I ran into my older Step-brother today whom just got out of prison two years ago for doing fifteen years for being an acessory to an armed robbery and kidnapping his friends committed. you can say he was just another brother in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Whats worse is that he stole jewlery from my father and now he has a nerve to come back to my father at the age of 30 pleding for money and yet he has five childern out of wed-lock, a wife with no high school diploma and three kids of her own, unemployeed, and he owes child support to multiple women.
Now Im a child that has gone to school almost his whole life. you could possibly say I grew up in school entrenched in my books. I never ran the streets, I was never brought home by the police, I never did drugs, and I was always on the honor roll almost every semester in school. I am a shining example of what a black boy should be.
but as that is the case, my own father thinks differently of me. when he goes out to do his job in the neighborhood, he will brag about my achivements to other people to prove that he did his job in raising me. but the fact is, he really didn't raise me; he was a "provider". Providers are the type of men that believe money is a subsitute for love. sorta like paying child support without bonding with your son. although I can say my father was there for me, I cant really say he raised me. My mother and five aunts raised me because they nurtured me, taught me how to tie my shoes at age six, brought me my first libaray card, and all the other essential things a boy should have in order to be developed. my father did do somethings with me as a child, but now that I am older all he does is drink beer, cut grass, and yell at me about how he is the man of the house.
no matter what I do he always gives me the third degree about everything and scolds me to the point that his words cut at the depths of my soul. "BE A MAN! BE A MAN! BE A MAN! he yells aloud at me as if I am the problem. now I have never disrespected my parents, but they always told me to stand up for myself whenever someone disrespects me.
I will not allow nobody, not even my father to talk to me any old kind of way, I've always respected my parents but at a certain point we have to draw a line of respect to keep OUR self-respect from being damaged.
I know what being a man is! Being a man is about having standards and values for yourself, being a man means getting an education and applying it to your own life, being a man is about not associating with people who engage in criminal behavior, being a man is about taking responsibility for your actions, being a man is about resilience and perserverence, and being a man is about having respect for women and not running around impregnating multiple women.
If my father is so quick to tell me about what a man is supposed to be, why can he tell that to my step-brother?
If im in college trying to get an education, why cant a father be happy for a son thats trying to achive something greater than himself?
And here I sit, 11am on a saturday morning eating IHOP with my step-brother while my father sits at the table Pacifying my step-brother as if he were a baby talking to him in a soft and suttle voice to appease his conscience for a self-inflicted situation he created. need I say that this man is a convict, 30 years old with a wife and five iligitamate childern from different women. and yet he is the person on my fathers side who gets this type of preferential treatment.
If I were my father, I would treat my step-brother the way he treats me. I would get a bottle of colt 45 and drink it with a full bottle of gin, and back him into a corner and yell "BE A MAN"! "BE A MAN"! "BE A MAN"! "WIPE THOSE FUCKIN TEARS OUT YOUR EYES AND BE A MAN"!
And then he'll know how it feels to feel like a piece of shit when you aint done nothing wrong, but make your parents happy! he'll know how it feels, when you gotta look over your back to wonder if somebody is watching you from behind!
My own father spends eighty dollars on him just to get food for his childern, knowing that money has to be saved for me to continue my matriculation through college.
These are the type of blackmen I can not stand, if you are supposed to be a husband you are not supposed to be asking for handouts. My step-brother took the punk way out of his responsibilities as a man and that is why Iam more determind than ever to finish my college degree.
Why is it that brothers like him, who go around spreading his seed in different women always get the handouts in the black community?
why are black people so dependent on welfare and government assistance checks?
and yet, it is brothers like me who are blamed for looking down on my whole race when I offer them advice to get out of their situation. Who the fuck is this uppity ass nigga?
"Oh! he think he better than us just because he got a college education"!
everytime a brotha gets ahead, the hood niggas always find ways to beat up on brothers with intellect.
My good friend Ryan once told me, "if I want to blast Frank Sinatra out of my car radio while Im rollin through the hood, then fuck them Im a do what I want to do because thats who Iam"!
smart black kids have been labled Steve erkel or Carlton Banks simply because they are smart kids.
On occassion I have even been called Malcolm X all way throughout high school because of my views on black history.
why is it the uneducated blacks bring down the educated kids? is it such a crime to be a smart blackman?
people like Edmund Perry, a black kid who was raised in harlem. went to a boarding school in New Hampshire and graduated with honors. he recieved a scholarship to Stanford University only to have it wiped away from him by an officer who shot him in self-defense. and eventhough the shooting was justified, its just another sad case of how a brother with an opportunity could lose everything by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
it seems when brothers try to make it out of the ghetto, people in the ghetto try to find ways to set that person two steps back. If you went to the NBA and came back to the hood only to find your-self caught in a stop snitching dvd case, your reputation as a basketball player is over.
And if you try to help everybody out in the hood when you got to the top, niggas would be stealing from you, robbing you, and suing you. (Ask MC Hammer)!
This is why it is fundamentaly important to have an education, an education will help you to expand your mind beyond what you are use to seeing. if black people are ever going to go anywhere in life you have to have a college degree. now it is not a gurantee to a instant job or instant success. But a college degree will help you to take broad knowledge and apply it to the real world so that it can benifit your life. if a door doesn't open for you, you can create one an walk through it.
I believe every black person has the potential to get an education and create more doors for our people to walk through. Booker T. washington once said "we can be seperate as the five fingers, but one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress". black people must stick together if we are going to help each other to reach the goal of economic development within our communities. We are losing our neighborhoods to whites day by day because we don't own anything and we depend on government welfare instead of building it for ourselves. and yet the jews, the hispanics, and the italians are able to stick together and build their neighborhoods up and keep certain types of people out of them. (LIKE US)! blacks will never be able to get along because we hate each other and we rob and kill one another over senseless shit like shoes, cars, and girls.
when guys like me try to offer people advice on how to get off of welfare and WIC, they look at me like im the uppity black that came to town and told them that these niggas were worthless. but what I tell people is if you want something in life you must have that piece of paper to open the doors to opportunity, if you don't then good luck because they don't offer entry-level jobs to Dropouts.
What Hoodrats need to stop doing is blaming guys like me for telling them the straight up truth, that you having babies out of wed-lock is foul and you need to get your tubes cut by planned parenthood in order to stop the mass epidemic of Bastard Childern walking the streets with no father in sight because he is somewhere kickin it with one of his side chicks on the low.
and what people from the ghetto need to do is get up everyday and go to the libaray and read a book for a few hours. we have a free Libaray USE IT! I get sick and tired of seeing black kids go into a libaray and go straight for the computer just to get on facebook, and twitter. go open a book for five minutes and expand your mind.
and another thing we need to do is stop putting down the smart black people, they worked hard to get where they are and if they wanted to help YOU! it would be up to them. either way don't expect a handout form anyone simply because your from the hood!
My father told me when I was in the car today, "You don't need an education to survive in this world, look at how I turned out"!
Ok! you've only made it up to junior year of high school, you've been a janitor almost your entire life. and on top of that it is menial work and you haven't move up the ladder, you know why? because it is domesticated work which means it doesn't have any benifits nor is it a secure job with fringe benifits.
A Job and A Career are two different things in this new Century.
My mother has a high school Diploma and she is a trained Nurse, and eventhough it is domesticated. that is a Career because nursing requires training as you progress through your position. THAT IS A CAREER!
Janitors mop floors, clean bathrooms, take out trash, clean tables, and buff floors and requires no training, or no certifications THAT IS A JOB!
Bachelor's Degree- Requires you to pass a level of classes, take comprehensive examinations, and work on a project that requires you to use the classroom theories you were taught and apply them to a senario within the professional environment. That is A CAREER!
A Career is a Pathway that helps to determine how much potential you have to make it to the top
in order to lead, you must serve first!
And when you have made it to the top of your career level, you can break away and start your own and be your own boss. and retire of the fruits of your labor. THAT IS A CAREER!
When you have Secure Stock, 401k pensions, and a bank account with an invstment firm like citibank and Merril Lynch then you are SECURE for life because you have an education that lead to a career that lead to a pathway of you being your own boss!
When you can afford to buy a bigger house with a mortage that cost 2500 a month then you can say I don't need an education.
If I quit college now and said I dont need an education, I wouldn't have any of these things because you know why!
Im Not Warren Buffet!
Im not Bill Gates!
Im Not Mark Zuckerburg!
Those guys didn't need college because their WHITE!
But since Im Black I need a Phd in order to say Im Secure!
A Bachelors Degree will put me at $25-35,000 A year!
A Masters Degree will Put me at $55-75,000 A Year!
A PhD will put me at 75,000-100,000 A Year!
So I still Don't need an education now right?
so together my parents are worth $45,000 a year thats barely MIDDLE CLASS!
A single person makes $45,000 a year with a masters degree thats about 3750 a Month! is what a single person would make.
that wouldn't barely be enough to support a family in this day and age! maybe back in 1975 befor hyperinflation but not in this ducade!
if a couple were married today, both with masters under there name making 55,000 a year each; there combined in come would be $110,000 which would be upper class and there net worth would be $9,166.66 a month! that is enough to put kids through college and mortage two homes and two cars.
so lets look at it from a PHd point, both spouses are professors and Tenured, and make $100,000 a year would make a combined income of $200,000 and a net worth of 16,666.66 a month!
so lets put it this way! 45,000 a year? or 200,000 a year?
You still think an education isn't worth it?
Like many people I still believe that you can achieve the american dream if you work hard and pay your dues you will reap the benifits!
I bust my ass every day in school, so that my childern wont have to when they grow up!
I get three hours of sleep everynight just make sure my paper is typed for the next day!
I get up 5am during a cold winter morning, bust my ass on some ice, and sleep in the holmes hall lounge so I can get some extra sleep before my 8am class
I study at home when my father blasts his music while im trying to type a paper for my next class
I get charlie horses in my leg at night due to the long icy walks down Cold spring lane
But I don't do it just because I have to, I do it because my acestors did it as well because they were determind to get an education.
Booker T. Washington walked from northern Vriginia to Hampton University with no shoes on in order to obtain a vocational education in order to become self sufficient as a man
and if it were not for this, there would not be a Tuskeegee University
WEB Dubois was the first black man to obtain his Phd from Harvard University to become a tenured professor at Fisk, Wilberforce, And Atlanta University.
these two men did not say education is worthless, they took their education and established two schools of thought.
So when I hear black people making excuses for not rising to the bars of exclence then I must say that THERE ARE NO EXCUSES! YOU EITHER GO HARD! OR GO HOME!
Because Life has no time for slackers.
so Educated or Uneducated, we owe are Ancestors. so we must begin to build for ourselves so that we can become a self-sufficient race!
SO don't tell me to Be a MAN! because when I came into the world I was Already A MAN!
God made me A MAN! through knowledge and wisdom!
when I opened those books I became AMAN!
When Malcolm X was in Jail he became AMAN!
and when I pray to god I say AMAN!
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