Many people forgot how it was in “certain slices” of the Black community when Barack Obama won the election after a grueling campaign to become the President of the United states back in 2008.
Oh how time flies and oh how attitudes have changed…….
What I am speaking on is the mood shift from extreme bliss to outright anger and disappointment that the downtrodden people of color have expressed in the last few months after not having their lives miraculously changed overnight once President Obama took over as Executive in Chief in 2008 and once again in 2012.
While I do have my issues with him, they were not as delusional as the people who I’ve witnessed in person who thought their savior has arrived!
Yes! They had this man damn near as the Second Coming of CHRIST!
Not only that, because he was the first Black president they felt as though his first concern would be to give everyone Black some kind of free pass and allowing them to jump to the head of the line in life.
I remember the day after he won, I was driving my bus and heard the comments that were so comical and bordered on the insane:
Hallelujah PRAISE JESUS! We have “OUR” first President and the hard times are over! My lights have been out for three months now and I am so glad that they are going to get cut back on now that he’s in office!”
“I never thought this day would come! My credit has been jacked up all my life but as soon as Obama gets sworn in I’m going straight to the Cadillac dealership and pick out the most expensive model and cruise the streets until the wheels fall off!”
“The devil is a liar! I’ve been struggling with paying out for these high priced medications for the last five years and now it’s such a good feeling to know that we have a “Brother” in office that will give me the hook up where I can now save all of my money!”
Now granted I must admit that these responses came from those in some very downtrodden neighborhoods here in Orlando Florida where many of the residents didn’t have a clue as to how the political process worked or had a basic understanding of what a president could or couldn’t do.
This is why education is so important, not only does it help to increase your chances at a better paying job as most see this as being the prime advantage of having a degree, but it also increases the quality of ones life because of a better understanding of the world around them.
If these folks who rode my bus were educated on the most basic rules of politics, then they wouldn’t have uttered those embarrassing statements so brazenly and would have hesitated from making themselves look so inept and foolish.
But as far as I am concerned this goes so much deeper than that. You have many uneducated Blacks that are still lost in that time bubble who carry on the mentality of the slaves before them that knew no better. Just because you and I may understand that we are living in the years 2013 and that the world has moved on to such an advanced level, there are those who are unaware of how far behind the learning curve they really are.
Since moving down to the south 12 years ago in 2001, I now realize that while I brought my New York habits with me it would sometimes appear to be the classic case of fitting a square peg in a round hole when I would try to communicate with those who even HAD a college degree in their possession.
But I found out the hard way that you can rubber stamp a piece of paper and call it a college degree but you can’t pass out common sense so easily.
Many Black people here in the south have the material trappings of success but almost just as many still move about the earth with a mindset that is directly connected to a way of thinking that was prevalent in the days of slavery where one waited to be taken care of by the slave master.
This is a trait that has been cultivated over time on a people who came to this country captured but still mighty before being broken down over many endless generations into the current watered down facsimile of a formless container that has taken on the image of the garbage placed into it.
It’s so sad that many of us just don’t see how far down the tubes we’ve gone as a people but while some of us see the light, many will never. “Some” of us lost our greatness, we lost our ability to build great structures, to scribe great laws that coincide with the divine powers of the natural universe. We’ve lost that special something that has reduced us to waiting for a “hook-up” from the man we call President who may possess the same visage as us but quite possibly may be a Trojan horse of a puppet to whom the true unseen “powers that be” can bilk us of what’s left of the pie for us to grab.
The answer to our issues is NOT in a mere man who we’ve elected into an office as a politician, but it’s deep within ourselves. We have got to reconnect with that long buried connection to the hijacked way of thinking that has been replaced by a culture of buffoonery, entertainment and preoccupation with all things lust.
President Barack Obama, never forget, is a politician first, do not be so gullible as to be fooled into thinking that he arrived on the scene to pay anyone’s light bill, buy anyone a brand spanking new Caddy or cover the full cost of someones medication and health care. We have got to come out of that kind of thinking because it is never going to happen.
He is the President of the entire country and although his posturing in Alabama and other key areas in the deep south brought to mind a dream realized by Dr. Martin Luther King, he more than anyone else did this to ensure that the votes of a downtrodden people would be locked down because he knew all about the mental conditioning that we’re prone to after so many hundreds of years on these shores.
Sadly, the Obama bus will NEVER come until we learn to do what Barack did with his life, and that was not to wait around for anyone to give him a handout or a ride on a bus that didn’t exist, but to start walking on his own two feet in the direction of his dreams to make them come true.
He waited for no hookups and he got what he put in, this is the only way to keep the lights on or to get that brand new Cadillac as well as coming up with the money to secure ones health care needs. We were once like this as history has documented our past greatness and the only way to refurbish and return ourselves into our lost majesty is to gain that precious knowledge that is very seldom taught in the schools of our captors…….
…….until then, we can wait on that imaginary bus to arrive chock full of the hookups that never really ever existed. The choice is yours, start walking or sit on your ass watching the time go by and the opportunities diminish.
I for one don’t have to even tell you what I decided once you see how swollen my feet are, I’ve been walking toward my goals without any expectation of a handout until my shoes fell off but I wouldn’t have it any other way because my personal finish line is in sight yet I see no one behind on that bus that the others told me that I was foolish for not waiting on.
The Obama Bus is just another deception to keep us where they want us. Sitting on a mentally dead bus stop waiting while life passes us by.
Peace & Righteous Love Always,
Your Walking Brother,
LanceScurv
407.590.0755