Urban Thought Collective

There has always been something about the written word that has fascinated me. It has always seemed to be more genuine than things that I might have heard someone speak in conversation or reported on television.

When I was a kid, the encyclopedia was king. If it said so in there, then it was so. At the time, it never occurred to me that my 1979 “World Book Encyclopedias” were only useful for events that had occurred up to that point and would become more and more obsolete with each passing day. In primary and secondary education, we were fed text books and various period novels that spoke from a historical perspective but were never encouraged to question what we were reading. It was fact. The book said it. We were supposed to believe it. That settled it. Luckily, I was led to pick up a “Things Fall Apart” and a copy of the “Autobiography of Malcolm X” to add some spice and different perspective to the very suburban Catholic private school education that I received. This at least primed me for the multitude of new thoughts and, perhaps more importantly, schools of thought that I would be exposed to in the years after high school. The university scene was quite the eye opener in the way of this “alternative” knowledge. In fact, it was an awakening of sorts.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t spend a lot of time in the Student Union, or by “The Bear” chopping it up or exchanging ideologies anymore. We go to work, and go home and try to figure out how to pay our bills when they come up. We catch our news in sound bites or on text scrolls at the bottom of the screen as we get our cardio workout done at the gym. We don’t have time. We don’t MAKE time to question any of the information, never mind actually verifying any of it. It would be an incredible travesty for our generation, stewards of the Information Age, not to take advantage of the wealth of material at our disposal. Imagine how much more effective the 18-35 set of 40 years ago might have been in their protests and Civil Rights Movements armed with the vast resources that most of us possess today. Yet, we sit idly by and check our “Myspace,” being much more in the know about who’s going to get the shot at love with “Tila Tequila” than the healthcare or economic plans of the presidential candidates.

So here’s my question for you today: Do we read? No, really. Do we read? Do we stay up on current events? I hope that my supposition on this question is woefully wrong, but I don’t think that it is. Please prove me wrong. Black people, please prove me wrong. I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not encouraged at this point. To say that the information at our disposal is abundant is to grossly understate the facts. Recall Senator McCain’s gaffe during the YouTube/CNN debates last year (something about downplaying the significance of the internet and information technology) and it’s almost laughable when you think of how much access we have.

I’m not trying to take a moral high ground here and point the finger at everybody else about not being informed enough, because I am by no means as informed as I’d like to be. At times, my life seems to be a sprint from one activity to another, with meals taken on the run and sleep often caught up on at inopportune times. That’s actually one of the things I like about traveling. Not only do I get to interact with people from far away places and hear their take on things, but I also get to catch up on reading while I fly.

I’m fortunate to have a mother that incessantly clips newspaper articles for me to read and calls and emails me to “watch this on PBS” or “read last Sunday’s Boondocks” or “listen to this guy on “Fresh Air” at 4pm.” One such article shed an interesting light on some of the things that I’ve long suspected about Ronald Reagan. In his opinion piece on November 13, 2007, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert strongly suggested that Reagan’s campaign trail stop in Neshoba County, Mississippi was not nearly as random as Reagan supporters would have you believe. “I believe in states’ rights!” is what Reagan told them that day, implying that when it comes to issues of ‘you and the blacks, we’re with you’ [the good white folks of Neshoba County]. Recall that this is also the same guy that opposed Dr. King’s Holiday, tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and opposed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There is hope though. One of my friends that I least expected got on the topic of the Marriott bombing in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, and Afghanistan recently, and we had a short conversation. A few more of these and we might have ourselves a bonafide revolution. What kind of revolution is unknown. Perhaps a fact-gathering revolution, or even a stay-in-the-know revolution. So please, stay hungry for knowledge and leave no stone unturned in your search for the truth. You never can have too much information.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.