Like a dysfunctional family…. We are on “A Long Road to Nowhere………………..”

We are reactionary rather than preventative.    ……. We are a society predicated on fear and hatred, with mistrust of thy neighbor, now a dominating factor in our daily lives.   The decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire would be the perfect indicator of where the direction our country is heading.  The causes and effects are glaringly many, with politics at the top of the list.  The Roman Empire’s ruling body lost the strength to exercise effective control thru the weakening of the economy, the incompetence of the emperor, the religious changes of the period, the inefficiency of the local civil administration, and racism.   Finally, there was an increasing threat from “barbarians” outside Rome.  Sounds familiar?  Notwithstanding all the same indicators, we fail to smell the smoke nor see the irony of Aesop’s fable “The Four Oxen and the Lion” and the idiom “United we Stand, divided we fall.”

I read a story a few years back about the fact that African Americans consume more fast food than any other race in America.  Also,, in that same time frame, there was a Nielson report, indicating that African Americans watch more TV than any other group.   Now, what does this have to do with the long road to nowhere?  This a fair question, which leads to the idiom “opinions are like posteriors; everybody has one.” But through rationalization, to accomplish an objective, the replacement of traditions, values, and emotions are likened to the rising of the oceans, the erosion of our shorelines, and climax change. So, settle, we hardly even notice. This leads to polling/surveys.   Surveys or claims of a survey can be taken on any subject, depending on how the question is worded to get the required results.

The early 1950’s, it was my adolescent years. Fast food was a foreign idea, and the TV was a reward for not causing my parents any problems.  Sitting at the dinner table at 4 o’clock was an unwritten family tradition.  There was only one television in the house, located in the living room or what was called the front room.  I preferred laying on the floor right under this marvelous box, in order to rotate the knob between channels 2, 11, and 13.  Only three channels, but still unknown to me, there was powerful subjective imagery with subliminal influences, with  “Superman,” “Amos and Andy,” and movies about “Tarzan, King of the Apes among my favorites.

I felt happy as an adolescent, not being conscious of the fact that I was blessed but, at the same time, being mentally programmed.  Blessed with parents who had searched for the American dream.  A dream of a better life on a “Long Road to Nowhere.  Their unadulterated courage,  migrating from farm life to Baltimore, in the early 1930s, was a mental strength I can still now not imagine.  It was a shot in the dark for them,  none other than playing the lottery at a million-to-one odds with their life.  A time in American history, when there was no Middle class. A nebulous concept, being either rich or poor.  Jim Crow was hanging in the balance.  A time when segregation was a distinct and dominatingly transparent way of life for a substantial number of America’s citizens. World War II was over.  In 1944 the GI Bill provided returning veterans with money for college, businesses, and home mortgages, which gave way to the beginning of a class of Americans between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots.  1944 was the year of my birth.

In 2013, I was on the steps of turning 70.  All-in, after chasing and capturing that proverbial American dream.  A home and higher education meant that I had arrived … or did it?   2013 was a dubious year.  I found myself reflecting, concentrating excessively on that “Long Road to Nowhere,” which my parents had taken.  Now a grandparent myself and watching my grandchildren grow into puberty, poverty is a fear in my subconscious.  It’s daunting.  Not because they aren’t happy, healthy, and well taken care of, but because of the virtual existence of a colony.  “A Colony In A Nation” by Chris Hayes in the most powerful nation on earth.  A colony where one’s life could be changed or snuffed out in an instant.  A colony, waiting in the balance for my grandchildren and millions of unsuspecting children, just because they are not white.

In 2013, “A Colony in A Nation” had not been written, but  my reflecting was the catalyst in the writing of my book, “Guidance Against the Odds.”  The overt controlling elements of the pre-60s era have long passed, but there persists in me a feeling of repression.  A subliminal hindrance transcended through osmosis programming.  For years, I had put faith in the “American Dream,  shielding myself constantly from what the naysayers of society implied as to what African Americans suffer from society. 2016 has resurrected the surface tensions of the 60s, at a time when divide and conquer politics are exacerbating racial strife and economic inequality. There is a need for a profound awakening of justice-loving people united in a coalition, powerful enough to reclaim the possibility of democracy. “The Third Reconstruction” by the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, a modern-day civil rights champion. Outlines in his book how he helped to start a movement to bridge America’s racial divide, which has come to be known as Moral Mondays.

Two Quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

The Abstract:

To some, it’s theoretical; to others, it’s conceptual, but to many, the long road to nowhere is anchored in the abstract or the metaphysical. The natural nature of the human mind.

Henry Lee Faulkner

Guidance Against the Odds ©2016