What Happened to Our Pride
Author: D.R. Boatwright

I was curious about the word pride so I looked it up. I discovered that pride could be viewed as a feeling of self-respect and personal worth, satisfaction with your achievements or a trait being spurred on by a dislike of falling below your standards. When I see what black men have become and compare us to what our predecessors were, I can’t help but ask, “What happened to our pride?” There was a time when self-respect for yourself was paramount to appeasing others only to gain notoriety. The standard “was” for a man to take care of his family and maintain his integrity, but when was that replaced with allowing your children to fend for themselves and subjecting yourself to crime only to make a few dollars? Speaking holistically, I feel that our level of self-worth has decreased to a point were it is no longer a priority for ourselves, thus our community has suffered with no leadership and no direction.

My generation prioritizes “street cred” over scholarship, infidelity over faithfulness and selfishness over selflessness. If you were to ask me who is at fault, I would not blame any one person or entity. People generally want to blame hip-hop music for our current state. I view blaming music artists as an excuse for inadequate parenting. If you believe hip-hop music is a negative influence then don’t allow your children to listen to it in the home. Others want to blame the school system. I will concede that the school system in general is flawed; however, even in its current state it still offers opportunities for all children. Parents need to understand that is a requirement to be fully involved in the education of their child. Still there are others who want blame the police. There are many cases that can be referenced in order to expose the inconsistencies of justice on blacks. I am not advocating the assimilation of us to this current system because it too is flawed, but I am promoting better decision making because we have the power to insure that the majority of these instances do not occur. I believe we are defined by the decisions that we make and by effectively utilizing this power we as a community can exceed our potential.

Our ancestry traces back to kings and queens which should be the foundation of our pride. If we represent the race that went through the most in the history of man, why do we expect the least of ourselves? Obstacles are deterrents, but they are not paramount to our capability to overcome them. We need to re-learn what pride truly means. Don’t try to get a jail-record so you can get a record deal just to gain credibility with an audience. Take pride in going to school to learn how to own the record label. When we understand that limitless thinking is not just acceptable but preferred, the chances of success increase exponentially. These are qualities that are embedded in all of us, but we have chosen to submerge them to appease the lust we have for money and what we presume to be power. This fascination with achieving meaningless goals will continue to significantly diminish our community if change does not happen now.

I believe that once we realize who we truly are and not what the nation perceives us to be, we can then take true pride in ourselves. However, that transformation begins with us. I urge everyone to take pride in who we are. Don’t just look to the past to see how far we have come, look towards the future and understand what we are truly capable of to see how far we can go.

D.R. Boatwright is a Senior Curriculum Analyst and Writer for Empowered Young Men, an organization designed to reprogram and develop young black men into leaders. Our slogan “Cultivating Dreams by Reconstructing Reality” gets at the essence of what we do. By surrounding young black men with older more successful black men and helping them build a positive network of people from all walks of life to support their dreams, we know that we can get them excited about life, education and the great resources America has to offer.

D.R. Boatwright can be contacted at drboatwright@empoweredyoungmen.org.