Can you read past the sign?

Can you read past the sign?

I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.                                                   1 Corinthians 7:7 (N I V )

Bobby R. Henry, Sr.

     ‘I’ll work for food’, is what the sign read as the man stood before me at the intersection of I95 and Davie Boulevard. As my car crept up to him he smiled eagerly brandishing his aged and almost toothless mouth.

     As our eyes met I could not help but return the warm and sincere smile. The sun had bleached his hair to a dirty dullish blonde and wrinkled his face causing it to resemble a part of the Mohave Desert.

     We laughed for a moment as he joked about his missing teeth, I dropped some money in his hand and said “God bless you” and drove off.

     That man, as beaten and worn as he appeared, still had the enter tranquility to smile and joke about his condition making it that much more palatable for him to take.

     Yes I could see where he could have easily given up and become just another beggar, but his demeanor and even his dress no matter how tattered he was, he tried to have a neatness about himself; I guess we could call it PRIDE.

     Pride, where has all our pride gone? I’m not talking about the arrogance and the proclaiming of self deity, the all puffed up and nose in the air that prompts you to look down on others that which causes you to think that as the old folks would say, “Your Sugar Honey Ice Tea don’t stink”!

     Yeah, that old man had pride. The kind of pride so as to make you endure situations that would break the spineless backs of those who thought they were more better than he.

     What is causing us to misplace our pride? Perhaps we are confused and therefore we are confusing others to believe the confusion that we are caught up in?

     Right now, more than any moment in our history we do not have the time for being stuck on stupid, confounded by confusion, baffled by bull excretion, or bamboozled by bigotry about our political future.

     As a publisher of a Black newspaper I can feel the sentiments expressed in the old man’s appearance. Ragged and torn with craters full of pain and so deep in his face whales could swim in them. Pain personified on the outside but his suffering tolerated because the means justify the ends; the cause outweighs the afflictions.

     As a publisher of a Black newspaper my pain for the struggle is felt the most during times that are crucial to the furtherance of empowering and uplifting our people, i.e., election time. 

     Those of us in the business world know that this is an opportune time to secure the monies that can alleviate some of the bills created in doing business.

     Yet, for those who are suppose to understand this plight and be able to direct business to us, in the Black publishers case advertising, those people are spending the monies elsewhere.

     They do have that right and we have the right to question them as to their sincerity about supporting those that support them, especially in the Black media business. Our readers and our listeners need to see and to hear their messages in our Black owned media no matter the Party affiliations.

     Now if that message is not through our media, then we need to question what type of pride  does that person have.

     So like the old man, we as publishers will stand in the mist of troubles with our signs (newspapers) in our hands saying: “For the cause of empowering and uplifting our people, we will work for food”!

     “And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!                                   — Romans 10:15 (KJ B)