The start of a new year as a turning point is so artificial, but thank heaven for it. We need triggers, reasons, incentives and hash marks in our lives -- lines of demarcation to denote the end of one thing and the beginning of another.
Or, most often in the case of New Year’s resolutions, the intention of new beginnings.
In addition to our private pledges, I am hoping that, this year, we will make a communal pledge. A New Year’s resolution for Black America that would go something like this:
Be it resolved, that in 2006, we, the black people of America will:
• Put our treasure in property in order to leave a lasting legacy rather than in props in order to leave a fleeting impression. Dangling diamonds, fur coats, designer clothes and luxury cars have their place, no doubt. But it ought to be a walk-in closet or a three-car garage in a home of our own rather than rented space.
• Acknowledge, at last, that no matter how commonly we use it or what our intent, the words “nigga,” “ho” and “bitch” are not terms of endearment and, in fact, still sting. We therefore resolve to dispense with referring to ourselves or our women as such.
• Banish Type II diabetes and hypertension, the deadly stalkers of our communities. Our own bad habits are within our control. Surely after surviving entrapment, slavery, separation, segregation and all the ravages of racism, we aren’t going to be done in by a Big Mac and a Big Gulp, are we?
• Get real about HIV-AIDS. Those on the “down low” need to rise up high, at least when looking in the mirror, and do the right thing by themselves and the people who love and trust them. Promiscuous ones should get tested, follow the appropriate treatment protocols and, for goodness sake, inform your partners. And while you’re at it, clean up your act.
• Restore the contract between the sexes. The much-bemoaned man shortage is a statistical reality and worrisome. If the current rate of long-term, monogamous commitment and marriage continues to spiral downward, the black family as we have always known it is doomed. There are a lot of good, lonely sisters out there and too few brothers who are willing to settle down. Still, we can’t give into desperation. Desperate women make for easy women, which make for lazy men. The fellas need to earn our affections and we need to make sure they’re worth the effort.
• Focus on our children. Stories about 12-year-olds who get shot or raped while at a club or hanging out at 1:30 a.m. or a kid with a gun should be as scarce as hen’s teeth. We have always known how to make our children behave and obey, but some parents have not only stopped enforcing the rules, they’ve stopped making them. Let’s take our kids back from the streets. They may have been meant to be little terrors in the family circle, but not menaces to society.
• Bring back the love. My son, a poet and aspiring rapper, has one line that says, “Brother, smile at me.” It breaks my heart because I know that his generation of young black men has not known the brotherliness and friendliness of generations before. As strangers, they greet one another with hardened, daring expressions. Whether it’s offensive or defensive is hard to tell. But it is clearly not inviting. Even some young women are wearing the look now -- shoot, even some grown folks do. Given that we’re all in the same treacherous boat, might we again bring all hands on deck and treat each other like we need each other?
• Get political. It may seem like a white man’s game -- hell, it may be a white man’s game -- but we are on the field, whether we like it or not. Daily, the politically powerful fiddle with policy and law that affect us, direct us, restrict us and without our participation, they get away with it time and time again. It is a fool that does not act in his own self-interest. Practice power, then we can possess it.
Who knows? These may all go the way of the diet, the exercise plan, the balanced budget, the teeth flossing and the smoking cessation promise.
But, we’ve got an entire brand new year to die trying.
