Ignorance, Hate and the Future

'A fool is someone that does not know, but an even bigger fool is someone that does not know that they don't know, yet insist that they know' He stated, then crossed his legs and began to shake them as he sank back into his thoughts.

I sat back silently, waiting for the next bit of wisdom to drop while my mind constructed questions and phrases I could utter should the time come.

We hate so much and we spread that hate down to the next generation unknowingly or knowingly.
Instead of letting our children be, and grow to know humanity, we enforce our ideals on them and unfairly shape their view of the world before they even have the chance to try to build something out of it.
So as ignorance is perpetuated and spread, you have people arguing passionately about a cause they know nothing about. Hearsay; something your father told you, he got from his father, who heard it from a wise-looking elder at the chiefs' council. Ignorance.
This youth's nostrils are spread wide as he spews pure folly from his mouth, spreading lies and spit with every word he says. Telling me who he would kill if he were the president. Passion, he burns with it. Unfortunately, his passion is a tad misguided and the sad truth is that he does not know.
Read. One man once said that the fall of the Black man is that he does not read. All through history the truth has been there stored up in those paper backs, but our generation has come to hate reading, not knowing our demise approaches us swiftly. The result is a whole nation burning with misguided ignorance and nonsensical facts based on hearsay of our pasts and presents. No wonder we cannot envision a future.

A future.

But we're still slaves.
The shackles and chain links might not be as visible, but they're still as real as they were to our fore fathers. Bob Marley said 'emancipate yourself from mental slavery', a song we now song with jovial attitudes and high spirits. The truth is that we are still slaves, mentally, physically and emotionally. Until we realize that we as a race matter in this world, we as a people are worthy of some dignity; not just in ourselves independently, but as a race entirely, we will continue to be slaves. Why don't we try to better each other?
It's so easy to think we have been liberated, but what have we been liberated from? and who did the liberating? If the answers are from slavery/colonialism and the White man, then we're still under slavery, so maybe we ought to thank them for our freedom and possibly be forever in their debt...like we already are: paying that debt with our souls and sanity everyday.
A better answer would be liberation from the past, liberated by us, ourselves. An understanding of the past must be gained, and then we must learn to look up from it, and turn our faces to the future. Therein lies redemption.

We don't know our past, yet we're so quick to get angry and start an argument discussing politics from the "First Republic'. Then we think we, as a people can move forward if we constantly try to push each other out of the way and blame each other. So hate becomes the foundation of, not just our nation, but our tribes, our people, our homes, our hearts. We think we as people would be able to make anything good out of any situation with the ignorance we're constantly bathing ourselves in. Youth are the world and,

1) Youth are worthless if they're full of ignorance
2) Youth are useless if they keep doing the same things their forefathers have been doing
3) Youth are a waste if they're not able to band together to make the future work
4) Youth are hopeless if all they carry is hate

Who are you? it's not Black first, or your tribe first, or any of that. You are your spirit (or lack of it), the thing that causes you to rise every morning. Remember that everyone carries their own spirits as well. Our history is painful, but nobody around you now caused that pain, and anyone that carries hate now needs to know that it's nothing new. Do away with the hate and resentment, we all carry a bit of it in our hearts, but the real future we would like to see is all a pile of s%#t if we try to do anything with hate. We will be forever stuck where we are right now.

'80% of our population lives under 1$ a day, that's approximately 160 naira, for a family to feed on per day' He looked at me and shook his head. That's 80% of we, as a people living in poverty, another 80% of you and I as individuals, ourselves that is in poverty. Hold your head high all you want, but really you're a pauper, dirty and shameful. Now try to make a future out of your life.

Good luck piecing this together.