Happy Holidays!

Thank you for reading the blog and keeping me honest. I appreciate you and thank you once again for making 2013 a stand out year. I'm so looking forward to sharing with you in 2014.

Here's wishing each of you the most joyous of holiday seasns!

We Need Somebody to Look Up To

A god has returned home. We have been blessed to have had him among us. Of course, I'm referring to Nelson Mandela. Volumes have been said in remembrance of him since his passing earlier this month. There is nothing left to be said other than we have all been made better by the example he set and he was one of, if not, the greatest person of our century.

We've lost a lot of great people over the years. We speak about the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the Kennedy brothers. Ywt we barely mention the others who have given us so much. People like forward thinking legislators like Shirley Chisolm,Barbara Jordan and Harold Washington. People like historians and teachers like John Henrik Clarke and Alex Haley. People like A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Fannie Lou Hamer. Ask any person today under the age of 40 and they would be hard pressed to recognize any of these names. Ask any person over the age of 40 and they'd have to think long and hard before recognition reached their eyes. It would be funny if it were not so sad.

So often we look to the loudest person to represent us. When something happens in the Black community, the pundits contact the usual suspects: Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Dr. Henry Louus Gates and Dr. Cornel West. They don't count, at least not to me and not to most of the Black people I know. They are the puppets placed on the show to entertain between the real acts.

Where are the equivalents to the people mentioned? Where is the next Barbara Jordan? The next Alex Haley? The next Fannie Lou Hamer?

Mandela like Hamer, Randolph, Chisolm and the others mentioned walked softly but carried a damn big stick. He was a gentle giant revered upon many, even his enemies. He was an acknowledged worldwide hero who served with dignity and quiet grace as did Clarke and Haley and Jordan who all died before him.

My heart is heavy from his loss. I mourn his passing as I did with the other greats whose names are no longer recognized even as their contributions live on. I need somebody to look up to. We need somebody to look up to.

Because I'm truly sick and tired of the puppet show. It's time for a headliner to appear.