Scared to Succeed
With the help of my mother I have come to the conclusion that I am scared to be successful. I have always been the straight A student, honor roll, perfect attendance. Accused of plagiarism because my writing has always been immaculate and before its time. I used to imagine my life on book tours signing my first book for my fans that were touched by the story I shared with them. Til this day I still imagine it. I look on TV and see the celebrities that I watch faithfully enjoy their time on the camera and I realize, they are already successful. Makes one wonder how many of us, just like me are doing the same thing. Every Monday night when we sit down faithfully to watch "Love and Hip Hop" or Wednesdays when we watch religiously "Empire". How many of us do that? And how many of us do that before we take the same time out to pay attention to our own selves? Does anyone ever stop during the ratchet hours why we do this? Why watch on cue people who are already successful when I could in fact be living my own successful life. Regardless of us having different circumstances in life it is almost preposterous to believe that non of us wants to live a comfortable life, a life not struggling from pay check to pay check, a life outside of the one society has already set forth for us. Particularly as the minority, some would agree the painting on the wall that tells our stories everyday on the news is not one of great success. If not a celebrity, I don't see too many brown faces that have successful lives on tv. If you haven't been murdered by gang related violence or thrown in jail for tossing your baby out of the window, or what about that rising star of a football player that was shot just a week before his high school graduation, you are not recognized. It is only during those events in life that I see my brown people displayed on television for something. Yes we want to know what is going on in our communities for obvious safety reasons, but what about other important factors that tie into what makes a community safe. When the news station televised the story about the young women who raped and robbed, why doesn't it discuss the lack of policemen we have patrolling around that neighborhood after a certain time. Or the lack of community officials that I believe every city has that NEVER come to visit Brownsville, Flatbush, Crown Heights, and Bedstuy. Where are these people who are NEVER there when a child gets struck by a stray bullet in the Bronx? Not saying it should not be on the news but the fact that places where minorities live have a lack of safe havens and are not being paid enough attention to should also be on the news as well.
I started off to say I was scared to be successful. Because of what is displayed everyday on the news and on tv in general I have come to believe that if you are a brown person the only success you will ever see is if you are a basketball player, an actor/ actress, or if your not Beyonce' or Nicki Minaj, or in more recent activity the young woman that cut her bestfriends baby from out of womb and killed her, you cannot be successful. This perception that we cannot see because we are too busy watching "Love and Hip Hop" every Monday is a misconception amongst the minority group and will continue to be one if we do not turn off our TV's and turn ON our minds. WAKE UP!! This is my public service announcement to you, I wont be afraid to succeed in this life, and you shouldn't be afraid either.
-The Queen Shay-
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