A Generation Lost

All bullshit aside, I’ll get straight to the point no chaser. The youth of today is in a lack of a better word lost. The sad thing is that the only people we have to blame for this dilemma is ourselves as black people. We sit around and try to lay blame on today’s society for reasons why we can’t get ahead or why we can’t achieve the things we see our counterparts getting whether they be black or white. Aside from all that we as a people need to get ourselves together and raise ourselves up and come together as a people and better ourselves. Recently I read the letter that David Banner wrote to some of our so called black leaders and I agree with him almost 100%. At the same time I can see where those people have tried to a certain extent to help us better ourselves and why they have in my opinion failed to do so. I think the main reason they failed is because they haven’t truly made the effort to reach out and touch basis with the youth today, the thing is I can’t entirely blame them for that. I can blame our generation and there's for not trying to find some common ground and coming up with some kind of resolve. But I am going to give my opinion on what I think the younger generation is feeling because I am a part of that generation and I have some idea of the mentality that we have. If you look at it most of the youth today come from broken homes with no real role models in the household, I’m not saying that to be derogatory to black men out there who takes care of their responsibilities because there are many who do. I’m speaking on the ones who aren’t man enough to take care of the responsibilities, they have in this world. A lot of us also grew up in tough neighborhoods doing whatever we had to do to survive in the streets, that’s a common story that we all have heard time and time again but it remains a constant in the black community. As far as our older generation goes they came from a time where there was more structure and stability in the household. We all know they had single family homes as well but there weren’t as prevalent as they are in today’s society. I think the thing that makes the generations so different is that even thought we have things in common the one difference that we have is the younger generation haven’t had the outstanding leadership that the older generation was blessed with. The older generation was fortunate enough to have the leadership and wisdom of the Martin Luther King’s the Malcolm X’s the Medgar Evers and countless of other black leaders. So in my opinion those who weren’t fortunate enough to be blessed with a stable family still had something to and or someone to look up too. It seemed as if in the 60’s and 70’s there was more for a person to be involved in. I feel that even then if one of those aforementioned leaders wasn’t that someone you followed then there were different causes going on that people were able to be apart of to keep them proud of themselves and their people. People in those times actually came together and tried to better themselves and a people, family, and community and sadly to say you hardly see that anymore. The people of the 80’s and 90 are who have been commonly referred to as the hip-hop generation didn’t grow up in the same type of situation. Even though the gap between the two generations is small the gap between the different lifestyles is enormous. It’s seems as if as soon as the 80’s hit a wave of self deprecation fell over our people as a whole in my opinion. It seems as if those years sent our people on a downward spiral to where we are now. If you look at the differences that I’m trying to point out you might see the difference that I’m talking about. The People of the 80’s, which is the generation that I’m apart of since I was born in 1981, were apart of a whole different way of living that our counterparts of the 60’s and 70’s. I feel the main cause if this is what I said previously, the lack of black leaders to me was a detrimental part of our youth growing up with the attitudes that we have today. While the older generations had all those leaders that I’ve mentioned before whom did we have in the 80’s and 90’s really? We have not that that significant black figure to step up and take on the responsibility of helping our people come together like they did in the early days, I feel that is why we are a reckless generation that doesn’t really care about what goes on in the world today. I also feel that with the emergence of a black presidential candidate it will show our young that they really can do whatever it is they desire in life. Even if Obama fails to become the first Afrikan American president, what he has accomplished should be more than enough to inspire something in any young black person that wants to do something with their lives. But at the same time they always say you can’t help everyone, but what I hope to accomplish is to reach a few that’s willing to do what they can to help someone discover who they really are and stop feeding into the stereotypes that others place upon us. As you read you might see that I’m not your typical intellectual writer because I’m not. I’m a regular guy who just has some shit on his mind that he wants to get across, so if you don’t understand or my grammar isn’t good enough for you then……..hey it sucks for you. The real people who read this will understand what was trying to say and those are they people who I wanted to get my message to. I’m not writing this to get any recognition from some bugeouise egghead sitting in an office. I’m writing this for the regular common people who have the same ideals as myself and others. Maybe this dosent reach a lot of people but I hope it makes an impact on the ones that it does reach and I hope they let others know how they feel about this situation. Maybe this way we can start to make a positive impact on others and try to instill this mentality in others. But all in all, the only thing I can say is to each it’s own……………………………………until then…………….K. Hill esq,