Own Worst Enemy

Good morning everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your Easter Sunday. I hope you enjoyed the company of your family, friends, significant other, etc. My day went well...for the most part. I admit it did hit a snag, and I'm fortunate it did so very early. It took all my strength to not let it ruin my day, and I did a good job at preventing it. Yesterday morning, as usual I check my email, Facebook page, and Twitter. Everything was good until I logged on to Twitter. Twitter is a pretty good tool for interacting with people you know and don't know. Over the past couple of years, I actually prefer it over Facebook. However, Twitter also allows its share of ignorance like Facebook and the rest. While tweeting and talking to a friend, I just happened to look over to my left to see the day's trending topics. Some of the topics were:

1. Happy Easter
2. He is risen (I prefer to say He HAS risen, but that's me)
3. Jesus
4. #Bulls
5. #Knicks
6. #GhettoEasterDinner
7. #SongsIListenToEveryday

Typical tweet topics...WAIT, HOLD UP. WHAT?!? Ghetto Easter Dinner, seriously? I shouldn't be surprised, but still, why on Easter? And the sad thing about it was that I clicked on the link and it was primarily Blacks participating in it. Don't get me wrong, you can do whatever you want to do. But when you go around crying about how Caucasians and others don't respect you because you're Black, have you ever taken the time to reevaluate why? You ever thought that maybe it's because of the way you treat yourself? And what's with this whole associating Blacks with the word Ghetto? It's bad enough when others do it, but when we do it ourselves, it's even worse. I've always said that Black vs. Black is worse than White vs. Black. Why? Because we're doing the opposite of what others that came before us sacrificed their lives for. Not only did the topic itself upset me, I also ran across a photo one of them posted. I'm almost afraid to show it, but it would be pointless to talk about it if I don't.

A watermelon basket of fried chicken and a can of Shasta grape soda. Don't get me wrong, the chicken look delicious (although I quit fried chicken) and I enjoy an occasional grape soda, but this leaves a bad taste in mouth. And again, this is not a White person's doing, it's not even an Asian person's doing, it's us and only us. I'm almost afraid to have children and bring them up in a world where self ridicule has become accepted. When I was a kid, this wasn't acceptable. If we saw our own doing something like this, that person would be called even before the image was released. Sure, most of these are done in the form of a joke and with no malicious intent, but it's still in poor taste and I'm more offended at the people who accept it. Have we really stoop this low?

For those who know me and read my blogs know that I care deeply about Blacks and other people in general. I care so much that when I see us doing bad and doing these things to ourselves, I'm going to become our harshest critic. It's only because I'd rather see us rise than sink. People always have that "If our ship sink, I'd rather it be by us" mentality. No, you shouldn't think like that! How about "If our ship sink, let's make repairs to float again?" I don't understand our frame of mind sometimes.

I always tell people that if you don't want to be ridiculed, then don't do things to get you ridiculed. Everyday I'm starting to truly believe that we are our own worst enemy. We're doing this to ourselves, and it has to stop. There's nothing wrong with an occasional joke every now and then, but when you make yourselves the joke that's when the laughter stops. Instead of becoming the punchline, become the solution.

Instead of people laughing at us, make them laugh with us.