Frustration Killed the Revolutionaries

Today's Dictionary.com word of the day is "copacetic," an adjective meaning very satisfactory or fine. Dictionary.com is the the first widget I put on my phone because I wanted to have more words within arm's reach of my thoughts, which are quickly outgrowing my vocabulary. Truth is, we develop vocabulary through conversation and the discussion of our thoughts, which isn't a popular practice anymore. Intellectual dialogue has been sacrificed to keep everyone in a false, copacetic state of existence. Notice I didn't say life. I'm honestly not sure that most of us have ever experienced the fullness of life. We simply aren't willing to fight for it. But we don't want to talk about that. And if we don't talk about it, we don't hurt anyone, right? Well...

I found myself openly crying last night in front of a close friend. I didn't feel embarrassed about it, but the tears weren't necessarily for me; they were for everybody who didn't know they should be crying for themselves...because we don't talk about it. I have come to accept that I'm supposed to be doing something in life much bigger than my current job. I simply care too much about educating and helping the youth in this country to take it back from the hands that only want to run it into the ground. I want us to have a voice again. I want us to TALK ABOUT IT! Our silence is retarding our children, so we should put talking at the top of our agendas.

Aren't we moved by anything anymore? Are our homes really that great? Is the liquor really that potent? Is the kool-aid really that syrupy that we volunteer to drink it down now? Should we trust anyone to leave change in any hands other than our own?

I'm at a point where I'm so frustrated with my people that I shed tears. I'm sad for the youth being brainwashed with "no hands," and the thrill of a drug life that is force fed to us by an uncaring media. I'm sad that we still kill each other over sneakers. I'm sad that we embrace Tyler Perry films and plays more than we do documentaries about the state of the country in which we exist. I'm sad we don't know what it means to live. I'm sad that we don't thrive. I'm sad about the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, built by an Asian and sculpted more in the likeness of a dictator than a revolutionary. I'm sad that we always leave Malcolm X out of the conversation, when we have a conversation. I'm sad Barack Obama is called a "nigger" everyday without the word "nigger" (publicly) spoken; I'm mad that we haven't marched about it. I'm sad no one talks about education. WHY AREN'T WE TALKING ABOUT EDUCATION? I want to do something about it...I want all of us to do something about it.

And as I cried, my friend talked to me about the frustration she sees in me...all the time. I couldn't argue. Once you open yourself up to the idea that things could be different, you break hinges. Nothing shuts. You can't just settle for "good enough." It's almost like you connect with times in the past where people understood that life could be full of opportunities...an were willing to work for them. In 2011, we seem to believe the VH1 shows...we believe that's reality...and that because a few of us have cars, houses, and easy sex, and don't mind throwing around the word "bitch" as if it doesn't send a huge message of self-disdain, that we've "arrived"! If we have arrived, where the hell are we? Where are all the revolutionaries?

Dead. Killed by the frustration of being the only ones who give a damn. Buried by generations who think their visions to be nothing more than idealism. Mourned by no one but the bodies their spirits haunt...or waiting to be inspired. Oh well...no time to cry...I have a lot of work to do...