There is NOTHING new under the Sun!!!

Today, as I watched FRIDA (for the hundreth time) I realized...My parents and I are more alike than we...I realized. I have often characterized my family as apolitical - A collection of "fringe-bougie" blacks/negros, doing their damdest just to be "get on"...ignoring the crazy that seemed so evident to me!!  They didn't MARCH, RIOT or SIT-IN.  They worked, pledged, and pontificated.  They became "The America Dream."  For me that seemed but a farce.  From my  perspective, they "bought-in" and were doing everything in their power to insure my sister & I did the same!!

However, 

when considered through the eyes/phyche of a more "seasoned" Man, I realize:

- They were young, driven, intelligent [brown] people, attempting to make some sense of all that WAS swirling about them in the very racist, very segregated, very sexist 60s.
- College educated & strong, with solid familial structures, the notion of being an active participant against the foolishness manifests in everyone differently.

THEY LEFT, 

opting to come North [with their collection of college friends] and worked with at-risk youth in Upstate NY...

[Dig-up all your pearls...teach the boys and girls - BADU]

...imparting, to the next generation, all that they gained.

[This was followed by graduate degrees... 

& ME!!!]

- Their form of protest was SUCCESS.  Not that success that shines in the sun, but dulls under pressure. Instead, the success rooted in depth, richness & truth...that BLOSSOMS, no matter the hour.
[For...ever I tried to make sense of my father's doting on how he excelled on every exam given at [his job].  It wasn't about proving to himself, "Yes I Can!!!"...but, DISPROVING "their" assertion, "He Couldn't Possibly!!!"

[Middle-Class(?) blacks have often faced an unruly, unfair judgement - vilified by whites & blacks [and others] for the same reason, "Why are THEY able?"  Thought to be "immediately" snobbish, their cool reactions could never be seen as bracing for [what's next].  Rather, is was often misconstrued for Bragging!!!]

I AM, Because THEY ARE.  

I honor THAT 

through 

my work

...LIFE and LOVE.

They left the oppressive, confusion of a space that no longer complimented them for the land of proported opportunity.

I have done the same. 

  [the confounding grey, for Beaute' Facades...;-)]

[I'm Ok...it's OK!!!]

I get it!!!