The Need for Better Heros and More Honorable Saints

I wrote this tweet and was surprised to see it went viral being liked by just over 28 thousand at the time of writing this piece.

Tweet here: https://bit.ly/3EHfyTm

I thought it would be worth bringing context to what I said to ensure I've not been misread. This was not a humble brag nor a request to be pedestalized as an icon in the "black community". Those who follow me on Twitter know that I am reticent about the notion of a "black community" as a single entity with a solitary vision, hopes, and goals as I just don't think that really exists in any real sense.

I itemized characteristics and accomplishments of my life - being under 40, having never been to jail, never been stoned or drunk, married to one woman, a father of 2 beautiful girls, and a medical doctor.  I’ve helped support/mentor disenfranchised black boys because I don't often see some of these encouraged as virtues to pursue in so-called "black" popular culture.

The message I see heralded by many black pop stars, actors, progressive academics, and other celebrities is more often than not the standardization of promiscuity, hedonism, superficiality, flamboyance and to get rich or die trying. 

Those who demonstrate these values in their rhetoric, music, and their public life, become pedestalized as the heroes and those who condemn them are the ultimate anti-heroes. There is a sense in which the quickest path for anyone black to be lionized as a hero-saint - even the aforementioned anti-hero, is being made a mascot martyr of police brutality. 

I've always felt immense sorrow for those who’ve died violently, whether through inner-city gun violence or at the hands of the police.  But I've never understood why these deaths at the hands of the police warrant the collective canonization of these victims often seen in black popular culture. 

Some may push back and say that the purpose behind this social phenomenon is to highlight the injustice of their death, which in some cases proves legitimate, but in many others, it seems to sensationalize their death to serve a particular anti-police political agenda. 

Life should matter period, from the womb to the tomb, the cradle to the grave. But it seems to me that the politicization of black life as the perpetual victim of white supremacy is the most normative and prevalent narrative in Western society.

This ultimately means that the lives centralized in our immediate collective memory are those we think martyred by the police and other lives aren’t worthy of hashtags when they otherwise perish.

Perhaps this obsession tragically reveals that #BlackLivesMatter  to the public conscience as a tool to fuel the outrage economy of self-defeating Leftist policymakers who want to “defund” the police. 

The outcome of such a policy would hurt everyone - especially poor black people who live in high-crime neighborhoods who often despite times of strained community-police relations, appreciate the security that comes from good policing.

The vicarious racial martyr complex is when people seek out, even encourage, their own racial victimization to either satisfy a psychological need or use it as an excuse to avoid personal responsibility & feel justified as a permanent, perpetual victim of racism.

This for me is a tragic consequence of this toxic narrative, which paralyzes people racialized as black from making choices that can free them from that bondage of low aspirations and hopes.

The bottom line for me is that a life loss in gang culture, by abortion, by police brutality are all equally tragic but not in the way we comparatively honor and esteem them.

I don't do what I do or live my life to be remembered or honored by some arbitrary collective. I personally want to ensure my legacy is standing for truth, honesty, and justice, before God and for my family.

How far beyond my immediate circle I'm remembered when I die only time will tell, but I hope it's from the impact of a life of integrity and not the nature of my death, however tragic it may come to be.

I think the cultural groupthink to canonize & immortalize all alleged black victims of police brutality should be interrogated with good reason. We should also challenge the poor judgment in some of the heroes or saints that have the greatest preserved legacy in the wider culture.

I also want us to have robust, noble standards to choose our heroes, models and those collectively remembered and iconized. The bar often seems low right now, considering those more likely to be lionized by “the culture” have very little moral reputation of note.