Perspectives

Black folks according to...our socks!

It took me most of a decade to figure out, but I finally resolved the mystery of the missing socks.

I’m sure you’re aware of the phenomena: You put six or seven pairs of socks in your washer, transfer the mangled batch to the dryer, but when you finally take them out to fold them, you discover one or two are missing. You search the washer, then the dryer, and finally the area between the two, but there’s no sign of them.

Where the hell do the missing socks go?

That question is all the more perplexing because I normally will put the surviving single sock back in the washer a few days later, and BOOM, BAM, the missing sock mysteriously reappears!

Some would just accept the returned sock as some type of universal anomaly and leave it at that. But I’ve spent too much time and energy in search of the truth to merely accept this "Twilight Zone" mystery out of hand.

Over the years, I’ve brought in consultants ranging from an erotologist to a witchdoctor. I scanned the Internet for clues, and sent out inquiries to the similarly curious around the globe. Finally, after endless hours and draining my savings, I finally solved the riddle: the socks leave this physical earthly plane to fellowship and discuss the goings-on of mankind in another dimension.

They meet on a regular basis (depending on your personal hygiene habits) in a netherworld, a transient dimension, where they evaluate and analyze the goings on of mankind.

Like good ole mother earth, they are segregated by color, but eventually they get together to critique the evolution of mankind, comparing one race against another.

Okay. So you think I’m crazy. But consider psychic Sylvia Brown says all material has a life force and returns to its source after participating or observing earthly events. Brown believes earth is a stage of sorts, and various energy sources come here as role players to experience earthly realities--a soap opera of sorts. They return after a lifetime of observations to compare notes and plot the next script. (It’s more personal and entertaining than television.)

Sound bizarre? Maybe. But also consider this: is it a coincidence that a sock has a "sole," just as humans have a "soul?"

But I have even more proof.

As part of my experiment, I attached a questionnaire to a pair of white, black and brown socks last week, and when the black one returned, my questionnaire was filled out! Of course it was somewhat smeared, implying that it made the transition sometime between the wash and rinse cycle, but what I was able to comprehend from the smudged print confirmed my suspicions.

I won’t get into all the specifics (there were some questions about male/female relations that wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss at this time), but I can say that during their most recent return to the spiritual world, half of the black socks concluded Black life today was a black comedy of sorts, while the other half viewed it as some type of Shakespearian tragedy. In a nutshell, half the black socks were balled up in laughter, while the other half were in a state of morbid depression. Half thought we were a joke, and the other half thought we had grown stark raving mad. That we’ve retreated from the cultural and socioeconomic gains of the past few decades and have started down a path of self-destruction.

Given the current state of Black Milwaukee, which side would you take?

Look at it from the socks’ perspective.

Black Americans risked life and limb for over 300 years battling for equal rights, and in the last two decades have squandered away much of our hard earned gains. Our ancestors fought for our right to vote, and yet only one-in-four of us exercise that civic responsibility. Almost 90% of us complain about government services, the direction of the country, and the lack of resources for projects and programs that affect our lives.

Our parents and grandparents chained themselves to bulldozers, picketed, demonstrated and even sued to ensure that our children will receive a quality education. Then our children either don’t show up for school, don’t give a full effort while there, or act like uncivilized Klingons; intimidating teachers, staff and other students whose educations are disrupted by the conduct of the few.

It speaks volumes that the MPS school board and superintendent recently unveiled a budget that shifts resources from educators to social workers and security guards.

Only one in two Black children graduate from high school, and more Black males go to prison each year than attend college.

Would you be on the side of those Black socks who respond to that calamity with humor, or pity?

Our elders fought for economic opportunities, to open the doors for Black entrepreneurship. But what business product dominates the Black market (no pun intended)? Drugs.

While crack reportedly provides employment opportunities for thousands through the underground economy, it is wreaking total havoc on our community. Drugs are linked to the epidemic of violence, including most murders, turf wars, family devastation, abuse, mental illness and a nation leading Black incarceration rate.

Milwaukee has one of the highest Black business failure rates in the country, a situation that is fueled in part by our unwillingness to support our own. We’ve allowed foreign interests to dominate the corner groceries, gas stations and even the nail salons. We rather go to the suburbs to purchase goods and services than to the few Black businesses that operate in our community.

Most of us believe white ice gets colder, and as a result, our businesses die on the vine.

Is that insanely funny, or just insane?

Civil rights organizations fought for a full century for Black Americans to live where we want, to build strong neighborhoods, and to make an investment in our community. Instead, terrorists control us; our children disrespect our space, litter our blocks and participate in cruising activities that disrupt once tranquil neighborhoods.

Our elderly are literally imprisoned in their homes, shielded by bars on their windows, and steel doors.

Twenty boys and men rape an 11-year-old girl. None of them blink an eye to the inhumanity of their actions. Children as young as 10 overburden the juvenile court system, a growing number charged with armed robbery and assault.

Would you laugh to keep from crying, or express shame at what we’ve come to represent?

Believe it or not, there were more two parent, nuclear Black families during slavery than there are today. The Black nuclear family, the foundation of our nation within a nation, the institution ordained by God, is on the endangered list.

Forty years ago, two parents headed 75% of all households; men were the heads of the household, they provided and protected.

Today, 70% are headed by single parents. Milwaukee hosts three zip codes where 90% of all children are born out of wedlock. Over 80% of their offspring will grow up without a father in their lives. Seventy percent of those households are impoverished. Sixty eight percent of the boys brought up without a father will drop out of school; nearly half of them will end up in prison or on paper.

It gets worse.

Milwaukee leads the nation in teen pregnancy. We are now confronted with a generation of children who were raised by children; only a small percentage possess significant parenting skills. Additionally, teen pregnancy is the number one cause of female dropouts, perpetuating a cycle that dooms not only them, but also their children.

According to one statistic I read last week, a Black woman over 40 with two children has less than a 20% chance of ever being married.

Humorous, or tragic?

And what about that misogynistic, self-denigrating rap music? Funny or tragic?

The questionnaire ended with a footnote.

The sock flipped the script and asked me if Black people are brainwashed or in denial about our plight? Which state of mind best explains our unwillingness, or inability to deal with this self-fulfilling prophecy, predicted three decades ago? Have we totally ignored the sacrifices of our great leaders, or has the shadow of slavery blinded us to the light of freedom and self-empowerment.

The note used the brouhaha over the recently rejected MPS proposal to utilize plastic handcuffs as an example. Everybody and their mother’s sister raised holy hell over the proposal, but only a handful of people even raised an eyebrow about the culture of disfunctionality, social chaos that breeds this phenomena.

As I said on "Sunday Insight" a couple of weeks ago, the Milwaukee Public Schools is a microcosm of Milwaukee. The violence that we see in the schools is a manifestation of what’s happening on our streets. If children have not been raised to respect adults, if crime is rampant and reaching epidemic proportions in our neighborhoods, if drugs and violence is commonplace, why would the public schools be immune?

But there’s a related tragedy that was spelled out in the memo. The perplexing question raised by the Black socks focused on why this situation has deteriorated to this point. Why have we chosen to ignore this phenomenon? Why isn’t it a priority among Black leaders? What are you doing beyond complaining?

It’s a laughable tragedy that Black America seems to have its head in the sand. We criticize those who predicted this day.

Those who said teen pregnancy, dysfunctional families, apathy and retreat from the African centered value system would lead us to this day. Now it’s upon us, and most Black leaders are either afraid to talk about the real root of our problem, or apparently hoping some political party, White knight or social program is going to make it go away.

Yeah, you can dismiss my hypothesis on the socks. However, the next time your feet are itching, or you get athlete’s foot, take into consideration that maybe your socks are trying to tell you something. The question is will you listen, or just keep walking in those dirty, smelly socks? Hotep.