THE TIMES ARE CHANGING

I was reflecting on the life of Nelson Mandela and just feeling fortunate to have been alive during his time here on Earth. My wife and I had the good fortune of visiting South Africa during our honeymoon and it was a memorable and moving experience. First of all I didn’t know how I would be received there, as an African-American by birth that had never set foot on the continent before. Would I be shunned, welcomed or even treated with indifference? Since I had visited Ethiopia just two years beforehand and was told by its citizens that my facial features are similar to a race of Africans living in a region south of Addis Ababa. During a very enlightening trip to see the castles of Gondar our tour guide thought that I was originally born there and had moved to the USA to make money and came back to help my people. It was mind blowing to hear that and to hear him say, “welcome home.” Those words ignited my purpose for being because for once in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere. The USA even though I was born there never felt like a place where I was truly welcomed. What my trip to Ethiopia and my stint in South Korea taught me was we must do more than exist, because we are so much more than what the media portrays us to be. Knowing who you are and where you come from is tantamount to forming ideals and setting goals, in my humble opinion.

Our visit to South Africa was a completely different experience there, race is a more complicated matter you have your: colored, tribal, black, African and masala it just goes on. Colored is anyone who has mixed blood in them while Masala is part African part Indian heritage, black is pure South African and Tribal is just that. Our time there was a memorable one and included a tour of Robben Island and a glimpse into Nelson Mandela’s jail cell. We also stayed in the some of the best bed and breakfasts and toured South Africa from Cape town all the way to Port Elizabeth. Somewhere along the way we went through a township and saw the overwhelming degree of poverty that existed there. That is the link that binds South African blacks to their brethren and sisters all over the planet, everywhere from Brazil to Columbia from Haiti to China economic equality is the new battle ground for civil rights around the world. President Obama touched on this briefly when he said that his administration would focus on closing the inequality gap in the US, a noble cause and one that is definitely doable. Surely if Mandela were still alive would he condone such a cause? Even though this may draw the ire of millions what I say has a ring of truth and one doesn’t exist without the other, racism is being replaced with classism. The haves and the have nots are currently at war with one another and the sheer numbers of have nots around the world are beginning to speak out against the injustices of exclusion, institutionalized, habitual exclusion, subpar opportunities in the education realm, and everyday social indignities - in other words being punished because of their economic standing in society. However and this is for the Millennium and Generation Yrs you are not entitled to a thing, there I said it. That word gets thrown out a lot when the media talks to these generations of youth. The Civil Rights struggle was one of creating equal opportunities through reconciliation and affirmative actions that allowed the doors of opportunity to swing open for those were not allowed to enter through them in the first place because of their differences. Walking

through them puts you in the same realm as every about one else, and you have to work hard to be successful just like the next man; that my friends is the American way and now that the issues have changed so have the rules and that is why we must adapt and take the fight to the highest courts in the land but I’ll save that issue for another time.