Watch Your Mouth- Who do You Think You’re Talking to?

It doesn't take a genius to understand our problem is a results of sleeping with the enemy. Does a cage bird that has been treated badly in ever means, fly back into the cage after being freed? Who taught us to love our enemy, the European New Testament? "Love thy Enemy". Hip Hop was a result of our lack of caring for and raising our children in the way that they should go because we were too busy chasing white folks and the false dreams they promise us. At the same time our children were being raised by the devil, European themselves.

I hear ya doc. I do have a lot more to say however my pager just went off indicating I have traumas coming in. Get back to you later

I must agree with Avis regarding the generational divide. With each generation comes a change and new ideas. We no longer have the mind set of those in the past. If you are an elder, you should have the mindset to encourage, provide wisdom, show yourself to be leaders. This is where our generation could go very wrong. Can we as a people turn this thing around? Is it too late for our young people? If this is all that we know thus far, I admonish you to become Big Brother/Sisters and partake in mentoring programs within your city. I would not think that this is only a generational thing among African Americans but a societial suicide at the expensive of the young people. I say society, because we really do not have the time for young people because we are too busy trying to keep our heads above water, just waking up in the morning, going to work (how ever many hours), home again just to start the cycle all over again.

Dr. Glover,
I had to read through this article a couple of times to try to figure out the points you are trying to make. I think there are two:
1. There is no real generational gap. Young African Americans really respect their elders.
2. Hip Hop has not separated us as much as depicted, and we have more to be unified about.

Your first point:
"You see, people of African descent have always valued and honored our elders. We revere your wisdom and seek your counsel on our most important issues. Sorrowfully, as Americans we have been taught to devalue your importance: similar to other ethnic groups views of the aged/aging. We’ve been systematically told to see you as counter to our advancement and ability to achieve."

RESPONSE: I lived in South Africa for three years following the end of Apartheid, and your point is true of traditional Africans. There is a cultural norm that extends respect to elders. There is a phenomenon in Africa called "Africa time" that appears to equate to our "CP time." We are generally referring to individuals who are lazy and not punctual. "CP Time" is not a compliment. In Africa, "Africa Time" evolved out of respect for those who have transportation challenges, and meetings start on "Africa Time" out of respect for those who can't get there The concept is that we will wait "out of respect for the input of those who may be late due to challenging circumstances." Young South Africans nowadays are looking at many HipHop icons as role models. Thankfully, they still have Nelson Mandela to provide a reality check.

Here in America, there is a different cultural phenomenon going on that isn't influenced by our African heritage. When we were primarily rural dwellers, we respected our elders. I recall sitting under a tree and listening to my grandfather and his friends. We learned how to plant and sow, and "man up" to your end of a buck saw. I don't see any natural inclination of our current genertion to seek the advice of their Elders. As a retired business executive, the young people that I encounter in our commuity don't ask me "What do I need to do to succeed in business?" They don't come and say, "I want to be like you when I grow up." (except they ask if they can drive my Porsche, when they don't know how to drive a standard transmission vehicle. I would be flattered if someone said, "Teach me.") I get the "acting white" accusation ocassionally. They say, "You're not DOWN wit us." They say, "You have a differnet view of excellence than we do." They say these things when I TRY to reach out to them. I don't what they say when I'm not listening. A small number respond positively. Most have another agenda that I don't understand.

So, as far as I'm concerned, Hip Hop is a music genre. I don't understand the "popular culture" that seems angry, mysogynistic, and not willing to listen very much. Many seem to be in a mode of "I'VE GOT SOMETHING SAY!" One of Steven Covey's habits of very effective people was "Seek to understand first, then to be understood." I don't detect much effort expended toward understanding of their elders among the Hip Hop generation. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

I'll reflect on the second point in your post in a follow up response, after your reply to this first point.

I just finished having a conversation about Euro- folks doing things for a thrill, bungee jumping, skydiving, jetskis, dirt bike jumps over 18 buses;.....
when as an Aficana person, we have thrills & challenges just to make it thru the average day. I know. I had an experience at the Fed. Detention Center two weeks ago attempting to visit my son. It is tooo long and bizarre to try to explain, but they denied my visit, told me I had to leave, I asked for the warden, whom they never called, then called the city cops to make me leave the sidewalks. I asked since I was a citizen who paid federal taxes, it was a federal bldg. and I had done nothing wrong how could they make me leave?? Well they told the City Cops I needed to be arrested for having and attitude and being baligerant to the guards. Well to my surprise & the police the people in the lobby signed their name & phone #'s to the ticket. The ticket has been cancelled, No Data Available has been posted on the website but yesterday I was denied visiting w/my son again.

When I talked w/the floor manager, & told her there was injustice taking place every day there, she said she knew but had to carry out instructions from her supervisor. Well, this is why the injustice can continue. We buy stuff you don't need to impress people you don't like to compete w/folks you can't stand & then have to mistreat friends, family & co-workers to keep working @ a place where you hate but can't afford to leave because you have to pay for stuff you purchased, ....... back to the 1st line............. I know since I have been an overachiever that held several of these jobs in my lifetime and been told I'm not a team player. As long as there are people who are willing to be used to do the work of dismissing the people who look like me w/o questioning why, the rats will continue to make others run on that never ending wheel trying to accomplish the impossible. Measuring up to standards established by the dominant culture.

I have talked w/young people and heard some of their concerns, there is no one answer for all the problems w/in our communities; but if we all don't address some of them we will be the group to suffer extinction. Leave it to someone else to fix your problems and the results will always be you remain broken. Hip Hop can be good and bad, its like the knife, in a surgeons hand it will save a life, in the thugs hand it kills. Medicine in the proper dose saves, the wrong or too much destroys. An ambulance rushing the patient safely to the hospital and prevent death, but the reckless driver can kill the healthy person.

Everything done must be measured by its effects. Gotta go, I'm supposed to be in a mtg. that started 2 mins. ago.

rev. hilda

Of that you wrote I think almost everyone missed this: 'Seek opportunities to understand me, not shun me.' 'As long as the hood exists…you will find me there trying to make it better, As long as I have a voice, we have a voice. Whenever we are off course, I will speak out…just like you taught me. Whenever there is a chance to make a difference, I will be there…just like you showed me. And if ever there is a time to check you…I will…because I need you.'

Can everybody young and older, rich and poor, educated or hoodlum just read, understand and meditate on just those words! I work with nothing but elders and they express that they are tired and would like to pass the baton to younger people. They also say in that same sentence that the younger people don't care! It's not that we don't care, we don't know!!! I am 30 years old and I just learned at 25 that I have to take care of my community, my lawn, my communities' youth! This was something that was lost on my mom's generation- King and Malcolm were dead, the pride was dead, the dream was dead!

I agree with Felicia about younger people not knowing where to turn and not having the guidance of their elders, and I also agree that the younger generation's voices deserve to be heard. What exactly is the younger generation trying to say? Maybe we should take the time to find out and respond o them accordingly.

Another great gut check that alot of people aren't ready for!! You definitely make us pull out our thinking caps and mirrors. You know we hate seeing our own image in that mirror of blame.

I too am a child of the Hip Hop era. I was raised in a family that taught me to always respect my elders and from them I could learn so much. I spent alot of my pre-school years with my great-grand mother and great aunt who were respectively in their late 80's at the time. I think it is the lack of the family unit when big mama was the matriach of the family and she ran the family with a steel fist and plenty of love. I'm 39 yrs old, but have been told all my life that I have an old soul. It is so easy to blame others for the demise of our communities because that way people don't have to take responsiblity for their own actions or lack thereof.

I'm not sure if I would totally agree with the we don't know as much as the we don't want to know because too many just want to be "down" Excuses, excuses, excuses that and the blame game is a common occurance when things are being addressed or discussed. Personally, I'm sick of the non sense. I say look at the examples that many see, not just on the home but also on their own streets. Man children dwalking around proclaiming his manhood and yet you can't tell the difference from the 17 yr old, 20 yr old and even some 30 yr olds. Aside from BS all day what in the world to they have in common.

I could write a theses paper just on that alone.

Here is a comment about the second point:
2. Hip Hop has not separated us as much as depicted, and we have more to be unified about.
Dr. Glover wrote:
"We are not divided by our date of birth. We are united and evolved by it. As American African people we must begin to rise above these silly divisions of this generation versus that other: older folks versus Hip-Hop heads. Sure, we will make mistakes….you did. Sure, our music isn’t as nice or as clean as you would like, but I am still your child….your future. Seek opportunities to understand me, not shun me. "

Popular culture has always been a means of generational communication. that is how the young folks raise their voices abut the way they see the world. So, the Elders create the environment that the younger generation raps about . . . or maybe we're victims too. So, we're both talking at each other about the solutions. ou know it is music about "What goin' on?" and "Fight the power." and "Who let the dogs out?"

The Elders need to listen more closely at what is being said, and not always how it is being said. Yes, we are connected by birth, and there is a thread of unity. Our real callenge a "Afrcans in America" is that we are doing our best to cope with situations not of our making. Each generation addresses another aspect of our captivity and freedom. Whenever we get our heads above the daily grind, there is more that unites us than separates us. We just have to place more focus on the elephant in the room than each other.

We gotta keep the faith.

Ah-Haa...

I think I just posted a blog in agreement with what you state over-all. The generational gap as I see it happened when yung mothers came on the seen and their parents failed to impart the wisdom they needed. couple that with Hip-Hop mania and the bling, bling 'hoppers' chased after for that thing called 'freedom,' we ended up with a mess.

I recall reading that the generation should be 'skipped' and we should reach for the children. I think the generation (X) can be rescued from the top (elders) down and not from the bottom (their babies up). So, my pointis that we should allow the elders to return to their position as mentors and role models and the hoppers should listen because they should realixe by now that bling, bling don't cut it.

Not in the workplace or community. I have much faith in our community-at-large getting its act together, but the problem was not created over night and won't be fixed overnight. I am a firm believer in spoon feeding knuckle heads. I just wish hoppers had to pass your gut checks before purchasing ANY bling, bling, hanging at clubs, etc.

Let me sidestep a moment, I mentioned earlier about my cousin being missing for four days and her body being found last Friday. Yesterday was her funeral and there were hordes of her friends in the age-group of 19. I was reluctant to attend the closed-casket funeral, but sort of got bumped into the sancturay by default. Anyway, I was checking out all thekids with their LOW-cut jeans and t-shirts and big shiney pocketbooks with a s*xy cat glimmering, yadda, yadda, yadda and I just went with the flow of listending to the speakers and Bishop, etc. speak about how wonderful my cousin was.

Finally, one of my older cousins got up to speak and she lit into those young adults for disrespecting the church with their attire and their parents for allowing them to show up at a funeral looking like they were going to a stadium! She told ALL of them NOT to show up for the burial today dressed like fools!!! She asked them to TURN OFF their cell phones and informed them that NONE of them would be served at the repasse gathering due to their appearance.

It took all I had NOT to SHOUT endlessly. And believe it or not, I thought to myself----Gut-Check Time:)-

excellent post doc. I'd like to point out that if it isn't hip-hop that is used as a distancing tool, it will be technology and the embrasure/ignorance of it. or as my mom would say, "it's always SOMETHING" and she's right it is always some thing to create distance. rather than embrace the youth and the changing times some of our elders will retreat into the "i remeber when" or the "We didnt have that" when we were kids... I wrote a blog about this whole thing...
http://hubpages.com/hub/Kife-is-hard-and-t...

Every generation finds a way to distinguish themselves from the ones before. Like all elder generations, I celebrate watching you come of age. You ARE challenging the status quo like we taught you and I feel that. What we didn't teach you is to be disrespectful to US. Much of modern hip hop is either angry or vulgar in reference to its own community members. If you don't have respect for me, have some respect for yourself. Give me classic hip hop anytime. At least Public Enemy was trying to teach me something through music (ie. edutainment). What are we teaching each other now? How to mistrust and mistreat each other? How to spend (or waste) money in pursuit of status? How to disrespect the women who bore you? Those are lessons I choose not to learn and they are definitely not the lessons we taught you. Our sacrifices for you to now have these opportunities seem ill-spent and I don't mind saying that I am disappointed. We, as a people are better than this 'lowest common denominator' thinking.