Distractions to Charting
& Staying a Course:
The Lost Act of
“Rootedness” – Part 1.
By Matthews W. Wright, M.Ed. – Precisely Wright!
& Associates
Rootedness – [Rōō’ ted ness]
1. The ability to remain seated, as a plant with tap roots
2. The conscious act of remaining culturally stable via applied
1. The ability to remain seated, as a plant with tap roots
2. The conscious act of remaining culturally stable via applied
values,
by means of deliberate and calibrated measures to stay faithful
to ones acts,
beliefs and goals.
beliefs and goals.
For
more than fifty years I’ve struggled in the use of the term “rootedness”. To me, it describes a condition and the
conscious means by which generations of African Americans leveraged their
resources and applied their minds to create communities that met their needs –
against all odds! As time went on, I
found myself needing to be more descriptive about the term each instance it was
broached. I have come to the point of
providing a definition for the term and it is number 2 above.
Using
the term caused people to think I was saying/meaning “rooted”, as a plant,
which is a physical act. Becoming PC
literate in the 80’s was a challenge because each time I typed the word “DisplayWrite’s” spell check informed me that the spelling is incorrect – It
isn’t! It is my means of
conveying an act of consciousness and for my purposes it is Fine [at
this point I’ve dated myself]!
Now
that it is crystal clear to everyone, let me explain the real purpose for this
exposé. Today, it appears to me that we
are looking for someone to do for us that we must do for ourselves.
Whether it’s policing, educating, dieting, exercising, conceiving, child
rearing, or whatever! Too many of us are
looking for someone else to do the dirty
work the planning or the thinking!
How did we get to this pitiful point in our lives? Why have so many of us taken the opportunity
to dropout, unplug and cop-out?
These
questions are mainly directed to those of us with money, jobs, the materially
addicted and those with comfortable homes in communities protecting them from
elements we find appalling – urban, inner city, black and poor
elements! We can no longer avoid issues
and conditions that are eating at the very fabric of this nation. Prepare yourself to face some reality. Be willing to think rationally about the
conditions from which you can no longer afford to hide. Winter has truly fallen upon America due to
its unwillingness to provide equality to all.
Remember
your history and particularly your family’s struggle to survive in this
country. Don’t allow yourself to
continue saying “everything is alright”!
Stop telling the Emperor his clothes are splendid and of the finest
cloth when you know full well that he is butt-naked! The addiction of materialism is so seductive
that we’ve forgotten the meanings behind the fables and fairytales we were
taught early on. The Little
Red Hen was looking for assistance in making - not eating the bread,
the Big
Bad Wolf huffed and puffed and blew down everything except
the Brick House and the bone in your mouth is real – the one
reflected in the water isn’t!
When I
was a young boy, times were slower, people were warmer and families were
closely knit. In the city at that time,
neighborhoods were like villages and everyone basically looked out for the
other. Why have we abandoned wholesome
experiences for bland and empty relationships and lives? It is my contention that black people have
ventured too far out onto the slippery slope of materialism. We’ve become so conditioned to instant gratification that two and
one-half generations later, demographics reflect that we, as a people and
nation are further apart and in a worse situation than since Brown v. The Board of Education (1954).
How is that possible? The
landmark decision for equal education was a culmination of several court
battles and one of the significant cases was Briggs v. Elliott (1953)
in Clarendon, South Carolina. Black
parents, in that state, filed a suit because the segregation policy throughout
the south was “separate but equal”. However white schools were getting five times
more funding than black schools and the parents petitioned the courts not
because the schools were racially segregated but because the funding was
unequal. The NAACP (The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People) joined in the suit and was surprised
that the State of South Carolina, when trying to avoid a court order, relented
and offered huge sums of money to remedy the situation. The unexpected offer created a major
difference between what the black parents wanted for their children and what
the NAACP wanted. The NAACP rejected the
state’s offer and the initial intent of the black parents1. An opportunity to receive lawful state
funding developing an economic/political base and maintaining separate but
equal educational systems was lost.
Thus, a grip hold was lost and we begin to slide down the slippery slope
to integration. Even the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King admitted to his
closest associates, in the last stages of the civil rights movement, that he
had led his people into a burning building!
Controls
over our educational institutions were lost and we embarked on a course that
would up-root most of the remaining vestiges of our culture; religion, the
ideals of community, family, and employment will join education over the brink
and our dismantling has brought us to the present day issues we confront. Abandonment, confusion, distrust and
discontent are just some of the symptoms of being denied rootedness as a
people. I know this history because I
lived, breathed, contemplated and was confronted by it. My intimate relationship to these times allow
me to continue the struggle against the rampant racism, self denial and
selflessness that destroys the very fabric of family by mis-educating black
children, forcing others to an addictions behavior/economy, while imprisoning
far too many of our young men and maintaining a 25% rate of unemployment among
black men. All we have to do to correct
the course of our ship is choice and change and I ask, “What choices do we have to change our condition? When will we choose to make the needed changes?” Once recognized, the choice, as always, is
ours!