Wealth of Talent...

There Is A Wealth of Talent In Our Family Roots…..

By Brother Tracy Gibson...

We are ONE!! No matter what, we as Black people are one people—one family!! We have a million different blood lines and dialects and we hale from a million different places, but we are one because we have a similar heritage, we have suffered similarly and many other people, including ourselves, have lied about our great traditions, courage and our achievements.

We need unity. How is it built? It is build by forgiving and becoming more forgiving of each other. It is built by loving our brothers and sisters and remembering what they have been through. Not that they just had a bad day, or week, but that we have had the whammy put on us for decades, centuries and generations and we need to pull together to make it through this as decent and loving human beings. There are people of many other hues and ethnic groups who would help us, but it is not like helping our own. Give your cousin the thousand dollars he has been asking for. If you are scared he will abscond with the funds and he is claiming he will be foreclosed on ask for the address and phone number of the mortgage company and send it in directly. That’s what I did. I feel better knowing my cousin is not on the streets and that maybe one day he will repay me with a simple prayer or a kind note. I may have to scrounge up the money to live on, but that is OK. That is GOD working through me like he does and will continue to work through you. We have to help each other through these rough times. And there are more rough times ahead. With wars on two fronts at a cost of $80 Billion Dollars every six months, and people starving on our own streets, we have to stick together on as many issues and in as many ways as possible.

Sometimes we can try to convince each other of things until we are bluer in the face. Does that get us anywhere? Let’s take time to listen to one another and heal those old wounds that have continued to cause us distress and consternation. Listen to the small voices among us also. Our children are hurting, confused and manipulated for profit. They have to be talked to like human beings, not like yesterday’s left over trash. I have heard you in the supermarket, Black women, talking to your children like you wish you would have never had them. Take heed that GOD will sometimes take them away from you if you can’t treat them right, make sure they get proper food and exercise, vitamins, educations, tutoring and motivation. They need time to be children also. To just be kids and have fun. They need to be prodded and made to be more excited about school also. School can be fun. I hade a biology teacher, a Jewish Man named Mr. Isenberg. He was one of the greatest teachers that ever lived because he made you excited about entering his class. It is because of him that I easily passed biology when I went on to college. And I had a Mrs. Carter who made me take school seriously as my home room teacher in High School in West Philadelphia University City High School (UCSH). She was the grace and the gravy for my daily educational meal while in High School. Mrs. Carter was a Black woman who we all loved and she respected because she took the teaching profession as seriously as any great teacher would. I will never forget her for what she did for me and my fellow home room at UCHS.

We have so many heroes to look up to. But besides the great ones, there are heroes right in our neighborhoods who need to be treated with respect, grace and dignity. There are people we don’t know of who have take on the burden of dedicating their lives to Black people—their issues, concerns, their political liberation and their ridding themselves of mis-eduction and foolishness. Turn off the TV and find a Black person to hug. Thank them for being in your life and thank them for not being one of the Brother and Sisters in Jail right now. . . There are over a million Black men in jail in the U.S. a and thousands of Sisters in the prison system. This puts families through horrendous turmoil, pain and strife, yet more and more of our young people fall for the hocus-pocus of believing you can get away with crime and end up in the prison system. The media, especially TV programming and TV producers, writers and directors are schizophrenic about crime in America. On the one hand it is highlighted as glamorous and doable while on the other hand they show people doin time and getting caught through a host of complex technical devices such as DNA testing, detailed investigations and our community ratting us out. I adhere to the ladder view that if you do the crime, they will eventually find out. Especially if it is a big crime such as murder or theft—they will eventually catch you...

Our system of government and business has not left many jobs out there for Black men who do not want to go to college or take on something technical. Being a plumber or a tradesman doesn’t guarantee a job now-a-days because you may never get into the racist union system if you do finish school and the journeyman system. That is why it is so important to have hope and faith in God and y our fellow Brothers and Sisters. Forgive when you know you want revenge, but don’t be taken advantage of or hurt repeatedly by the same person or people. Let the world know you are for real, not matter what you look like or who you have to answer to. Be the best you can be at whatever you do. Martin Luther King, Jr. said if you are a trash man, be the best one you can be. I have taken this to heart and I always push myself to do better. I ain’t easy, but you will see opportunities come to you and doors open. Let people know what your talents are and always be working on improving your talent base. And read, read, read!! For over a hundred and fifty years it was illegal to teach a Black man or woman to read. No wonder we are so far behind in some aspects. And read Black books. Read about what the lies are they have told about us and discover what our true value is to the planet and our fellow human being. And discover what we are worth to each other. Know that when you shoot or beat or rape someone you take nature out of context and turn it on its’ head. You blow a hole in humanity when you take and kill or hurt someone who it took GOD several thousand years and generations of human and genetic development to place on this earth. Don’t waste a human life, ever. Not yours or someone else’s. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to be kind and thoughtful to another Black person. This is where the healing and UNITY starts—right there behind the person reading this book—with you.

Copyright warnings and infringements from ``It's Your Biz,'' By Susan Wilson Solovic, with Ellen R. Kadin and a forward by Edie Weiner. Page 150...

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