(ThyBlackMan.com) With the recent passing of Actress, Poet and Civil Rights Activist Ruby Dee, the overall bar of excellence in the creative Black world has been reduced.
Ruby Dee has passed away on the heels of Maya Angelou and I do not feel that our great persons of influence get enough acclaim, respect and acknowledgement in life or in death.
Ruby Dee came up at a time when as an entertainer you stood up publicly for what was right without any regard to the backlash that would surely come because of the time that she was in.
…….and as many of you already know, Ruby Dee was the loving Wife of actor Ossie Davis and the two were inseparable!
How many of our current so called entertainers will stand up in a controversial stance to risk the sponsorships and endorsements that choke their moral fire and movement like an invisible noose around their necks?
Thank God for the Black blogs and what little semblance of the true bold Black media that remains, because if we depended on the so called mainstream media to cover the passing of our icons more than a simple footnote, we all would never know what true greatness was embedded in their collective souls.
For those who are not of a heavily saturated melanin content who simply just don’t understand why we need our own media scribes, outlets and broadcasters to cover the inner workings of those who represent us on so many crucial areas of expertise, should see how fast this story will pass through their outlets – if ever at all – for them to grasp why we need to do for self.
But even look at the bigger picture, look at how the very fabric of American history has been processed in an unfair manner through the eyes of the dominant population making them appear to be the righteous
heroes in every bloody exchange of conquest that they’ve engaged in with the Original Red Man that was here upon their arrival.
We need not even mention their minimization of the Black Holocaust which put them into great power because of the free labor received for hundreds of years that was never compensated for till this day.
So with the advent of recording devices and those who choose to share their story as they’ve experienced it as opposed to having it told to them from the eyes of another, the former spin-masters of the tainted processed media realities who call themselves news reporters have very little room from which to work their lies into the truths that we all know so well.
But where is the farming system for such a necessary component to the ever growing yet forever challenged Black community that still have major festering issues that need to be addressed with the urgency of ones residence catching on fire?
While being a basketball player, singer, dancer, entertainer or rapper might still work out very lucratively from some, those available slots for fame and fortune are very minuscule at best when compared to the need for great writers, press persons and dynamic thinkers who will guide the perceptions of not only how we think and feel about ourselves, but how others in the world abroad will judge us by what they see.
For too long we’ve allowed our image to be constructed, nipped and tucked for broadcast to the planet and we must take back this very important and crucial area over and keep it under our own direct scrutiny.
Our imagery should not be in the hands of one who doesn’t have our best interest at hand to mold!
Our projected buffoonery is mainly reserved for us as a people as we have been elected without our consent to be the comical court jesters of the planet for the world’s amusement.
If someone truly loves you would they seek out every opportunity to cause you to be seen in the worst light to those in your midst?
And if what they do to us in the media is merely something light-hearted and unintentional as they claim, then why aren’t their men and women portrayed as the lowest of low?
But to come full circle, when we lose an icon such as a Ruby Dee or a Maya Angelou, those great examples of excellence are briefly acknowledged if ever at all in the mainstream media and you’ve got to ask yourselves why?
But when Rihanna chooses to degrade herself with her whorish over-sexualized antics, the press is there to record her every foolish display for
the world to see us as some wonton type of hedonistic low lives whose only goal is yet another decadent reckless carnal escapade.
This of course is readily eaten up by the press while ignoring those of us who are actually about something of a higher moral note.
So while our great persons of influence pass on to the next level of existence, let us build a system where they will be place to the forefront of what we want placed high on the list of excellence that will keep the bar of standards high for our youth to emulate and shoot for.
What’s so sad is that too many of our youth can easily recite any one of Lil Wayne‘s raps but won’t have a clue as to who Ruby Dee was and the life’s work that she left behind for all as a blueprint for greatness.
Whose fault is that?
It’s our fault! We’ve got to not only build our own media networks, but we’ve got to stop supporting those who do not portray us to our liking and even shutting them down if they ignore those demands.
We’ve got to take and active role in teaching all of our youth – whether they share someone elses D.N.A. or not – how to filter out the trash that they are bombarded with at every waking hour on the internet, television and radio platforms.
We’ve got to uphold those who have something of substance to share like a Ruby Dee and others who have made the effort to live a life of positive productivity that will affect all who discover what an example to follow that they truly were.
Let’s encourage our young budding Ruby Dee’s of the present day, so that our living breathing dignity, integrity, backbone and strength will live on well into the future to combat the poisons of propaganda that seek to keep us from developing into the people of high morals that our God created us to be.
Rest In Peace Ruby Dee.
Tell Maya when you see her that there are still those of us who won’t ever allow the legacies that you both have left so generously diminish into nothingness!
…….job well done.
