Black Voices

Today when looking online for a substantial blog topic for this week I found a section entitled “Black Voices” on AOL and decided to look further into it; being that I am Black and that it is February- Black History Month. What I found on the main page was a bit disturbing and disappointing. I found several stories about rappers, singers, a murderer and something about Malcolm X’s family feuding over his estate. The issue with this is there are so many legit articles on AOL’s main page but when it comes to the main page of the Black Voices section there are only stories about entertainment figures and people that aren’t of any educational interest to anybody- not just Black people.

It bothers me that we are in the year 2011 and, still, the main things connected to Black people are music, sports and basically anything entertainment wise- even during Black History Month. Black people have done so many great things for the nation such as inventing the door knob, AC units, clothes dryers and even cell phones (where would we be without that?!) and I feel they should be given more credit.

It leads me to believe that although we are so far removed from the way things used to be, such as minstrel shows and using Black people only for the entertainment of others, that we still have a long way to go. Despite the fact that we have elected a Black man into the White House I feel that Black people will always have to go the extra mile to be taken seriously and that when something goes wrong they will be criticized more harshly than someone that is of Caucasian decent.

Black entertainment figures have been idolized to the point that Black children are no longer looking at magazines and saying they want to be an inventor, a lawyer, a doctor, a revolutionist but instead they want to be rappers, singers, gang-bangers and sports stars. It’s rare that Black children can turn on the TV and see someone that looks them doing something legit and respectable but on the opposite side of the spectrum White children can always find someone to look up to on the big screen.

At this point what it all comes down to is choices. We must teach our children to choose to take the right path and lead by example. They must choose to be the next lawyer, the next entrepreneur and the next President of the United States on their own and the best that we can do at this point is lead by example.

-Alisha Mychele

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