy. Which brings me to one, Mr. Tim Tebow the most overrated athlete in the history of sports. 

Without getting too technical for my non-football readers, Tebow is a quaterback. And like all football players and all athletes in general they are evaluated by their performance on the field. Nowhere else. So it only makes sense to look the "on-the-field" stats. In his career (23 games) he has thrown for 2,382 YDS, 17 TD, with 47.3% accuracy. To be fair lets put this in perspective, Tony Romo just LAST SEASON, not his career threw for 4,184 YDS, 31 TD with 66.3% accuracy. It doesn't take a math major to tell you that Romo nearly doubled Tebow in these categories. But get this, Tebow was voted as on of the top 100 players of 2012 and was just 4 spots behind Romo at 91 (Tebow #95). With just four spots separating them and Romo being clearly superior, do you feel Tim belongs on that list or have crazed fans prayed him  among the top players?

If the truth really sets us free then Tim shouldn't even be on the provisional top 100 players list. He is a terrible NFL QB (currently) but his name comes up because of his faith and everything that he as done off the field. Yes, he is a great role model, more players should be like him off the field but what you do off the football field on mission trips and in the Philippines while saving little kids does not validate him to be among the best players. The fact the ESPN even covers a Tebow topic Monday through Friday is absurd, he's a backup QB. In what other sport do 2nd team guys make SportsCenter? Not to mention First Take, Around the Horn, Pardon the Interruption and the myriad of other shows that make him ubiquitous.

  

Because of Tebow's faith we were introduced to "Tebowing"...

which caught caught fire and spread to the NBA.

If you haven figured it out by now, the media can severely alter your thoughts and what you believe to be true. Millions of people believe that the "Confederate" flag we see today was the original and official flag that flew during the Civil War. And the followers of Tebowmania believe in their heart that Tim Tebow is the greatest QB to ever play. Because of these facts I often wonder if Michael Jordan was the greatest player ever. 

Was it the games we watched at 7 and 8 years old or the Tebow Effect that let us know how great he was? Or is it the commercial we saw at 17 and 18, it was maybe the shoes we lined up to purchase. Or was it simply Nike and Gatorade that told us that he was the greatest? Just like Tebow's off the field church trips and saint-like celebrations, what if everything around us, not Jordan's actual game that makes him better than what he was. In no way am I saying MJ wasn't a great player but would there be such a unanimous decision if he didn't have is own wildly popular shoe line among other products? 

Answer this: What NBA player has 6 championships, is all-time leader scorer in NBA history, made 10 NBA-1st Teams, lead the NBA in blocks 4 times, rookie of the year, named one of the NBA's 50 greatest all-time list and made the NBA All Star Team 19 times. 

Kareem Abdul-Jabar. He is tied with Jordan in titles, also won rookie of the year, has more All Star appearances and tied in NBA 1st teams. I am not making a case for which of the two was better and I am certain not asking for a 1-on-1-in-their-prime-game. 

I'm just asking you to consider the source. Try and remember who told you MJ was the greatest and who reminds you in a series of 30 second highlights with dramatic music that he was the best. Then admit that Jordan could just be your favorite player and not the greatest player because they are two completely different things. 

Just a thought. 

Let Us Begin/Social Suicide

Welcome to the inner confines of my mind. From here on out you will receive the purest form of honesty, an unbiased opinion and an educated spin on some of the most polarizing topics in today's society. I am a recent college grad with a BS in Economics, an author and entrepreneur hailing from the Sooner State. I am an absolute fiend for college football, a lover of the NFL and NBA. And I have a proud unhealthy addition to books pertaining to yet not limited to personal finance, psychology, and African-American issues dating from the post Civil War-present. If you want to follow me I am @MayorOfOctober on Twitter. Now, with the pleasantries out the way let us begin.

In case you haven't figured it out yet...George Zimmerman won. He won the moment he pulled the trigger on that Black kid, who's name we've all seemed to forget. Contrary to what you may be thinking Mr. Zimmerman didn't win because of Florida law or because either party in this horrific encounter could be deemed innocent. He won because as a people African-Americans continue to see themselves as inferior. There are Black on Black crimes and killings happening in every corner of this country yet it takes a man of another race every few years (Rodney King-1992,  Amadou Diallo-1999) to remind us that we may not be anywhere near a post racial era.

We have come to expect these things from our people. We expect less than, we expect violence and we expect inadequacy. So when someone of another race commits the exact same heinous act we are shocked. "How could they stoop to our level. I thought they were better than us." Sounds harsh? Yes, but the truth hurts. If we are so numb to the countless other Black deaths what made Trayvon's so different? Perhaps it was the color of the hand holding the gun. Those that disagree claim that it was Trayvon's innocence that made this case so huge. And to those who say that I ask how many times to you even look into Black of Black crimes and question whether one was innocent and unarmed or do you automatically assume (as George did) that because the victim was Black he couldn't be innocent.

Below are the search volume trends from Google. You weren't the only one who forgot about the case.

Rank by   trayvon martin

If you think I am trying to convict Mr. Zimmerman or make you feel guilty about letting the story fade from your memory, wrong again. I want you to think outside the box. I want the entire African-American community to stop looking for acceptance by other ethnic groups as if we need their approval. Stop comparing and asking comparative questions as if we're inferior. As a graduate of an HBCU there were many debates about whether our education was better than that of a predominately white institution (PWI). The fact that we even asked ourselves that question proves that in our minds we are inadequate because certainly they don't ask themselves that question. When we can stop that, we can stop the subliminal social suicide that occurs on a daily basis.

"The perpetual quest for acceptance as parts of the social machinery is a form of psychic self-destruction." 

-Gerry Spence

Wake up.