Nostalgia

By: Kenny Johnson. A daydreamer, perpetrating as an aspiring writer, leaving a trail of ink from Jersey to Los Angeles. He has something to say. Let’s see if you can relate.

According to dictionary.com nostalgia is defined as “a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends.” Occasionally, I find myself in this state of mind more often than I find myself focused on the present. Whether it’s observing the cultural explosions of the 60s and 70s, the excess of the 80s, or something as simple as watching old episodes of Martin, I gravitate to yesteryear.

This brings me to a conversation I had with my man the other day. He said he wouldn’t have wanted to be black before the 1980s. Not that the 80s was the greatest decade for black people (a mixture of baking soda and cocaine had something to do with that), but in comparison to prior decades, injustices had been exposed, rights were gained, and opportunities to move up in the social and financial hierarchy of the United States were becoming a reality. The following decades saw more of the same, with hip-hop culture surging into and taking over mainstream America and so on. No need to go into detail, you’ve lived through it.

But with this newfound prominence, also came more exploitation and division. Not so much among groups, but among individuals. If you’re alive, you have to have peeped it. Shit, you’re probably guilty of it, I know I sometimes am. Everybody seems to be out for self. We’ve been exposed to the paper and now it consumes our lives. Unfortunately, it’s not collective.

This lack of camaraderie and unity is what I miss about the 1960s and 1970s, and would have loved to experience. We had far less than we have today, but back then we had one common goal. Everybody had their helmets on, ready to ride for one another. Back before the corner store was the Chinese spot, the Johnson’s that lived up the block owned it. Back when we were rooting for Mohammed and Jim Brown, and styling like Sidney Poitier (by the way his daughter bad as shit), Smokey Robinson, and thinking like Martin, Malcolm, and Huey.

How often do you go to the club and only focus on a good time? I know I always keep my head on a swivel. Not that I’m wishing for anything to happen, but it’s expected. In the 60s they may have still been lynching people in the south, but what’s the difference between catching a bullet from the law now? It’s about the destination; doesn’t really matter if you take a bus or a train. At least back then, you knew we would riot. Now we’ll just post it on worldstar or youtube.

My pop and uncles tell me of the good times they had growing up during that time. The originality and culture poured out of Harlem, Chicago’s Southside, the Chocolate City, and South Central, as well as other places. I didn’t understand when I was young, but now things are starting to come around.

So if they ever invent a time machine, you know where I’m going as soon as my vacation is activated. Some say we can’t miss what we never had, but most of the time we just don’t know what we’re missing.

Peace.