celebrities are not our leaders.

There is this idea that the celebrity you love is the leader of all people. Celebrity is not synonymous with Leader. I do believe that clout allows for people to get their messages across more efficiently, but the fact remains that this does not qualify them to bare the role of leadership. For some, this can come as a burden, for others, the mere ego stroke gets them going.

I feel as though Alice Walker expressed it best, "...how wonderful to have a really old Revolutionary," and in this statement, I had yet to consider this idea of being able to SEE physically, someone who fought and pledged to challenge ideas and narratives to bring about change for the better, for our people. If our people, Black people seen Revolutionaries in their Senior, I truly believe that this cosplay and safe route of celebrity-ness would cease to exist as we know it.

The safe route grants you the privilege to challenge in nuance only and not directly. There is an art to curating the experience of nuance so that some understand and others do not but the overall concept translates.

Many people need an economic foundation and I believe many of us reinvented ourselves and learned from those before us and chose life over death in pursuit of happiness. However, there has to be an understanding that the lights that shine bright and flash on certain people are not responsible to lead you in any direction and that that power belongs solely to you. Many debates arise and sometimes I have to stand back and work to understand why people look up to others that have no track record of helping you, or those around you directly to put you in a position of security.

At this point, what is happening, is a road is taken and if it works, others follow to grant themselves their own economic safety. But also, the history we learned, taught us about leaders that led and fought and  each year and each day when an issue arises, we look for someone to lead us all- and socially nominate someone we celebrate for singing well or dancing phenomenally and force them into a spotlight to command us a whole, in the 'right' direction- somehow entrusting them to lead a people in a wage of war politically.

I am not defending those that I am not- I am expressing an observation and concluding that celebrities are not our leaders. That- is a fantasy.

Alice Walker @ 16:08 sharing her sentiment of seeing Revolutionaries grow old