Dissonance

I thought success was harmless. All of my dreams of a family, a life of service to my community and my God were supposed to help others and bring satisfaction to my life. I am realizing it is not that simple. Success is an act of violence. With each ascent of my professional career, I delve further into foreign spaces...hostile spaces. Each promotion comes with an insidious command, ingest more of white culture. Lose your slang, shave your face, trade dap for a firm handshake. Actions, thoughts, and ways of meaning which I hold so dear are forced beneath the surface, all so I can appear more "professional." If I climb the social ladder, I do so at the expense of my own soul. Success is violent.

Even if I continue to manage the tension of my deep love for black culture against the tide of white supremacy, I am still living in a society which does not value my contribution to it as an equal cultural participant. My hyphenated identity, which was given not chosen, is evident of my sub-par standing. "I too am America." For all of the black billionaires, and millionaires, there are millions more black peope living and believing in poverty. I cannot succeed as long as this is true. To succeed in this system is to validate it's existence, and to fail in this system achieves the same goal.What options remain?

Beneath the surface

Assuming equity is what we want...the way to reach equity is to expand privilege to include the powerless, not to invalidate or remove privilege from those in power. I do not want to live in a world where people demand poltically correct speech at the expense of cultural authenticity. I recognize there are numerous divergent views, many of which I would find offensive, but eliminating the speech does not improve the condition of the country. If my culture is offensive, then we can have a conversation to deepen our understanding of one another. I hope that we are not so insecure as to eliminate authentic speech. If I change my language because of social pressure, but not because of my love for my neighbor it is fruitless. I hope my neighbor is confident enough to assume best intentions and share their feelings, rather than demand the adoption of language and practices, without considering my divergent opinions. Unfortunately I think fragility and conflict avoidance is steering our country into an ethical ambiguity where those with wealth have the influence to shape behavioral standards. This frightens me. No group should have a monopoly on human conduct.

What our country continues to do is force unity through legislation, no matter how beneficial, and political correctness. Pieces of sympathetic laws are glued together with the blood of American made martyrs. As a result, we maintain a weak forced peace.  We are skipping steps. Our identities: sexuality, gender, sex, and race (amongst others) place us into a system of advantages and disadvantages. We are doing our fellow citizens a disservice by striving towards an ideal where the components of ourselves are independent of our future well-being and success, without acknowledging and replacing the biased systems which harm us, with equitable ones which support us. We must advance through honesty. Our country must start with truth, and until we do, we will remain broken.

"Return of the Confederacy"

Drugs rule, pushers, and fiends rise and fall like the sun but the streets stay hot because these men of steel stay packing heat.

Having to be Supermen from DC to Chicago to survive.

Little girls are dodging uncle's gazing at their thighs while running right into drive bys.

Innocent blood and tears are the only things which escape.

This is no America.

This is Incorporated chaos.

Zip codes cage citizens into poverty and poor education.

Neither weather nor the non-profit sector can erode these prisons.

No investment, so commerce is done with bodies as currency.  

Spare change and the dead both lie in the street when they cease to be useful.

This is no America.

A corrupt world corrupts values.

Trauma is replaced with triumph.

Why be afraid of dying when you can have the power to kill?

Replacing fear with force.

People question how a community could destroy itself?

The destruction happened with slavery, was codified through segregation, and whatever was left burned down from broken crack pipes and broken promises.

You can still smell the smoke.

Maybe our communities are a new Confederacy?

America already declared war on us once, or twice, or nevermind...we’ll just keep track on the backs of our ancestors. 

Deficit Spending

Advertising is a highly lucrative profession. In a world governed by the accumulation of wealth, demonstrating and convincing people to buy a product or service is a natural output. In a scoiety influenced with this philosophy we see brands. I am told what I need, what I should want, ad infinitum. I have needs but my perception of them is hazy. I need water to survive but I believe Fiji is more indicative of a lifestyle I want, compared to water from the tap. Arbitrary...My understanding is influenced by my own insecurity. I want to purchase expensive goods to make up for what I do not possess. If I can own the highest quality in one area of my life, then I must be a high quality person. America has become saturated with capitalism, to the point we ascribe people's self-worth to the quality and quantity of goods they possess. When I see a homeless person, destitute, lacking popular brands, I scorn them. When I see individuals with Ralph Lauren, Merceedes Benz, and Luis Vuitton I gravitate towards them. I aspire to a higher lifestyle but I have more in common with the homeless. We are both left wanting for more, looking for a form of security. If I truly believed in my inherent worth as a human, I would purchase specific brands incidentally or purely due to my personal aesthetical preference. This cruel irony plays out in families across this nation every day, "I spend because I lack. I lack because I spend."