LIVity

I find it unsettling that I can't locate information on the origin of the term, pro-black.  A Google search turns up Web sites providing pro-black within its own definition and information on Black Power.  The term may have been born out of the latter, but there's nothing that specifically makes the connection.  In a world where there's a study about everything and a field dedicated to word history, this is, as I previously mentioned, unsettling.

So many in the black community have accepted that our history, our culture, ourselves are not to be valued, that this has become the norm.  So, when members of the black community emerge demonstrating self-love, they're labeled pro-black.  What type of society are we living in that we put the destruction of a culture on a pedestal and slap a label on what should be the norm?? Nobody else does this. 

In fact, most cultures are pro-themselves, but nobody ever fills in the blank with their ethnicity or any other ethnicity except black.  This may be because with labels comes the propensity to group and with that, comes stereotypes.  For example, anybody wearing their hair in its natural state or locked becomes associated with being "pro-black."  So, now you have individuals with a distorted mindset grouped with those who are just trying to live and love.  And as with most things, society tends to focus on the negative, so it focuses on the group members who have room to grow and casts the entire group in a bad light. 

Looking at grouping from another angle, to be considered pro-black, do you have to love anything and anyone having to do with being black?  Just the positive?  Because what's good for one person isn't necessarily good for another just because they share a culture. 

I don't know, adopting the term seems like an unecessary stressor, a distraction even.  I understand the desire and need to unify, but don't think we need a label to do so.  I think we'd make more progress if we stop focusing on symantics and start focusing on truly learning and loving ourselves.