Teens Talk - No Homie, That’s Not Black

What is black?
Like other colors black is a color that displays an expression that people identify as being the identity of the color. Since the color black has a dark appearance it is associated with melancholy, dark objects and thoughts.
Why do we associate such a beautiful color with negative and depressing things?
Did people begin to attach negativity to the color black after our people went through the horror of slavery? Our ancestors were beaten because their skin color was black. Great individuals before us were stripped from the families and deprived from their rights to vote and to have an education..
Are we out of our minds?
Our ancestors have gone through the ultimate struggle just to eliminate the burden of negativity attached to the color of black. Some say they are tired. Well I am fed up. I am ashamed to say that it has taken me 19 years to wake up. I am through with being a puppet to a confused nation.
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., his dream wasn’t for African Americans to face horrible times and overcoming horrific times to just associate ourselves to negativity once again. Black should now be a glorious color and because we are living in a confused nation the color black is far from being glorious.
Why are we saying that being black is wearing jeans low and our hats every other way then forward?
Why are we taking pride in being thugs fully covered in tattoos, tattoos don’t fly in the professional world?
Why are we saying that being tatted up is being black?
Why are we proud to use profanity and take pride in being loud. Why do we call that being black? I feel ashamed of myself for doing it and I am not the only one.
Men, why have we made it acceptable to label our African American women as being bitches and hoes?
My black community, we should not be proud to attach negativity to our color. Other people in the world already place negativity on the color of our skin, why are we helping the haters in the world bring us down?
We all might as well drop out of school because that’s being black.
All of us might as well be imprisoned or slain on the streets because that is being black.
The color black was formed to give off negative expressions but that doesn’t mean we can’t create new expressions for our glorious color. You are not real if you are not being black.
No, you are not being real if you are not being yourself.
I’m going to leave you all with this: It is time to stay real to ourselves and our African American nation. To make our color be identified with positive expressions doesn’t mean that we are selling out, it simply means that we are creating a glorious color.