Why Black People Don't Listen to Other Black People

The Question:

This question popped in my head as I was coming home the movies. I went to go see "War," starring Jet Li and Jason Statham. Pretty good movie. But that's not really germain to the subject matter...

Anyway, I was on the train coming back home and a group of Caucasian people were being very raucous and were completely drowning out my conversation. So I thought maybe if I got just as loud they'd see how annoying it was and stop. So I made a very loud remark to my friend that immediately caused them to shut up. I said to myself, "Wow, is that what it takes? A large obnoxious black man to get White folks to listen...would that have worked if it was Black folks?...shit, do Black folks even listen to Black folks?"

So I was on the bus at 1AM. It was extremely quiet and gave me ample time to reflect, thus spawning the question, "Why don't Black people listen to Black people?"

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My Answer:

I think that we have learned to drown each other out honestly. You have the same Black leaders pushing the same message and the same agenda. No matter how apt the message may be, people tend to turn a deaf ear, if there aren't immediate tangible results.

If you want to bring this home to HU, you could ask, "What happened to The Movement?" As someone who helped spearhead it, I often ask the same question. The goal of The Movement, at least in my eyes, was corporate progression based on personal revolutions. One of the issues that we constantly discussed was how best to show Howard that we were serious. The Movement's biggest obstacle was the inability of Howard community to consolidate its considerably voluminous student body into an organized force guided by faith in the leadership and a belief in the right of the student to be heard fully.

Black people have to turned such a blind eye to idealism that without immediate, bold, tangible evidence of effort, we lose all sense of hope or faith. I was always told that the Black community survived all the atrocities that have been wrought upon us by our faith. But, I ask you where is it? What do we believe in?

We have grown too complacent in waiting for the old vanguards of the Civil Rights Era to spring up and defend our right to be Black. But I ask, how long can we can ride these old war houses before new stallions emerge from the pack. Generally, whenever a Black man, especially, decides to set himself apart from the pack, he is immediately dragged back down to the bottom by that "crabs in a barrel" mentality we seem to have. I'm not saying that we all need to try to press our way to the forefront, just to show face and take credit. What I am saying is that we need more foot soldiers that are willing to help create the platform that will transform the world.

I think we as a community are ripe for a change. The voices of those old war horses. whose effect was already diminished by our increasing lack of faith, are down to a whisper after having gone full bore into every fight for the past 40 years. I think that a large part of Barack Obama's success is that he really hasn't said much...He's new, bright, and charismatic...that's all we need...He's mastered the art of shutting the fuck up. He also serves to further solidify Black support of the Democratic Party, having brought forth the most viable candidate of color for the Presidency ever...EVER!!! Obama doesn't have a long history of failed attempts and bad losses and coming up just short. He is a break from the failure of past attempts of minorities to grab offices of power. He is part of the inevitable changing of the guard.
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Final Thoughts

Black people don't listen because we're tired of hearing the same thing. We've learned to tune out anything that doesn't provide instant gratification. We have lost our faith and our ability to see the big picture. I mean but can you really blame us. Once you've been lied to and deceived so many times by soo many people, you become jaded, especially when they use your own people to deliver the message to you. We have to get our faith back...we have to relearn to open our ears.