(ThyBlackMan.com) African American men have arguably been through the roughest time of any gender, race or ethnic group. From slavery to racism to bitter African American women to police brutality to the slanted and biased judicial court system, brothers we have been through it all. Yet we still endured, many of us are still here and quite a few of us are still standing.
You African American man are your solution. Anyone else can only assist you.
This year we African American men need to build each other up, not just our young boys but our men of every age as well. It’s past time for the self destructive programming that has us sabotaging ourselves and killing each other to disappear. No more excuses, you are either part of the solution or you have become part of the
problem. And if you are part of the problem, the incarceration is in your mind binding your potential with the illusion of chains from days long past.
You were created for greatness and excellence. But because others did not want you to go there, they made many of you believe that you were destined to be thugs, hustlers, players, little boys, dogs, homosexuals and punks. Yes I said it and its time our brothers wake up.
If a “black” life matters, an African American life filled with identity and purpose should matter even more. And the last time I looked, your color was brown and your identity was not in color.
Caucasians are not more gifted than you – they are just awake. Our women are not better than you. Other ethnic groups or races are not superior to you. They have just projected those images to cause you to stumble if you do not know who you are. But I am tired of it and you should be as well.
It’s time to lift your brother up, pick him up, tell him to get up, step up, speak up and become who he should have always been – in his home, in his church, in his business, in his community, in his school and everywhere else he can make an impact. The powers that be were so afraid of your potential that they rewrote history and changed the names in everything from religion to inventions to art to education in order to protect the guilty – and many of you brainwashed coons, sambos, eggplants and oreos helped massa do just that. But time out. It’s time for Our African American brothers to be the example.
You are your financial solution, your relationship solution, your judicial solution, your health solution and equipped with everything you need – but only if you realize it.
From Michael Jackson to Prince to Michael Jordan to President Obama to Oprah to Medgar Evers to Martin Luther King to Charles Drew and many, many others – they shook the world around them. But instead of just admiring them and celebrating their accomplishments, use them as examples and take the hint. Stop begging to get a job at Coca Cola and start the next company that will be their competition. Let them worry about you running them out of business instead of you worrying if they will accept your application. Stop looking down on yourself and hiding it with overcompensation through the expensive things you buy – things to try and show the world that you are O.K. when you are not, at least not yet.
African American brothers we need an identity movement, not a march nor a protest. It’s time to be the powerhouse in your home and community that you were meant to be.
There are so many of you brothers who are brilliant but instead you sell that talent and those gifts for so much less than what you are worth. That is because you never realized your value. And I am talking facts, not just motivation. You are listening to a man who wrote his first book at 19 years old. A man who took $100 and started a business that made over $600,000 in less than two years. A man who had cancer and beat it. A man who has a resume’ that will make you fall out of your chair. But my point is that you were created for that same type greatness in whatever area you choose.
So this year don’t just fall back into the same hole or crawl back into the same cave. Don’t settle for what you accomplished last year. Do better, grow bigger, climb higher, get smarter, expect more of yourself, achieve more, tolerate less failure from yourself.
Open your heart, open your wallet, open your mind. Lift a brother up.
No more excuses and no more hanging around people who are asleep, deadbeat beautiful big booty women who are leeches, settling for less than your greatness or clouding your head with weed to escape the stress of living under your potential. Wake up brothers, wake up. I watched an African male friend of mine make $3,000 a day selling bootleg DVD movies out of a flea market wholesale and I am not saying you should do that. But I am saying do something, do something great, something legal, something big. Stop thinking like an ant and start thinking like a giant. When you think that way, soon your actions will follow. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. So what are you?
Hold yourself and your African American brothers to a higher standard. But beware because many of them are so accustomed to being in a deep dark cave that they will fight against you when you expect more of them. Yet I do it every day and I expect our brothers to expect more of me as well. Some get mad and play crabs in a basket. But others live and grow and achieve and succeed. What bout you brother? What about you?
Staff Writer; Trevo Craw