I Don't Wanna Grow Up
Juan Williams recently published an essay in the Washington Post that previewed his new book, Enough. The essay, “Banish the Bling,” decries a popular strain of black youth culture that focuses on immediate gratification and the conspicuous display of wealth to the exclusion of traditional achievement through education and hard work. Williams takes modern black leadership to task for not having marches or programs designed to support lower-income parents to enable them to spend more time parenting and for abandoning other issues such as educational achievement, that hold promise for improving the plight of poor black people.
Most of Williams’ focus is on black youth perpetuating a culture of failure. It is no surprise that contemporary youth culture is rebellious. Youth culture at any given point in history is often counter-cultural. The hippies and peace activists in the Sixties were counter-cultural, as were the young people involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The flappers and their ilk in the Roaring Twenties were oversexed Gatsby-ites. Youth is a widely accepted time for rebellion and experimentation. The hippies grew up, got greedy in the Eighties and are now part of the Baby Boomers running the country. Gatsby's cohorts were tempered by the Depression and went off to fight in World War II becoming Tom Brokaw's “Greatest Generation.” The characteristics that make this contemporary turn of counter-cultural youth expression more dangerous than those in the past are threefold:
1. Nobody Grows Up Anymore. Children are living at home longer than they used to (no comments please, my gentle parents) and those who have left home put off the usual trappings of adulthood longer-buying homes, getting married, having children. Because more people are living collegiate-style lives longer than ever before, we are driven by, and act within, youth culture well into our thirties.
2. The Pathologies of Youth Culture Have Broader Reach. Not only do more adults want to look young by dressing like teenagers, more adults are also adopting perspectives that created excitement as teenagers, but are deleterious for grown-ups. Men and women in their thirties and forties adopt the thug life and are busy negotiating relationships with baby daddies, baby mamas, and wifeys – mimicking hip hop songs.
3. The Pathologies of Youth Culture Have Deeper Reach. The counter-cultural activities of the youth culture have consequences that reach deep into adult lives. Rejecting school, joining a gang, selling drugs, sexual promiscuity and incarceration all lay a groundwork for failure in the future that is not easily overcome.
The youth culture has morphed into the prevailing culture of many low-income people and it is trumpeted as the only cool lifestyle for blacks by the entertainment industry. The traits of this culture are especially nefarious because the people who will benefit the most from being in school, avoiding criminal behavior and steering clear of activities that can lead to unwanted pregnancy and disease are poor people. The upper and middle classes have something of a buffer to keep them from suffering the full brunt of the negative consequences of youthful indiscretions (please see George W. Bush). The poor have much less room for error. Williams strenuously points out in his essay that images of people hypnotized by shiny jewelry, treating women like sexual playthings, relentlessly dealing drugs and happily, if pugnaciously, marching off to jail is not black culture. Of course it isn't. No people could survive long with such destructive values (here I’d like to insert a rousing rendition of the chorus of “Self-Destruction” and quote Kool Moe Dee, “I never ever ran from the Ku Klux Klan and I shouldn’t have to run from a black man, ‘cause that’s self-destruction…”).
What is the answer? Well, first we will all have to grow up. As adults, we would serve our people well by being good, and realistic, role models. In the real world, financial success does not come quickly or easily unless you are an “heir.” As one of my friends says, “You gotta grind, son.” Everyone has to grind. Bill Gates, Sean Combs, Andrew Chenault and Condoleeza Rice all had to, and continue to, grind. Successful drug dealers, thieves and gangsters also must grind. Since success requires grinding anyway, why not spend that energy building a life, an empire, a foundation for future generations that is grounded in a pursuit that will keep you out of jail? A pursuit that will keep your hard-earned assets from being frozen and auctioned off, the fruits of your labor scattered to the wind?
Williams blames civil rights organizations for failing in leadership. He is right. However, organizations and leaders have to be able to convince people to follow them. Individuals have to decide to reject the “street cred” of incarceration and bullet wounds. Women have to decide when they have had enough of their denigrating treatment. I would love to blame the NAACP and walk away, but we too, must accept our portion of the guilt. In the end, we each have to decide whether or not we will drink the pimp juice.
Most of Williams’ focus is on black youth perpetuating a culture of failure. It is no surprise that contemporary youth culture is rebellious. Youth culture at any given point in history is often counter-cultural. The hippies and peace activists in the Sixties were counter-cultural, as were the young people involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The flappers and their ilk in the Roaring Twenties were oversexed Gatsby-ites. Youth is a widely accepted time for rebellion and experimentation. The hippies grew up, got greedy in the Eighties and are now part of the Baby Boomers running the country. Gatsby's cohorts were tempered by the Depression and went off to fight in World War II becoming Tom Brokaw's “Greatest Generation.” The characteristics that make this contemporary turn of counter-cultural youth expression more dangerous than those in the past are threefold:
1. Nobody Grows Up Anymore. Children are living at home longer than they used to (no comments please, my gentle parents) and those who have left home put off the usual trappings of adulthood longer-buying homes, getting married, having children. Because more people are living collegiate-style lives longer than ever before, we are driven by, and act within, youth culture well into our thirties.
2. The Pathologies of Youth Culture Have Broader Reach. Not only do more adults want to look young by dressing like teenagers, more adults are also adopting perspectives that created excitement as teenagers, but are deleterious for grown-ups. Men and women in their thirties and forties adopt the thug life and are busy negotiating relationships with baby daddies, baby mamas, and wifeys – mimicking hip hop songs.
3. The Pathologies of Youth Culture Have Deeper Reach. The counter-cultural activities of the youth culture have consequences that reach deep into adult lives. Rejecting school, joining a gang, selling drugs, sexual promiscuity and incarceration all lay a groundwork for failure in the future that is not easily overcome.
The youth culture has morphed into the prevailing culture of many low-income people and it is trumpeted as the only cool lifestyle for blacks by the entertainment industry. The traits of this culture are especially nefarious because the people who will benefit the most from being in school, avoiding criminal behavior and steering clear of activities that can lead to unwanted pregnancy and disease are poor people. The upper and middle classes have something of a buffer to keep them from suffering the full brunt of the negative consequences of youthful indiscretions (please see George W. Bush). The poor have much less room for error. Williams strenuously points out in his essay that images of people hypnotized by shiny jewelry, treating women like sexual playthings, relentlessly dealing drugs and happily, if pugnaciously, marching off to jail is not black culture. Of course it isn't. No people could survive long with such destructive values (here I’d like to insert a rousing rendition of the chorus of “Self-Destruction” and quote Kool Moe Dee, “I never ever ran from the Ku Klux Klan and I shouldn’t have to run from a black man, ‘cause that’s self-destruction…”).
What is the answer? Well, first we will all have to grow up. As adults, we would serve our people well by being good, and realistic, role models. In the real world, financial success does not come quickly or easily unless you are an “heir.” As one of my friends says, “You gotta grind, son.” Everyone has to grind. Bill Gates, Sean Combs, Andrew Chenault and Condoleeza Rice all had to, and continue to, grind. Successful drug dealers, thieves and gangsters also must grind. Since success requires grinding anyway, why not spend that energy building a life, an empire, a foundation for future generations that is grounded in a pursuit that will keep you out of jail? A pursuit that will keep your hard-earned assets from being frozen and auctioned off, the fruits of your labor scattered to the wind?
Williams blames civil rights organizations for failing in leadership. He is right. However, organizations and leaders have to be able to convince people to follow them. Individuals have to decide to reject the “street cred” of incarceration and bullet wounds. Women have to decide when they have had enough of their denigrating treatment. I would love to blame the NAACP and walk away, but we too, must accept our portion of the guilt. In the end, we each have to decide whether or not we will drink the pimp juice.
posted by YG&B | 2:39 AM
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