GR’s Black Community Needs Cultural Renaissance, Revival

The Grand Rapids Times

“The fact that we are Black is our ultimate reality.”
Dr. Ron Karenga

The flip side of Dr. Karenga’s statement concerning our Black reality is that some of us are dry, and some of us are very dry.

“Urban blight, high crime, business deterioration, and white flight have combined to create urban landscapes that look more like war zones than busy metropolitan centers,” says Stuart Butler, in Inner- City Renewal.

The lack of moisture in our spiritual, cultural, social and moral lives has made us not only dry but fragmented.

“Behold there were very many in the open valley (inner city); lo they were very dry. And he said unto me, brother man (preachers, teachers, artists, musicians, poets, singers and song writers) can these bones live? And I answered, “My Lord Jehovah, you’re the only one who knows that? Ezekiel 37.

The condition or the state of Black people in Grand Rapids can be said to be dry; “behold they say, our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off from our parts,“ Ezekiel 37:2. Our dryness spiritually, socially, culturally and morally is our own making. We’ve embraced pseudo black cultural nuances of ‘gangsta rap,’ ‘thug life,’ “baby mama drama,” ‘stupid checks’ (SSI=ADD/ADHD), ghetto drama, “sugar mama syndrome” guns, drugs and the lack of a serious work ethic.

“Welfare has done more harm than good and has proven to be much more expensive than anyone could have imagined when President Lyndon Johnson launched the “Great Society” thirty years ago. I have had the perverse and crippling consequences of illegitimacy, dependency, voluntary joblessness, family destruction, welfare fraud and crime, ” Butler also states.

We’ve embraced and become comfortable with non- academic achievement, non-innovative creative genius and a plantation mentality that is draining us of our ability to rise.

We have lost respect for the church, our elders, our women and our children.

Our children are now broken – killing each other for whimsical reasons, making babies that they either do not necessarily want or cannot take care of, denigrating education while the functional illiteracy and high school drop-out rate has exceeded fifty percent.

What is it that can relieve us of our dryness?

We need a Word. We need spiritual, social, cultural and moral word. “Rap upon these bones, and say unto them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord…behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live,” Ezk. 37:5.and you shall live,” Ezk. 37:5. As God breathed (his Spirit) into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living soul, we in the Black community need a second wind. We need to become living proactive souls.

Our souls have become discomfited; our souls are crying out from this dryness.

This second wind is a renaissance/ soulful revival that can only come from us breathing into one another a breath of life.

A renaissance is nothing short of a rebirth; a shaking, rumbling awakening and a coming together to create, produce and be fruitful.

“I rapped as I was commanded and as I spoke to those on Eastern & Division, Division & Burton, Madison & Hall, Fuller & Bemis, Wealthy & Diamond then there was a noise and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, sharing rhetoric together but yet without breath. We had soul but not spirit; we had no breath.

We had the feeling, but lacked the spiritual, social, cultural and moral will to inhale. We’ve always had the ability to stir-up the gifts in our children that are waiting for birth, laying dormant or have become discouraged but we lost our sense of community. The government has never been the breath we needed. Who breathed on us when there was no government help?

“Then He said unto me brother man, rap to the wind, rap son of man, saying to the wind of your ancient of days (paraphrased), thus saith the Lord, Come O’four winds; the Pison wind of the land of Havilah, the Gihon wind from the land of Ethiopia, the Hiddekel wind East of Assyria, and the mighty wind from the land of the Eurphrates and breathe of upon these slain by drugs, violence, molestation, family dysfunctionalism, poverty, despair, hopelessness and low self esteem) that, they may live.”

When preachers, teachers, poets, novelist, short story writers dancers, composers, musicians, businessmen/women and politicians collectively allow God to breathe on us, we will see a renaissance that will exceed that of Harlem, Chicago, Kansas City or Louisiana. We will see a revival that exceeds that of the “Great Awakening,” and Azusa St. When we inhale this fresh wind, we will be able to exhale and breathe new life not only into the Black community but the community at large.