I have a question for you. How many of you are like me, sick and tired of European Americans and some Negroes trying to tell me what I can and cannot say, and how I should say it? If that wasn’t enough, these same people think they have the right to tell us what words we should and should not use.
Just think about it: these same people who wouldn’t allow us to speak in our own language made us learn theirs, and then they put restrictions on when we could speak, what we could say, and just how we could say it. And here’s the thing that’s way over the top for me—now they’re trying to tell us how we should feel about ourselves, American society, European Americans, and the world.
Think about this, especially my politically correct-speaking friends. How is it that these same people who wouldn’t allow us to voice our opinions are now telling us what words we can and cannot use, how we should describe our condition, address our grievances, and even how we should think and feel? I don’t know about y’all, but these people don’t have the moral authority to tell me what to say, how to say it, and they damn sure can’t tell me how to think.
In this so-called democracy, they claim to love and pride themselves on freedom of speech, yet they do all they can to control and limit our voices, shape our thoughts, practices, and principles, and push us to pick a side — are you conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Black, or American? What’s your gender pronoun? Are you homophobic, hypermasculine, Christian, religious, or spiritual? If we are honest with ourselves, we are any one of these things, if not all of them, on any given day. I know I am.
Brother Malcolm believed that language was not just a means of communication but also a tool for understanding and influencing others. He argued that if you want to be heard and understood, you need to learn the language of the people you are trying to reach. If you’ve read any of my articles, it should be abundantly clear that my only concern is reaching my people.
Black people, please, let’s not let them box us into their understanding of what it means to be liberal, conservative, Christian, and certainly not how to be Black. As a people, we have always been fluid and open — sometimes too much so. Xenophobia is not a part of our culture. I understand that we are not a monolithic people. The beauty of being Black is our diversity of thought and practice.
Black people, we must be honest with ourselves, as well as others. Nelson Mandela once said, “The first thing is to be honest with yourself,” which aligns with the idea of introspection and independent assessment.
Now, more than ever, we have got to put on our thinking caps and not allow ourselves to be guided by NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC — and do I really need to say FOX News? We’ve also got to be aware of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and other social media sites.
Let’s do all we can to read, listen to, and support Black media. Now, don’t get it twisted — I’m not some old angry Black man against technology. I just believe, like Kendrick Lamar said during the Super Bowl halftime show, “They not like us.”
