(ThyBlackMan.com) Life moves at 100 mph for so many of us. We live our daily existence on social media, and too many of us have no time for anyone, nor anything, that can’t keep up with us. We are embracing movement and want to do it our way…many believe that those which came before us are simply history, or maybe irrelevant for our time. So many want to undo the idea of culture masking rebellion for being “woke”. Unfortunately, too many young people feel they can be “woke” or conscious simply by listening to their peers, and paying attention to Facebook.
We are allergic to anyone that would tell us we are wrong, addicted to attention, over stimulated, or simply that we need to read a book or two. This mentality causes us to shun the very elders, daily, that we must embrace. This is indeed a part of the “divide” propaganda.
Yes, some elders are bigoted, they despise one’s youth, they talk down and blame the young people for everything despite the errors their generation made. This is understood and acknowledged, but just as young people don’t want to be labeled as screw ups they can’t 
put all elders in a box. We are living through blacks being killed by the police, and a president that makes the future look dangerous and unpredictable. They may not understand our technology, but there are elders that can personally talk to us about lynching’s and they will remind us that what we face now…they faced and while bodies hung from trees they were also shot in the street.
Some of them know about surviving hard times when every president could make them see the future as dangerous. They have lived lives that force patience, and are rooted in hope. Yes, some of them may look at us with disappointed eyes, at times, because when we kill each other maybe they remember swinging bodies…they remember arrests for protests. Maybe they think this isn’t what they sacrificed for, and looking at it that perspective we can’t get mad.
Every generation must find a way to further the path in their own way. However, this cannot be done with no knowledge of the path by which you currently stand…as the progress you make for the future will be paved in your sacrifice…the path we stand on is paved in tears and blood. As the elders, must have patience with us…we must offer them the same. We need their wisdom, and their direction. We so desperately need a strength that is forged from understanding ones past. We must pick up books and read the wisdom our scholars left behind. To become conscious one must study…it is a state that must be earned and cannot be accomplished without embracing the elders.
So many young people claim to be woke with no guidance, and no knowledge of self…their eyes are open but they can’t see. When our elders have passed on we can no longer sit and talk with them. If you are blessed to have them chat with grandma while she’s cooking; talk to grandpa while he’s working on the car. Talk to the community elders and learn all you can from them. Read from the elders that have left behind works. Take that valuable wisdom and add you too it…it will make for a powerful movement. Without them we can never surpass them.
Staff Writer; Christian Starr
May connect with this sister over at Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/christian.pierre.9809 and also Twitter; http://twitter.com/MrzZeta.
