Today's Black Men are a bunch of Pussies!

     On August 11, 1965 I witnessed one of the most traumatic events in my life the Watts Riot. I was 12 years old and  I almost lost my life twice. Once when I was inside a store on 41st and Central and someone threw a Molotov Cocktail in a  store I was shopping in. Everyone inside, had to get to the back of the store and knock down a door seconds before the whole store was engulfed.
      The second time I was going to a Market on Adams and Central to get some milk at the only store open.  The National Guard had one of it's command centers there. I came out of an alley made a hook slide on my bike, when the dust cleared from the slide, I was staring down the barrel of an M-14 and a scared, shaking white boy, in an Army uniform. Did I mention at 12, I was 5'9' and weighed 189 pounds. Luckily I just got cussed out and not killed like the other 33 Blacks that lost their life.

     I mention this tonight, on one of the worst injustices perpetrated on African Americans, the not guilty verdict of George Zimmerman.  I don't condone riots. In both Los Angeles riots Blacks got the worst end of that deal. But what I do condone is what happen before the Watts riot and what happened afterwards.

     Before the Watts Riot, I recall watching TV and seeing  brave African American  men, marching for civil rights. I saw them as they were snatched from  diners and beaten by angry White men. Yet they came out the next day, with bandages and sat at the same counter. I watched as those Black students walked up to the front of the University of Alabama, to face an ugly snarling racist, then walk through the door. I recall how I wanted to go to Selma and fight the police I saw beating the Black people who wanted to vote. I know there were Black women and White people in the mix, but as a young man I was intrigued by the Black men. I wanted to be just like them. Fight their fear and risk harm for me.  Then they killed Martin Luther King Jr. I thought they have beat us again. I was afraid that Blacks would settle for what they would give us. We would slip back into the  Jim Crow days of old.

   
      Then one day I turned on the TV and I saw another image. I saw proud Black men, with Black Tams and Leather Coats, and this scary Black Panther. I saw them standing there with guns. I saw them not begging for justice, but demanding justice. I saw how afraid the White talking heads looked on the news cast, reported how these men who were demanding, that the United States protect our neighborhood from police brutality. That if U.S. didn't, they would. They would protect the community from the police, by any means necessary. These were the offspring of the Civil Rights Movement. Black Militancy had arrived.

     It was then I saw the changes. We were not begging for justice now. It was being offered., We were not begging for better jobs, they were coming to us. Instances of Police Brutality declined. For the first time in my life, I felt that African Americans were getting real  respect from Whites. I saw the first Blacks in various jobs and positions and careers that are common place today.
     I don't condone violence unless it is necessary. What I felt back then was a sense of pride. I was willing to fight and die. Fight and die to protect my community from from the ravages of racism that ate my forefathers inside out. It was a collective campaign. I truly believe Black Militants made justice move a little bit faster.






        Finally the day came when I looked on TV and I saw someone who looked just like me, throwing a grenade, and another man just like him firing a M-60 with tracers flying from the barrel. They were Black troops in Vietnam.  I saw that I came from a stock of men, who were not a bunch of "Yasah Massah" shuffling cowards.I joined to learn how to become a fighting man.  I come from a race of men who weren't afraid to stand up to the most powerful nation in the world and say, "enough is enough."  No more Emmett Tills, No more Medgar Evers, no more little girls dying in Churches in Birmingham. Because the world finally knew who we were.

       What happened to that Spirit is a long story. Crack supplied by the govenment, Gangs created by the CIA, bad roles models, that is for another blog.
 
         Jim Crow has risen his ugly head again and not a whisper. The First Black POTUS and it seems like no Black men have his back. We should have had a million man march when that Birth Certificate stupidity began. Throwing Black men into prison for stuff they give White people a ticket for. Another form of slavery.I hear nothing from Black men. Except for a few like Al Sharpton, and a whole lot of Black women, Bill Maher,

 a White man,  is the only militant  voice we have. Voting Right Acts, GONE!!!! And a Fat Fuck name George Zimmerman gets away with a one man lynching of Trayvon Martin and all I see is a bunch of sorry ass tweets and Facebook posting.

There needs to be Marching, and voting and boycotting, and if necessary, a show of force to let it be known, if the justice system won't protect our Black youth, then Black men will by any means necessary.

Yeah, I'm sorry Brothers but compared to the Black men of the 50's, 60's and 70"s. Y'all is a bunch of pussies.
Like Denzel Washington said in "Glory", "WE MEN AIN'T WE?"