September 22, 2010

• Ending the Slavery of Self-Destruction

  This month marks the 21st anniversary of my wife's move to South Central Los Angeles. I joined her four months later, in January 1990. We never left. We have been intimately engaged with South Los Angeles all this time, increasing our depth of connection over the years as experience and opportunity allowed.  We have been the ethnic minority in each of our neighborhoods all this time, so we have some small taste (from the other side of the pot, so to speak) of what that's like.  We love our neighbors and genuinely want the best for them. We regularly endure criticism for being the wrong color, the wrong class, the wrong political stripe, the wrong fans (Clippers, not Lakers)... for being foster parents, for adopting a Black child, for living in a small apartment, for living in a big house that's too old and ugly, for living in a big house that's too new and pretty . . .  It is not easy, but I would not trade it for anything else. I love South Los Angeles. I love Black and Latino culture. And Chinese, and Nordic, and Zambian, and British, and Indian too-- both "dot" and "feather"-- here, we have it all!

   

  On September 22 – the 148th anniversary of The Emancipation Proclamation – African American writers throughout the United States are being encouraged to flood the blogosphere for an entire day of online debate, information, and commentary under the auspices of “No Wedding, No Womb” (NWNW) an initiative that seeks to address the problems of-and provide solutions to-the unplanned pregnancies among African American single women. Nearly half of all families in the African American community are headed by Black women. In addition, more than 70 percent of live births in the Black community are to unmarried women.

  Founders of BeyondBlackWhite.com Christelyn D. Karazin and Janice Littlejohn will spearhead the online effort joined by more than 100 top African American bloggers and noted journalists who will provide their own new and informational posts stimulating a movement toward strengthening Black communities and families.

   

  Although I am not a Black woman, my daughter will grow up to be one soon. As one called by God to love South Central and its fascinating mix of cultures, I want the best for my urban African American friends and neighbors, for the Black community, and most especially and personally, I want the best for my lovely daughter.

  On this day, September 22, this means I want to see the African American community becoming emancipated from its slavery to self-destruction.

  Yes, slavery. To self-destruction. I cannot tell you how many times I have listened to Black teens (boys AND girls) singing popular lyrics that could well have been written by some kind of White Supremacist conspirators, rather than "respected" African-American rap and hip-hop artists.  Young Black women in a community-college class commiserating about how rotten men are, and agreeing sagely with the closing comment "mens is just out to use you and abuse you, so you gots to use them first."  Teen girls pushing their toddlers in strollers who wave enthusiastically at their old Bible Club teachers, promising that as soon as their kids are old enough, they will make sure they come to Bible Club too, since it is so much fun and teaches you about how to live. (I have never felt such a failure as I did then)  A jaded urban missionary leaning out the window of his creaky van to shout at a group of gangbangers on the corner "Hey! Get a job!" Their cold anger gave way to embarrassment as they recognized the man of God who taught them in after-school homework clubs and coached them in youth sports leagues... they respect him but will not follow him or his God, or get that job... they will not submit to an employer's "demands", so God's are off the table entirely.  

  But mostly my heart has broken over and over as beautiful little girls bursting with promise and potential (Black, Latino and a few Hmong) become teenage "baby-mommas" as if pregnancy is an inevitable result of the end of puberty. I watch them fall into a cycle of immaturity and dependency and poverty that I was sure THIS one would break free from... or, maybe THAT one... my hopes have been dashed so often I have lost count. I never wanted to keep a count anyway, I want to focus on hope rather than despair. 

  And as I do so, I see married couples.

  Strong married couples, and counter-cultural ones at that, seem to be the only reliable predictor of children who will escape the cycle of slavery to self-sabotage.  Marriage alone doesn't make much difference if the parents uncritically accept the culture around them, a culture which enthusiastically promotes sex and selfishness and simplistic thinking (or no thinking at all), a culture which scorns self-control and ridicules most virtue.  Whether the counter-cultural stance is Christian or Vegan or Armed Forces Patriotism or Save-the-Earth Greenism or whatever, if it is authentic and persistent and involves both parents, it seems to be effective.

  I will let other bloggers like Sophia Nelson and C.M. Whitener wrestle with specific facets of the issue of marriageless procreation, and I am more apt to emphasize the role that Black men might take in solving the problem, but the basic concept of NWNW seems axiomatic.  If Black women simply refused sex with men who refused to marry them-- and, by implication, refused to marry men who were not "marriage material" (a wedding ring is not a magic totem!)-- this would go a long, long way toward emancipating the whole African American community from self-destructive cycles.

  More than that, it would begin a profoundly CONSTRUCTIVE cycle that would replenish the Black community-- educationally, financially, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, creatively, with generation building upon generation (rather than generations crowding against and sapping from one another). I can only hope that NWNW becomes the catalytic discussion that brings this change. 

  "Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come." (Victor Hugo)

   

  this topic is too important to confine to a single date. I hope conversations are sparked and seeds of transformation are planted that will grow and mature and bear the fruit of freedom over the next ten years... so that all this will seem like history, not lurking slavery, to my daughter when she is grown.

  • 3:58 am
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