Black

Black: of the color black, of or relating to various groups of dark skinned people, wicked, evil, gloomy, dismal.  It's hard not to recall the scenes from the movie Malcolm X when "Red" was in prison.  I'm proud to be who I am, but it makes me wonder what the origins are for us being called Black.  My skin is not black and I'm not alone in that fact.  How did black become synonymous with evil or wicked?  It goes back to an earlier post that I made talking about skin tones.  That self hatred is in the very definition of the word.  Black is beautiful.  Plain and simple.  We sometimes that crab in a bucket mentality.  But when you put us against anybody else, we can easily unite for the cause.  President Obama is a good example of that, along with Michael Vick, Tiger Woods, and even O.J. Simpson.  We came out in record numbers to vote for the president in '08 and were the first to forgive the other three for their transgressions.  We have brought so much culturally and historically to this country yet we are relegated to second class citizens at times.  I tend to be critical of my own people because we think we have to hold ourselves to higher standards.  The deck is already stacked against us because of who we are.  That will change hopefully and I know it's ten times better than it was years ago.  But we still have a ways to go.  Anybody with a trace of Black in their blood is Black to me.