Sunday, December 17, 2006

Why do we black people devalue their culture?

I as a young black man love the cartoon, The Boondocks. I was an avid reader of the comic strip and I own the DVD of the first season of the cartoon TV series. I am enamored with all the characters from intellectual Huey, rambuxious Riley, horney Grandad Freeman, adorable Jasmine Dubois, white washed Mr. Dubois, and self hating Uncle Ruckus. Each of these characters show the ingenuity of the creator Aaron McGrudor and show a different facet of the African American culture. The character that I am most interested in, Uncle Ruckus, shows the secret that many African Americans try to keep from the public view, that they devalue aspects of their own culture. I think that we as African Americans give less value to our language, our way of dress, our mannerisms, our way of dress, our history, and our place of origin.
If Uncle Ruckus was white he would be an classic racist. He is the anthesis of Huey Freeman's radical pride and love for black people. For Uncle Ruckus everything that white people are and do is good and everything that black people are and do is bad. He has a mentality of a house slave who identities with his white masters rather then his own people. Unfortunately I fear that the majority of African Americans have some of the same mentality as Uncle Ruckus. We teach our children to not sound black for fear of ridicule. We turn up our nose when a man or woman wear African garb to church or a formal outing. We know almost nothing of African culture and history and where we come from as a people. We believe the misconceptions that the media portrary to us that Africa is a uncivilized continet. These self devaulating view of ourselves has no doubt contributed to the nilistic view of our young people and the growing homocide rate in our community. I think we as African Americans need to confront our negative view of our culture and take the time to study and accept the depth to which African culture influenced our own.

Here we go again.

Welcome to my new blog. I did have another blog on blogger before but I guess the people at blogger.com erased it because I posted one blog on it. Since this is the case I promise to post something on this blog at least every other day. We see how it goes. I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts and I enjoy hearing your comments as well.