Black Culture

Black people in great numbers, inspire each other one small group at a time.
In the early eighties, I heard so many very young guys rapping. Sometimes they'd do it most of the day.
I was puzzled by it, and I was supposed to discourage it; but at times I'd sit and listen a while.
Later, in the mid eighties, when Luther Campbell became nearly a cult figure with black teenagers, he crossed over quite forcefully.
I don't know what happened to all those young men I listened to in the early part of the decade.
I was often glad when I had a chance to hear them.
Our city, and our country, however, called them 'Special Ed'.
I  hear from a lot of people, now in their forties, that many rap artists allege in their work they were in
'Special Ed' in public schools.
I have no idea why people think conventional testing measures the intellect and creativity of black children.
When we get multibillion dollar industries of American culture from them, it's because the unmeasured
gifts they had to nurture in one another finally came to fruition.
The NBA was tiny compared to what it is now, since Michael came to town in Chicago from a small Southern college. (Well, chapel Hill isn't all that small, I suppose.)
Oprah has spun off many multimillion dollar enterprises in her career, including Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, and
Carol's Daughter. She is one who came to us from a small Southern college from which she was too busily employed to graduate. She was nurtured consistently by her earliest audiences, even when advertisers limited themselves mainly to diet products and liquor. Earlier, she was nurtured by her African-American radio
boss.
Michael Jackson pioneered contractual language in the music industry to benefit all artists. I can't say Michael was only accepted by black audiences, even when he was beginning in The Jackson Five; but he was brought into the limelight from Gary, Indiana to Detroit and Barry Gordy.
I hope we will continue to love our own children in great enough numbers to give them the power to create
popular new profitable industries.
I can't see who else will do it.
President Obama was unusual and somewhat lucky because he was both embraced by black culture, and quite conversant with American whiteness. It took him a bit of time to find us in the cities where we cling to each other, even though it is too often with awkward violence-  once he did,
he became a leader for all of America. He gave all of us the chance to be encouraged to embrace
our culture as much as we can. No minority felt challenged in great numbers on November 6th, to strive for
whiteness. At last all minorities felt fine being who they were.
I heard Chris Matthews on MSNBC wax nostalgic about the Knights of Columbus in the fifties and sixties.
In our house, they were a racist joke. But they were in their own little tribe. So we let them be. What else
would we have done? Still, we strove to make Catholicism more than that in our neighborhoods. We did a
pretty good job, I think. We don't have as many congregations as we once did; but we are still proud of those we do have.