Fear of A Black Planet

Ok, so Barack Obama is the Presidential front-runner in a country that has the worst race relations in modern history, Tiger Woods is on pace to become the first billionaire athlete in the world’s most historically racist sport, yet Nas can’t title his album “Nigger”. Richard Pryor threw that word around in his album titles freer than a slave with papers, but when someone uses it to make a social statement it's shut down. Chuck D said it the best when he said there was a “Fear of a Black Planet”. Not a fear of us coming together for a coup d'état of the government but a fear of us collectively achieving a new social status through more influential professions. That means less brothers and sisters striving to be professional athletes or shakin’ for the cameras and more of us entering fields like the sciences, academia, or politics.

“Too many rappers, athletes, and actors
But not enough niggas in NASA” – Nas

The expansion of blacks into broader professions would send shivers down the spines of a lot of closed-minded people when they realize that blacks all over the world would be able to help pave the way for a new history in humanity. Come on, there's room for everybody!

We’ve already broken the chains on our feet, now it’s time to break the mental ones. When that happens, the sky would no longer be the limit for our young people’s potential.

Americans get fueled by today's mainstream media when they ruminate over meaningless topics like lapel pins, out-of-context soundbites, lack of patriotism, “terrorist fist jabs”, etc. It’s precisely this issue that the artist who drew the recent cover of The New Yorker was attempting to address. Granted, it might have been tasteless, but the flavor of the picture resonated through all who saw it. Mission accomplished.

More and more young African-Americans in this country and blacks around the world are moving up the social ladder. Whether assisted by the helping hands of those who reach down, or pushed up by the ones behind, we shall soon make it to the top. The days ahead don't seem as dark anymore.

“We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama

- Stephen Tyson Jr.