Young Black Professional Guide

The current atmosphere of today’s political amalgamation stretches the ybp in directions we’ve felt before. Our conscience and soul draws us to the transparent honesty from a candidate like Barack Obama, but our desire to blend in and ‘not make waves’ lends our ear to the often backwards rationalization offered by others regarding Rev. Wright and his sermon. We’ve felt this before, whether listening to the ‘old heads’ talk about the good ol’ days and dismiss incidents involving Blacks as another instance of ‘the man’, to our work colleagues professing how being pro-Black is anti-white.

Well, the great thing about our culture is that everyone has a voice. Artists like Talib, Mos Def, Murs, Little Brother, the Roots, and Common cut and master that voice into enigmatic rhythms we can’t ignore, all the while feeding our minds with colorful wisdom. Speaking on Common, who has been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since he was 8, said this:

I think it’s something important that we can acknowledge and say we’re proud to be who we are. It’s not an anti anything. It’s about love for your culture also. I think many other cultures do it. Italians love their culture and Mexicans and Jewish people love and respect their culture. I think it should be okay for Black people to say, ‘We love our culture. We love everybody else too, but we love our culture too.’ That’s the message that I got from Pastor Wright.

Additionally…

It’s American politics. They try to twist and turn and find something wrong when things are going right. They have to try and find something negative. I can’t say that I’ve seen all of the clips, but it’s nothing surprising because I’ve been in that particular church since I was 8 years old. I know what Pastor Wright speaks and I think another thing that we’re learning as people in this country is that as much as I look to Pastor Wright or Barack Obama as a leader and a great person or my mother as a leader and a great person, I have to make decisions for myself and what fits and what is gonna work well with me so no matter what speaker I listen to, I take what I get from it and say, ‘okay, this is what I believe and this is what sits right with me and this is what I would use to apply to my life.’ I think that’s a lesson that we all can get from this.

The rest of the article is here.

Thanks Latonya!

Peep below for Common’s freestyle this past New Years Eve at Trinity: