Michelle Obama hosted a Black History Month Celebration at the White House today.
True to form, she was speaking truth to the kids about people power and how important it is to recognize the amazing, extraordinary, inspiring things taking place in our own communities instead of just looking up to celebrities, politicians, or heroes from the history books:
...[look beyond the names in the history
books] “think about the extraordinary people who live in your own
world,” like parents, grandparents and teachers, “all those folks who
play important roles in black history and American history every single
day.”
Wendell sent this passage by writer/philosopher Terrence McKenna to me last month and it's really stuck with me - these are words I struggle to incorporate into my life. Our culture is obsessed with media, enamored with fame :: my generation craves attention and feedback and recognition and shine...
It's that Kanye-like love/hate feeling with floss/shine/bling, right?!...the spotlight is doesn't mean much of anything real outside the value we give it -- but it's got that black hole gravitational force that sucks people (me!) in anyway.
Instead of being excited by attention, media, micro-celebrities and renown, might we claim success when we feel personally satisfied with having connected meaningfully and done something useful?
Here's the full McKenna piece:
Catalysts to say what has never been said, to SEE what has never been seen.
To draw, paint, sing, sculpt, dance and act what has never before been done.
To push the envelope of creativity and language.
And what's really important is, I call it, the felt presence of direct
experience, which is a fancy terms which just simply means we have to
stop CONSUMING our culture.
We have to CREATE culture.
DON'T watch TV, DON'T read magazines, don't even listen to NPR.
Create your OWN roadshow.
The nexus of space and time where you are -- NOW -- is the most immediate sector of your universe.
And if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered.
You're giving it all away to ICONS.
Icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that, you want to dress like X or have lips like Y...
This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking.
That is all cultural diversion.
What is real is you, and your friends, your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears.
And, we are told No, you're unimportant, you're peripheral -- get a
degree, get a job, get a this, get that, and then you're a player.
You don't even want to play that game.
You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the
cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron
consuming all this trash that's manufactured out of the bones of a
dying world.
Where is that at?
Sources:
www.bossip.com: This is why Michelle is the hottest chick in the game, February 19, 2009.
Wendell Davis. Email. January 19, 2009.
