This morning, on the Today Show, a group of "African Americans" were being interviewed & one of them said that Barack Obama was "gangsta." This is a good thing. It's slang for "cool." Provided, of course, it's an "African American" saying it. I have no idea what sort of uprising it would cause if a "white" person called our new President "gangsta."
Martin Luther King died before I was a year old. Obviously, the segregation era didn't have a huge impact on my personal life. My entire life has been lived with blacks & whites intermingled. Which means, of course, that anyone younger than I am has even less experience with the "civil rights movement" than I do.
Which begs the question ... if the older generations would just let go of the prejudices of their own pasts, would those prejudices die a quiet death? Who perpetuates this black vs. white stuff? Why does it still exist?
One has to assume that in homes all around America, there are parents raising their black children to have a chip on their shoulders. White parents who are raising their children to believe they're superior. The parents in between? Those are the ones whose kids are growing up to support the rest of them.
Yes, it's a Big Deal that we're about to swear in an African American president (Note - he is "African American, since his dad is from Africa). It's exciting, it's historical, it's going to open all new doors of opportunity for anyone who isn't blatantly white.
And yet ... according to the up & coming generation of "African Americans," it's GANGSTA ... ... ... Do I not understand this because I'm old? Or because I'm not black?
