Black History Month is supposed to be a time of reflection—a time to honor the giants who came before us, to remember the struggle, and to recognize how far we’ve come. But this year, I have to ask: Have we really come that far?
I don’t say this lightly, and I don’t say it as an outsider. I say it as someone who lived the struggle—not the sanitized, Twitter-friendly version of it, but the real, hard-knocks version.
I was born to a 15-year-old mother, raised in poverty, and shuffled into a broken system that didn’t care whether I made it out alive. My father was gay and later died of AIDS in 1999. The people who adopted my mother also adopted me, and the cycle of abuse—mental, physical, emotional, sexual—continued.
I ran away. I dropped out of school. I was homeless. I was living illegally on a college campus, sneaking into classes at the University of Alabama, because I knew education was my only way out.
I walked into that university, GED in hand, and told them, I’ve been living here illegally, but I have the Chapter 35 of the GI Bill. I need a place to stay, and I want to enroll.
The dean looked at me. He stared at me for what felt like an eternity. He saw my test scores. He saw the fight in me. He stamped my paper. I got in.
That’s my story. No privilege. No handouts. No excuses.
So when I look around today at what has become of the Black community, I have to ask: What the hell happened to us?
From Dignity to Disaster: What Have We Become?
We weren’t always like this.
The Black community of the Civil Rights era was dignified, determined, and disciplined. They marched in their Sunday best, they met hate with love, and they won the moral argument. They didn’t burn down their own neighborhoods. They didn’t scream into cameras demanding handouts. They didn’t glorify criminality.
They earned respect because they demanded it through action—not victimhood.
Now?
We’ve let ourselves become a joke, a punchline, a DEI diversity hire, a marketing campaign, a disposable prop when election season rolls around.
The dignified marchers of the 1960s wouldn’t recognize us today.
- We defend the indefensible. We make excuses for men walking around with their pants halfway down, calling it culture.
- We celebrate dysfunction. We allow rappers to glorify drugs, violence, and misogyny while calling it art.
- We protect the worst of us. We riot for criminals while ignoring the innocent kids gunned down in drive-bys every night.
- We embrace mediocrity. We allow people to tell us that speaking properly is “acting white” while calling Ebonics a language.
This isn’t who we are—this is who they’ve turned us into.
We Became the Caricature They Wanted Us to Be
Make no mistake: This was done to us.
The record labels, the race-hustling politicians, the media—they built this image of us because it was profitable.
Think about it:
- Ice Cube & Ice-T once rapped about killing cops—but now they’re mainstream.
- Snoop Dogg built his career on crime and misogyny—but now he’s hosting TV shows with Martha Stewart.
- Corporate America eats up “gangster culture” for profit—while the actual communities suffer from its consequences.
They made their money and left us with the ruins.
The real tragedy? We keep defending it.
We defend the very things that keep us at the bottom:
- “Black culture” should not be synonymous with crime, dysfunction, and broken families.
- Toxic behavior is not something to be celebrated—it is something to be rejected.
- We don’t need to be anyone’s mascot, anyone’s voting bloc, or anyone’s prop.
But instead of fixing it, we keep latching onto white saviors who promise us change while giving us nothing.
Maybe America’s Just Not That Into You
This is the hard truth:
America does not owe us a damn thing.
We latched onto Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden, Kamala—and what did we get?
- More crime.
- More broken schools.
- More government dependency.
- More excuses for failure.
They use us. They showcase our struggles when it benefits them and ignore our issues the second they don’t need us anymore.
We keep chasing political saviors while refusing to save ourselves.
Maybe it’s time to stop begging to be included and start working on ourselves.
We Need to Fix Ourselves First
At some point, we have to ask:
- Why do we keep allowing ourselves to be used?
- Why do we defend the very things keeping us in poverty?
- Why do we embrace mediocrity while rejecting excellence?
We need Black people to start leading Black people again—not these politicians, not these celebrities, not these corporate mascots.
We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard, not make excuses for why we can’t meet one.
- Stop celebrating ignorance. Education is power. Speak properly, read books, learn skills, and demand excellence from your kids.
- Stop defending criminality. If someone is a thug, stop pretending they were a saint.
- Stop looking for handouts. Build businesses, invest in your communities, and create real wealth.
- Stop letting the media define us. We are not what CNN, BET, and Hollywood say we are.
We need to reclaim our dignity.
We need to rebuild our culture, our communities, and our values.
And we need to do it alone—without the same politicians who have failed us for decades.
Final Thought: If MLK Came Back, What Would He Say?
There’s an episode of The Boondocks called “Return of the King”, where Martin Luther King Jr. wakes up from a coma in modern-day America. (Watch Here)
When he sees what has become of the Black community, he is disgusted.
This is a brutal but necessary reality check.
If Dr. King came back today, would he see a people who have lived up to his dream?
Or would he see a broken, dependent, dysfunctional mess?
Would he see the same dignity, intelligence, and resilience that won the Civil Rights Movement?
Or would he see a community that traded its self-respect for victimhood and handouts?
We all know the answer.
Final Message: We Must Do Better.
We cannot let it end this way.
We have to reclaim our culture before it’s too late.
We have to stop defending the indefensible and start demanding better from ourselves.
Because if we don’t?
We’ll still be here in 10, 20, 50 years—begging for scraps, wondering why nothing ever changes.
It’s time to wake up. It’s time to take back our narrative.
Do better. Be better.
Because the world is watching.
And right now?
We don’t look like a community ready to lead—we look like a community that has been left behind.
It’s time to live up to the legacy of those who came before us.
Do. Better.
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