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FORUM homecoming: not a time to keep score Nigel Alston Motivational Moments rre ourselves must be Jull of Hfe if we are going to make life filler for others." , - David Sawyer ? ' ? My wife and I recently attend ed our 25th class reunion and homecoming at our alma mater, Livingstone College. Armed with our "schedule of events" for the weekend, we looked forward to reconnecting with our classmates, walking across the campus reminiscing and observing the next generation of Fighting Blue Bears. Homecoming is the event of the year for many graduates, their families, friends and anyone else associated with the school. Alumni chapters engage in friendly competition to raise money for the school. Its an extended family reunion, with football as an excuse for people to come togeth er to celebrate. I don't think there is quite anything like a black col lege homecoming and the atmos phere it creates. It is like a jolt of caffeine; it's a high that keeps you going until the next year. , It's easy to get fired up hearing the noise of the crowd as it cheers the home team on and watching people reunite and get excited talking to each other about old times. That's what I did when I bumped into a friend I hadn't seen in 25 years. The two of us played football together. Now he's retired from the military and has just begun another career. "You remember him, dofr't you?" another friend asked. My football buddy stood there smiling, looking at me. as the memories rushed back. We laughed and talked for the remainder of the game. He had brought his family along also to experience the game, meet the people who shared his college experience and see the place where he had spent perhaps the most carefree years of his life. Even though he didn't gradu ate from Livingstone, he still calls it home. As old friendships were being rekindled, the sound of the " band's drums vibrated through bodies as cheerleaders "shook their stuff," unaware of the mini reunions taking place. Everyone was in his own world. As vendors marched up and down the bleachers, hawking wares that ranged from T-shirts to key chains, old friends were greeting one another. The Greek plots and parking lots were filled with people touch ing base with one another. Volunteer groups, including churches, sold hot dogs, chicken and "wash pot" fish plates to the Nigel Alston poses with his then -girlfriend, Sarah, while students at Livingstone College. She is now his wife. hungry throng. We sat down at one table - under a funeral home tent - to a plate of hot fish, coleslaw and two pieces of white bread. Of course we had the cus tomary bottle of hot sauce and a cold drink. Homecoming queens and their courts were escorted with pomp on and off the field. It is a fashion show - styling and profil ing - that included hip-hop baggy jeans and FUBU to full-length fur coats that come out of storage despite the warm weather. One person sported a crushed velvet black suit with matching top hat and shades. I watched him model his See Nigel on A9 Has black middle class gone so ft on civil rights Armstrong Williams Guest Columnist ' The goal of the momentous '6bs Civil Rights Movement was . straightforward: End segregation Tne landmark legislation passed during that era was aimed at sear ing a single idea into the American consciousness: equality among white America and its former slaves. Thirty years later, millions of apparently successful black people have come to believe that they are really lost souls. Despite the obvi ous gains, there is much talk about their victimization at the hands of a cruelly unjust past. This belief in a'nebulous past dragging down perfectly competent blacks has become so widespread as to exert considerable influence over col leges and corporations which regu larly employ racial quotas. The njajor implication: In the post civil rights era, black Americans have become all too comfortable identi fying themselves as victims. It occurs to me that our post civil rights culture has become ter ribly soft. Just name your problem, sij back and blame racism. Person al responsibility and will seem to fall by the wayside of a culture that isi obsessed, often to the exclusion of all else, with their victim status. A whole cottage industry has bten sprung around this idea. The Congressional Black Caucus sup 3>rts the NAACP lawsuit that eges that gun manufacturers dis tfibute their product irresponsibly td blacks. The major implication: Tlie gun manufacturers bear ulti mate responsibility for the high r$te of gun violence among black ypuths. It occurs to me that the person pulling the trigger should take at least some of the responsi bility. But not in the post civil rights culture. We are all victims, right? Victims of what, one might ask? Victims of the past; victims of social hierarchies; victims of huge, white conglomerates that turn innocent black youths into killing machines. "Victims all" has become the rallying cry. Never mind that to blame white people for much of one's problems implies that white' people have all the answers. That in itself empowers people to believe that race controls your destiny. Of course, one would be fool ish to argue that racism doesn't exist. But to make people believe that 50 percent of where they are is determined by race is worse than stupid. It is harmful, degrading and a passive form of enslavement; it passively reinforces those old racial hierarchies which deem whites the masters. When, I won der, is the Congressional Black Caucus and its ilk going to take a new look at race and focus on what it takes to achieve the American dream? Because the notion that all blacks are victims of this country's shared history is worse than radi cal or destabilizing, it is inherently self-limiting. Plainly, to regard all members of a group as victims neatly removes such terms as "character" and "personal responsibility" from the cultural dialogue. After all, what need is there for individual striving when it is plainly under stood that all the difficulties which black Americans suffer are the direct, indisputable result of their shared past? I realize that racial barriers which prevent us from pursuing those rights we equate with liberty must be removed. Somewhere along the way, though, we got soft. It started when we begaji to embrace the idea that the best way to assuage racism of the past is by practicing reverse-racism now. Programs like affirmative action bloomed in the popular conscious ness. These programs go well beyond that momentous civil rights legislation of the '60s and argue not for equality, but for ret ribution. I am reminded of that shrewd mind, Albert Einstein, who once noted, "You cannot solve the problem with the same kind of thinking that has created the prob lem." Unfortunately, that's precisely what the advocates of affirmative action are attempting to do - assuage the problem of racism in the past by practicing reverse racism now. A generation later, many blacks feel they are owed retribu tion. There is some validity to this sort of thinking. A shared history of slavery and discrimination has ingrained racial hierarchies into our national identity. The danger lies in embracing this view as some sort of bleak, all-encompassing half-truth which reduces all mem bers of a race, sex, etc. to victims. When, for example, Harvard psychiatrist AJvin Pousaint insists that racism is genetic-based, he is implying that racism is a mental illness. ThuS, racism is trans formed into a disease over which we have no control - all of our racial woes the result of a few mis firing synapses. Victims, all of us. Not unlike how the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus place the onus of responsibility for gun violence among black youths on the gun manufacturers, as opposed to the ories actually pulling the triggers. Plainly, this sort of thinking does not truly concern itself with justice. Instead, it concerns itself with victimization. Affirmative action, Pousaint's theory of racial ly-biased genetic strands, the NAACP lawsuit against gun man ufacturers all carry with them an implicit message: All members of a fixed group - blacks, females, those of us with a bad set of genes, etc. - are victims. Because of this victim status, the logic goes, they are owed special treatment. The emphasis is on retribution, rather than conventional social activism. Owed? Victims, all of us? As we slouch toward a new millenni um, surely there are some blacks who do not view themselves inferi or, right? If not, it occurs t6 me that organizations like the Congres sional Black Caucus have become the subtle dispensers of a warm drug, a surrender of the will to the feelings of victimization. They are our cultural prophets, our torch bearers in the dark. The only prob lem is that they are embracing the idea that all blacks are victims. They assert that blacks are owed affirmative action so as to rectify the overt racism of the past. To embrace this idea, though, is to risk creating a culture of victimiza tion which never moves beyond the initial steps of the '60s civil rights legislation. Booker T Washington once said, "The black man who cannot let love and sympathy go out to the white man is but half free. The white man who retards his own development by opposing a black man is but half free." I hereby pro pose that these words receive more attention. One does not change the dynamic of racism by standing outside of the box and shaking his fists. Doing so marginalizes his own views as "extremist." Even worse, the fist shaker defines him self not by his authentic experi ence, but in relation to certain racial hierarchies and implied social values. Until he defines him self by his own ability to move for ward in this phenomenal world, he is but half free. As a child growing up on a farm, I was taught that personal See Williams on AS ' Carolina Mirror Factory Store . ? New Selection of Showroom Prints and Mirrors Brass Beveled Mirrors Clearance $29.?? Framed and Matted Prints $12." - 59 Decorative Mini Mirrors $12 - - 25 - Additional 25% off any Red Dot hen 1539 Hanes Mall Blvd. Jonestown exit off Hwy. 421 ? Winston-Salem, NC (across road from Super Wal-Mart) 336-794-1102 I ? STORE HOURS: Moo-Sat IfcOO un. - fcOO pjn. Sunday 1M pjn. . fcOO pjn. Major credit cards accepted ? gill . iL^a ? " 3BTU North Carolina ^schoolof thea.rts Training America'$ mTc generation of artist* For information about auditions and interviews for the 2000-2001 school year,.or the 2000 summer session, contact: Admissions, North Carolina School of the Arts, 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. NC 27127-2188; 336-770-1290; www.ncarts.edu 4i; lentil oifwhiiiiht ttisiililium ??* flic IhuiYi'-ifii??.' \v.?f/i i until no ,k 4 The Chronicle The Choke for Afrkan Amerkan News USPS 067910 617 N. Liberty Street ?? ? Winston-Salem, NC 27101 The Chronicle was established by Ernest Pitt and Ndubisi Egemonye in 1974, and is published every Thursday by The Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc. The Chronicle is a proud member of National Newspapers Publishers Association ? North Carolina Press Association ? 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