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Clouded Judgement : An opinioned think piece

It's hard to be what you can't see...

By Brad MasonPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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The day was Saturday, October 22, 2016.

I was downtown Charlotte at the Carole Hefner Center, watching the rapper/activist, David Banner, speak.

His essence captivated the crowd as he spoke. Everyone's eyes were glued on him as he paced back and forth.

What I didn't know was, that his next statement would change my life.

He asked the crowd, "Would we agree that the central processing unit on a computer, is the brain of the computer?"

The general consensus amongst the crowd was, "Yes."

He then went on to say, "If a program was uploaded to the computer and the computer lost its ability to communicate with other computers, lost its ability to complete mathematics and lost its ability to properly function. Who would we blame? The computer or the computer programmer."

The crowd mumbled, whispers of what the correct answer would be.

He said, "You'd blame the computer programmer."

He added, "That's the problem. With us, we've been programmed to be the child race of America."

Those words shook the core of my being.

Sometimes we hear or see things that put everything into place.

I started to think when the programming took place in my life. I began sorting out important moments in my life where that programming effected certain outcomes.

When I was a young child, I was told that I had two strikes against me.

The first strike, I'm black. Second strike, I'm a male. I didn't quite understand that premise as a child, but throughout my life that contention has been proven to be correct.

It's not an accident that many see the black man as public enemy number one. It's obvious that the view of the particular group has gotten worse throughout the years.

One would question, "When did the negative perception of the black man start?"

Historian Frances Cress Welsing stated, "Racism started when white European males looked over the Mediterranean Sea onto Africa and seen the great size of black men."

She wasn't only referring to the physical stature of black men, but more importantly, the size of the penis on the black men.

Being that melanin is the most dominant gene. This birthed the idea of genetic annihilation.

In the early days of his presidency, Joe Biden said, “This country is doomed, it is doomed. Not just because of African Americans, but because by 2040 this country is going to be minority white European – you hear me? Minority white European. And Blacks are going to have to start working more with Hispanics, who make a larger portion of population than y’all do.”

Think about that statement, that's a very heavy statement.

Many scholars have offered the idea that, the more melanin people reproduce will literally make the planet black again.

But, I'm not here to bore you with pleasantries and play the same tune we've heard year after year.

I want to take this opportunity to answer the question that has bothered my mind for years. I want to take this time to look into the mirror.

What was placed on us that made the burden so heavy to lift for us to find an equal footing of equality?

Snow On Tha Bluff (Film, 2011)

Boyz In Da Hood (Film, 1991)

I have to slow down to speed up. Let's analyze the words in the above images.

In the film, Snow on da Bluff, Curtis Snow alludes to having drugs in his system when he was born. Understand how one hand washes the other.

In the blockbuster film, Boyz In Da Hood, in the scene above, Laurence Fishburne is seen teaching several young men about gentrification. Adding context, in the same scene, he also tells the boys about how drugs are brought over into the United States. He schooled them about how blacks don't own any boats or planes to get the drugs into the country.

The films are twenty years apart, but still have a strong connection bonded through truth.

What leads to gentrification? Drugs and violence.

When you deplete the resources in a community, then flood the community with an influx of drugs and guns; the people will kill themselves.

Ronald Reagan figured this out in the 80's.

As we fast forward, we see the effects of mandatory minimums and fatherless households on the black community. It's not an accident that 50% of America's population is made up of black men.

The circle came around, full force.

I named the title of the of the article, "Clouded Judgement; It's hard to be what you can't see" ; because it seems that many of us have a skewed perception on reality. The weapons used to feed this perception are media, social networking sites and television programming.

As a father to a black child, I can't hide the fact that the definition of successful representation wasn't created by those that share my same ethnic identity. With the influx of popularized content at the tip of our fingers, we've became socially inept, but increasingly judgmental by standards we didn't set.

From what it seems, the vein of the entertainment culture is powered by black sweat equity. Within that same vein, there has been a concerted effort to over-popularize and force feed the youth with professions that's not really needed day to day. Highly successful black athletes and/or rappers are seen as the epitome of real black success, but the products they produce within those perspective fields, don't really transpire to the average everyday working class black American. No, I'm not saying we don't need music or sports. What I'm saying is, the materials that come from those products aren't represented in a way that can change the life of a young child. Sure, it could birth a passion in that particular child; but the overall chances of the average black child breaking into those fields and being successful is slim to none.

The overshadowing of needed professions day to day has become more prevalent in these times. When I say needed professions, I mean, doctors, teachers, sanitation engineers, builders, electricians, landscapers, etc. The true lifeline of what fuels American economy when it comes to goods and services.

When careers like that are presented to young black youth, it's laughed upon because it doesn't seem cool. Why is that?

Goes back to the programming of black people being the child race of American Society.

According to the Epi.org the black median household income in 2019 was $46,073 which the lowest in America by race. I present that stat to shed light on the imagery presented to us.

Entertainment culture is sustained by black people. So, why don't we have "stock" in those fields? We don't have guaranteed return on investments in those fields that support America's past time. Financially, Blacks are the poorest group in America. But the way entertainment is presented to us, one outside the race will support the contention that, "Blacks are in a position of power."

Which is why I presented the ideas about the reality when it comes to drugs and violence in heavily populated communities by blacks.

Don't get me wrong, there are any successful black doctors, lawyers, engineers, chefs, teachers. But those individuals seem to be far and few between. I started this article by alluding to the fact that I wanted us, including myself, to look into the mirror. Many of my counterparts would probably ask me, "Are you saying, black children shouldn't play sports or be entertainers?"

By far, that's not what I'm saying. I'm posing the question; "Why is that the majority consensus of career choices we choose our children to have?"

The definition of success wasn't created by those that sweated to place those individuals in power. Why are we chasing after the benchmarks of what we think success is?

Until we answer that, the judgement will remain clouded.

I'm not in control of what you think about this article. I'm just asking you to think.

Love and peace.

- Brad Mason

opinion
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About the Creator

Brad Mason

Art and music is the soundtrack to life.

I’m grateful to be blessed with the gift of bringing stories to life.

Charlotte is where I’m from.

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