This month, which is Black History Month, I urge black Americans to sing of their good fortune. No other black people in the world enjoy as many freedoms, as much wealth or potential for greatness as them.
Black Americans sit in an enviable place that blacks elsewhere in the world can only dream of. They, more than any other people in the world, have the potential and ability to empathize with and help poor Africans.
In his book “Out of America,” black journalist Keith Richburg discusses his observations of the hopelessness, corruption, disorder and death in Africa. The book’s last sentence, “By an accident of birth, I am a black man born in America, and everything I am today – my culture, and attitudes, my sensibilities, loves, and desires – derives from that one simple irrefutable truth,” celebrates his being a black American. He’s thankful he wasn’t born in Africa, Haiti or some other Third World country where people lead lives of desperation, brutality and uncertainty.
Black Americans’ DNA may lead them to Ghana, Guinea or Gabon, but America is home. Too much blood has been spilled, too many lives laid down to build this home. And yet, despite extraordinary possibilities, black Americans too often short-change themselves and their children. Depression and despondency have eroded whole generations’ morale, robbing many of their intellectual athleticism. It doesn’t have to be so; this month, I remind black America that much has been given to them, but much is also expected.
The PBS series “African American Lives,” narrated by Henry Louis Gates Jr., traces the genealogy of several prominent black Americans using DNA. The further back one goes, the more one appreciates black people’s resilience, and how after slavery and against all odds, blacks managed to survive in the cruelest soil imaginable. It is on their shoulders that today’s black America stands. Hence, for some in this generation, not to aspire to reach for the stars denigrates their heroism; it sullies their hopes and dreams for subsequent generations.
As a black man, I know the difficulties inherent in our skin color. However, I still think there are many opportunities open to all. Black Africans lucky enough to come here have faith that this is the best place to realize their dreams. Black Americans must see this, too.
We should start by elevating the status of marriage, education and an ordered, disciplined life. We must stop the vicious cycle of violent crime, jail and death that holds many poor black Americans in its vise grip.
Violence is common to much of Africa and inner-city America. But unlike Africa, islands of American conflagration are easy to extinguish. To clean our streets and homes of drug dealers and gang violence only requires black leaders working in tandem with authorities.
Black America urgently needs good leaders to help define the black nation’s objectives, priorities and goals. Without them – and despite being citizens of the richest nation on Earth – blacks continue to founder. It is a pity that 10 years after the Million Man March, we still have no meaningful black leadership.
What we need this February is constructive engagement of rich and poor segments of black society. We must relearn how to support one another’s hopes, aspirations and goals. This Black History Month should be viewed as a portal for a fresh new year of full engagement with one another, as individuals and as a community. To do otherwise is to ignore the fact that black America is the luckiest black community on Earth. It is to let the opportunities at hand go to waste.
Pius Kamau of Aurora is a thoracic and general surgeon. He was born and raised in Kenya and immigrated to the U.S. in 1971. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.
