Being as it’s Black history month and seeing as how most of us probably forget that fact that half the time once we graduate from high school, I figured that perhaps I should devote a little time to “Black issues”.

What are “Black issues”? Good question. But they sure as hell aren’t Jet Magazine.

Rimshot.

I’ve spent a lot of time recently – both because of the FAMU forum and because I try to spend at least twelve minutes of everyday on substantial thought – trying to determine what I think some of our biggest “problems” are. Now, this presupposes that we have problems but I’m fairly sure that we can all agree that as a community, we have a long way to go, Obama or not.

Can I get an Amen?

Yay-men.

I’m not afraid of failure. Strange as that may sound, if I fail that means I gave something a shot and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I tried to be sexxy. And I won. I tried to become the next Jay-Z. I failed. It’s all part of the game. But at least I played.

What does scare me to death is mediocrity. I’m deathly afraid of being just another mediocre person of little consequence to anybody but those who know me. I’m afraid of becoming like the people I see on the train going to and from work looking like their just passing time while they wait to meet Hayseuss. Amen.

I’m afraid of just doing what everybody else does to just “make it”. I’m afraid of being $20 away from being on the street. Hell, I’m afraid that if I decided to never blog again tomorrow, nobody would care and I’d fade into the obscurity that so many of us accept.

Telling you my biggest fear was a roundabout way of telling you what I view as a large problem for the Black community: complacency. Ever since we started following white people into the suburbs and getting the types of jobs we once considered out of our reach, we stopped pushing. We made it. The only problem is our version of making it was somebody else’s version where we were placated with better housing and more quality education opportunities.

The middle.

It’s not a monetary thing, it’s a mentality thing. Mentally, the boat stopped being rocked because we reached more placid waters and got complacent and comfortable. And that would be great except the ideology exists across the financial spectrum. The people with no money sometimes just accept circumstances that they were unfairly handed as their lot in life and don’t aspire to greater. Mediocrity is the goal, not a motivator. We haven’t taught enough of our community to continue to strive for greatness. Some of us just have that innately and want to do mo’ better. Or better stated, refuse to believe that wherever they’ve gotten is where they’re supposed to end up.

But hell, where is there, anyway? That’s part of the problem. We don’t even know what to want for anymore so we find jobs we like and people we can tolerate and turn 50 and wonder what happened to the time and what we’ve contributed to society.

That scares me to death. What’s the point of living if nobody realizes that you’re alive?

It doesn’t require you to be Nathaniel Drew, EE Just or Harriet Tubman, but it does require you to realize that you have to keep on pushing towards somewhere.

People get ready, there’s a train coming. Word to Araminta.

Just get on board.

So my debaters and debatresses, are we too complacent with our current situation as a community? If so or if not, what does it all mean anyway?

Is we gon’ die?