Homegirl Quel (kel) in Austin

On Being Young-Old & (totally unrelated) Not Having Haters

I went to a dance last night with my husband and a few friends. It was a scholarship fundraiser hosted by  the sorority Delta Sigma Theta. My husband and I were the first of our group to arrive. When we walked in, I was pleased to hear something from the seventies (Earth, Wind & Fire maybe) blasting from the speakers by the DJ booth, to smell some type of party meat (turned out to be wings and meatballs) because we hadn't had dinner and were starving, and to see so many older people out to have a good time. While we waited for our friends to show up, I traded text messages with some of them, mostly telling them about the vibe of the event. We traded a few "old folk" jokes since we were among the youngest ones there. As they showed up two by two, we continued with the "old folk" one-liners. We danced to funk and r&b from way-way back in the day, and some hip-hop from the birth of hip-hop the whole time, taking breaks for food and water and to talk with friends. I have been known to dance all night to Gaga and Rhianna and Pitbull, etc., but I have not had more fun than two-stepping and doing dances from before I was in high school with my husband and friends. About mid-way through the event, we were having drinks, and one of us said something else about how much fun it was two-stepping and doing [insert any of several awesome old and new popular black line-dances here] with the old heads. That's when the youngest one in our group who is still a twenty-something was like, "What y'all have failed to realize is that this is y'all's music. Y'all are the 'old heads' now." That hurt. For like half-a minute. Then, on my way back out to the dance floor, in true old head form,  I was like, "Well old heads can sho'nuff show the young'ns a thing or two about how to have a good time." 

I am SO not an old head. Technically...technically...I'm not even in my mid-thirties yet. Still, I hadn't realized that while I'm talkin' about old heads, I am indeed becoming one of 'em. The greyest head there, was obviously still young at heart, and I can dig that. What I cannot dig is how some of the older women there were bringing it to some of us thirtysomethings. I left that party with a new determination to re-evaluate my fitness lifestyle and my beauty regimen. Eye cream, H2O and a little sweat ain't never hurt nobody...except haters.

Sidebar: I really like inserting "haters" into my everyday speech, whenever I can. I'm sure I don't have any haters. Nobody wants to be me, or wants what I have, or if they do (but nobody does), they don't hate on me for it, because, honestly, I'm a really nice person. I'm not one of those people who wnts to have haters so bad that I create them in my head. Still, saying "haters" whenever it's remotely appropriate makes me giggle. And speaking of people who create haters in their heads... 

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. was here, but we are not there yet.

Where ever you are today (well, not today-today, because we all come together for rallies and marches and speeches today, but I mean on a regular "today"), look around and there is a pretty good chance that, had it not been for Martin Luther King, Jr. (and granted, other leaders of the American civil rights movement), your surroundings might look a little bit different. Some folks' surroundings (especially in places down here in TX) haven't changed much at all. Some people are grateful for the changes, some are resentful. Either way, we have come a long way and still have a long way to go towards racial, social and gender equality in this country. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. understood that people were not going to change fast enough for the social climate to change back then. He got that we are a nation of laws (unfair as they were) and that it is more important to appeal to the courts (white as they were) than to the cold hearts of fellow Americans who were perfectly fine with the way things were. So they fought. And some laws changed. Today, the fight continues and the changes continue. As much as we would love to look to the White House, now inhabited by a black family, and say we are finally looking down from King's mountaintop , it is imperative that we recognize that we are not there yet. 

And that's OKAY. For every 60, 70, 80 year old black person still harboring resentment from growing up and living in perpetual nobodiness, there are just as many or more 60, 70, 80 year old white folks still harboring resentment for the laws that made it possible for blacks to be treated like human beings. And these black and white people have raised children and their friends have raised children, and have very likely imparted their beliefs of racial inferiority or superiority to those children. So for every 20, 30, 40 year old black person who achieves a measurable level of education and success, there are just as many or more 20,30, 40 year old white folks who think their own ability to achieve is threatened by affirmative action. White privilege is alive and very real. Racism is alive and very real. We have made great strides, but we are not there yet.

There might be a mountaintop up there, but we have not seen it. A few more generations from now, maybe hearts and minds will catch up with the laws and there might actually be racial, social and gender equality in the United States. Hope is enough for politicians and activists and citizens to keep fighting and winning awesome, small battles that amount to awesome, big changes. Hope is good for movement and growth and momentum. 

I said all that to say that laws change overnight. People, intellectual values and grand sweeping ideas on race and equality do not. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best,  "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”

I'm just sayin'.