Maybe it’s just me. But does it seem to you like everybody wants to be a gangsta, a thug, or a pimp? Well, it does to me. And it makes me wonder if the very people, both male and female, who want to be those things truly know that those things are.

And just why do I feel that way? Oh, that’s easy. All of my five senses seem to be bombarded daily by images of people with tough talk, street walks, and heartless deeds. Those images burst forth full-blown from radio and television stations, from the t. v. screen and the big screen, from newspapers and magazines to billboards and ipods, from cd and dvd players to the world wide web and beyond. They all seem to spout the same soul-sickening message: that ruthlessness is next to godliness.

Tattooed from head to toe, often in alphabet- block - size letters on their necks, legs, and arms—if not elsewhere--, all too many of the world’s African (Black) youth sport messages that it is almost impossible to believe that they themselves even understand. In fact, it is nearly impossible to believe that they truly know the history behind tattooing—that at one time it was a badge of honor and distinction but, during slavery, it was a way for European, if not Arab, enslavers to brand enslaved Africans as their property and as possessing certain desirable or undesirable traits or skills. In short, the tattoo, as a whole, like all too many other things, has lost its true meaning and all too many African youth don’t know what it is. And, sadly, that probably includes all too many African adults as well.

Yet, more often than not, many African youth proudly display words like “thug”, which comes from a band of deadly Asian assassins, the Thuggards, centuries ago; “dog”, which, at one time, was one of the worse things that you could call another human being and which, more often than not, justifiably, was called “fighting words” because of the violence it frequently produced; and “pimp”, which, technically, is a “man who beats up and sells women”. Yet, even, some African females, publicly, privately, and gleefully described themselves as “a pimp”. And all too many African youth the world over joyfully call themselves “thug”, “dog”, “pimp”, and “soldier” or “soljah”, another word for—guess what—“gangsta’”.

Oh, and let’s not forget the tattoo that says or strongly implies that the wearer is a “gangsta’”. Whenever I say or hear about something like that either being on someone’s arm or having been spray-painted on some building, street sign, and/or telephone phone, I truly shake my head in utter disgust. Why? because it means that somewhere along the way someone in the (1) billion-plus member African World Family has dropped the proverbial ball, has chosen, by force or by choice, to look the other way, and neglected his or her god-given duty to positively direct the youth.

In short, someone has failed—and, typically it is less the Church House and the School House—although they, too, must shoulder their huge, thorny cross of blame in this matter, too-- but your house and my house, brothers and sisters. In general, we have failed to obey a divine directive—“train up a child in the [positively justly, merciful, and humble] way that he [or she] should go, and when he [or she] is old, he [or she] will not depart from it.” And, as a result, all too many of our neighborhoods, both far and near, rich and poor, around the globe, have become either actual or potential war zones where ever-ballooning private stress and unbridle public unrest seem to be the order of the day. And, gently now but with ever-increasing force, knocking at the door of this modern-day nightmare is an ancient African proverb, which says, “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.”

So, to stop this ruin, if we should choose to do so, we, African people, must take back our homes. We must take them back from outside and inside forces that mean and do them no good. That means the legal and illegal drugs and the hi-tech baby sitters, like —television, video games, computers, ipods and such. Those items, among others, serve mainly and historically to tear down the very fabric that makes a family whole—listening and learning from each other, loving and caring and sharing with one another. We must take back our homes from wayward parents and children, from divisive family members and untrue friends. We must take them back from so-called child experts who never raised nor had a child and from the very people who sold not only ours but also their own children—white, yellow, and brown supremacists and others. Ever hear of slavery and, today’s version, child prostitution? Who runs it, can’t or won’t stop it, and why?

And why can’t we, or so it seems, African World Family, not only fully straighten out our house and the schoolhouse and God’s house? We can if we want to. We can if we will to. We can if we truly try. For, at one time, and it has not been so long ago, within the African World Family as a whole, most especially here in the United States, the home, the church, and the school worked solidly together. They did not contradict each other when it came to what was expected of all people, most especially the youth. And that was for them to be respectful, responsible, and dependable and to be the best people that they could possibly be. And all three houses, if you will, celebrated the children when they did so. Praise was reserved for those who consistently tried hard and did well or tried hard and did average but strived always to do better. No excuses for half-doing and not-doing was the “golden rule”.

Whatever happened to that? And, though I am well-aware that it has not fully disappeared, that tri-sided relationship has been greatly strained to the point of almost breaking fully apart. The steel-booted foot of white supremacy has kicked down the door of our houses and told us how to “raise” our children or else; It’s twisted fingers have ripped off the hinges the sacred doors of the Black Church, the only truly Black-owned independent institution in the world, and has repeatedly poured “30 pieces” of proverbial silver, with chains attached, into the willing offering plates and greedy hands of all too many “preachers” of the gospel with the hell-spawned hope that it can “buy” and control the Black Church. And, regrettably, all too many people in the pit, as I call the pulpit—and mind you, I am an ordained Baptist minister—are willingly and greedily selling their souls and the souls of African people worldwide for what the Bible calls “filthy lucre” and what an old Clint Eastwood movie calls “A Few Dollars More”.

And let’s not forget how white supremacy has virtually padlocked the gates to a real, meaning educational system that inspires students to use both their mental and physical—manual—skills. (Remember, every one cannot be a doctor or a lawyer. For when your’s car breaks down, usually neither is the first one you call. Typically, it is what some folks used to call, with no disrespect, “a grease monkey”--a blue-collar mechanic not a white collar professional.) Instead, it has attempted--through both the voucher program, No Child Left Behind, and even the recent United States Supreme Court decision regarding school desegregation—many believe, to shut down American public education as a whole. Then where do the students go? Where do the teachers, lunchroom staff, custodians and other staff members go? Of, course, that includes administrators, too.

Before such socially deformed events fully take place, we can stop them. We can do so, African World Family, by diligently repairing the strong, positive, working relationship that the home, church, and school once had. it, even it means, destroying it in some ways and revising it in others in order to improve it.

That, of course, will take time. So what are we waiting for? And it, too, will take, as most historically important things do, blood, sweat, and tears and the working together of people who are both willing and able to work to make it a reality. For one of history’s stark realities is that everyone who is able is not willing and everyone who is willing is not able. So it will take people who are both willing and able to get the job done.

Does that mean that it will take a “gang” of people? No, not necessarily, it won’t. But it would not hurt to inform African people, both young and old, the ageless truth about gangs as mouthed by the writer and rapper Sistah Souljah and as penned by the late scholar-activist Del Jones, “the War Correspondent”. Said Souljah to an auditorium packed with college students, “Real gangsters own land and businesses”. Said Jones, “Real gangsters don’t wear Nikes”. In short, real gangsters wear $1-2 thousand shoes, $5-10 thousand suits, and $10-15 thousand watches.

Real gangsters also live well. In short, unlike the wanna-bes, they don’t live with their mammas. Instead real gangsters live in houses as big as hospitals or schools, travel, not on their sisters worn-out bi- or tricycle like wanna-bes and with their hats turned to the back, but in stylish, well-engineered and –tuned cars that cost at least (6) figures. Furthermore, real gangsters don’t dream about vacationing on islands but actually go there and own them and employ those who work on them.

Business-wise, real gangsters, surely are cutthroats but they are also precise and concise. They don’t control corners but countries and continents. They don’t wear colors; they fly them. They don’t sing or shout “souljah”, but control untold thousands, worldwide, of well-trained and well-strapped ones—the real soldiers. They don’t spray-paint walls, street signs, or telephone poles. But you find their names flashed across television and internet screens, stamped in huge letters on giant billboards and on and inside clothing, and lighting up the night sky in neon-light-like fashion and on skyscrapers, airplanes, multi-million dollar companies, and often in the true halls of power.

Real gangsters are just that—gangsters. They are all apart of the same gang, looking out for each other in every possible way to make sure that the power they have gained “by any means necessary” is never diminished, and, if so, never for long. They take from the poor and give to the rich, which is who they generally are. They keep the good for themselves and cast the bad—the drugs (legal and illegal), the poisoned food and the polluted air, the biased, nonsensical news and, in the wise words of Marvin Gaye, the “inner-city blues” (poor schools, poor jobs, poor housing, etc.) to everyone else. They make the wrong right and the right wrong, hate seem like love, and love seem like hate. They, directly or indirectly, commit barbaric acts of violence against the bodies and souls and minds and characters of others, then wave off such deeds with a wink and a smile and an all-forgiving pardon. Real gangsters declare their independence from other gangsters and freedom, justice, and equality for themselves while using the most hard-core gangster tactics to deny 500, 000 plus enslaved Africans all three. In short, real gangsters protect their own.

And, without following in the mud- and blood-caked footsteps of the real gangsters, the (1) billion-plus member African World Family, must take care of its own—making sure that all of its members have, at least, the bare essentials that are due—decent food, clothing, and shelter; a positive, powerful, and self-determining form of education that benefits one and all; and true freedom, justice, and equality in deeds more so than in words.

Speaking of words, probably the best ones to quote at this time come from those of the God of Father of Soul James Brown’s 1974 song “Funky President (People It’s Bad)”, which gives the African World Family solid advice worth following and talks clearly and honestly about the real gangsters, who he calls “the Mob”. Sings Brother Brown, the Godfather of rap:

People people, we gotta get over before we go under

Listen to me:

Let’s get together and get some land
Raise our food like the man
Save our money like the Mob
Put up a fight down on the job

As some of the song’s background singers shout out, “Rap, Godfather” and “Listen to the man”.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist HAWK (J. D. Jackson) is a priest, poet, journalist, historian, African-centered lecturer, middle school teacher and part-time university history instructor. Click here to contact HAWK.