When Wisdom left Knowledge

Maat

I sit on the train on my commute and as usual I see many young men and women riding the rails going to and from school daily. The conversations that come from their mouths can be astounding at times. “I can’t wait to get home today, my baby is getting’ out today”, she is all but 16 years of age and her baby I take it, is her boyfriend when she said he was coming home today.

M.O.B (money over *itches), tattooed all over his hands and arms, as he sat on the train heading to downtown ATL for a court appearance, I heard him oversaying to one of his buddies that he was facing a charge of driving without a license or something to that affect. And that he was on probation already from a previous charge, so he might get jail time on this occasion, he was about 18 years of age.

It blows me away. Where is the disconnect? What is the reason for the disconnect? Poverty is nothing new to the Black community. My own father lived at a time when not only poverty was an issue, but overt racism was as thick as a fog coming in from the San Diego bay in November. Yet, the first choice of getting out of poverty was not selling drugs, or breaking into the houses of their neighbors to steal what little they may have worked to gain. Is it the lyrics in today’s commercial “rap” music? I am having a hard time trying to figure out the issue. I hear the love of money coming out of the mouths of today’s “rappers”, expressing this by the way they admit to selling drugs. Yet, most of us that have a mind, know these people are not selling drugs and more than likely didn’t do too much dealing before they became famous because, the FBI would be arresting them on the strength of their own lyrics. Our children, can’t see this. I am not sure our children even realize these people (at lease most of them) write lyrics using sentences with commas, periods and exclamation points, yet somehow our children don’t get it.

There is a culture rejecting education circulating the nation, a love of ignorance. Is the disconnect our fault? Are our children misunderstanding what has been said about education? Are those of us that disseminate information not making ourselves clear about education? A brotha was just on the radio discussing hip hop saying that “it is not education that is needed, but knowledge.” Could this be what is being misunderstood by our youth? If I were a youngster listening to him speak, could this confirm my misunderstanding about education? Yes, this brother could have had good intention when he said this but, today’s youth don’t seem to be mentally capable of discerning where education ends, where knowledge begins and how wisdom is the balance of the two. Somehow, this very statement has been translated into not having a need for school education. How then can our children believe they are going to write song lyrics and cannot write a simple paragraph? Are we witnessing the affect of knowledge without wisdom?

Comments

[Femigog The Sable Eklektik]

Yes we are witnessing knowledge without wisdom. Elders are treated with little respect and unfortunately many have given up on our younger generations. We are responsible for reconnecting to our young brothers and sisters. We have to, as adults, reject the popular idea that money at the cost of our souls is unacceptable. It could start with something as simple as parenting classes or even a class on self respect in public schools. So many of our kids dont know their worth and set the price too low with money and material wealth...it seems hopeless but I know that it isnt. We are resilient by nature and we can fix this...Good post!