What Happened...

I wasn't sure I was going to do a Martin Luther King day blog,
Still am unsure if that's what I am doing...
But for several days, since Wednesday in fact, after a conversation left me completely bewildered, one of those back and forths about those who do and those who don't...
I have asked myself what happened,
I think back to the early seventies, when so many of us were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,
As we headed off to college, government jobs or other employment opportunities...
There seemed to be so much enthusiasm and hope...
For at least a generation...
But something occurred somewhere in the interim that set everything on it's ear,
At least in our communities...
Was it social programs, drying up...
So many of my friends started work with those programs and went on to progress up the career ladder in ways their parents and ancestors hadn't been able to...
Or was it the way we came to accept things that were once unnacceptable...
I can remember the first time I saw a young girl pregnant in school...
I didn't know how to feel, she was one of the purest minds I knew, she and I were always in competition in our predominately majority school for some academic success, we were often the victors,
I can remember years later seeing her, beaten down by too many kids, men and substances and wondering what went wrong, the shame on her face still leaves me with a visceral, painful sensation...
Wondering if how easily people accepted her choices at such a tender age, helped to propel her to where she went...I don't even know, I am of course simply rambling...
Many say that choosing to take prayer out of schools was a begin of the decline...
I don't know if that is it either...I do remember loving the early sixties, those Wednesdays when Ms. Ivey came to the school to teach us bible passages and having to remember verses for the next Wednesday, we all seemed to enjoy it and get something from it...
Or maybe it happened when the neighbors were no longer allowed to correct and chastise children, without fear of being cussed out by the kids or their parents...
I can remember walking home from school past so many folks who knew me and who I knew took a vested interest in what I did and how I did it and wanted me to succeed,
I can even remember some my associates who slept around, did drugs and drank, profusely applauding the fact that I didn't and being glad about me being me...
So what happened, I am sure I don't know....
There are so many more of us these days, who are more successful, at least materially and on paper...but that seems to be more a dividing issue than an empowering one...
I simply want to know, What happened?
I do know that to fix it, we had all better be prepared to get involved in any small way we can...

Blessings,
angelia