Hours after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11, I did what hundreds of thousands of other viewers probably did. I picked up the telephone to urge others to see the movie.

My first call went to my sister, a self-described “Yellow Dog Democrat,” teacher, and activist. I didn’t have to tell her to see the film; I know she’d go as soon as the movie came to her town. But I urged her to take my niece and nephews.

There was something in the film they need to see.

It isn’t filmmaker Michael Moore’s theories about the connections between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family. It isn’t the scenes in the second half, when Marine Corps recruiters try to lure young, under-employed African American males into enlisting.

I want my niece and nephews to see a scene at the beginning of the movie, before the credits, when Moore shows the U.S. Senate certifying the election of President George W. Bush.

One by one, African American members of Congress and their allies stood before the senators to oppose the certification of Bush’s election. They presented written petitions noting how Bush’s victory lay on the disenfranchisement of African American voters. When Vice President Al Gore, who was serving as president of the Senate, asked if any senator supported his or her petitions, each member of the House of Representatives gave the same answer.

“No.”

Why should the young people in my family see such a defeat? My sister thought the scene would teach the importance of electing black officials.

Maybe, but I am hoping for a larger lesson; I want my niece and nephews and their peers see what race consciousness really is.

True race consciousness means recognizing your responsibility to stand up for those who have less than you: less education, less access, even less understanding of the machinations that keep the elite in place.

True race consciousness means recognizing your responsibility to stand up to oppression, even though your resistance might be futile.

True race consciousness demands speaking truth to power.

Sadly, I think younger blacks don’t often see this kind of moral leadership.

Older black leaders, like Jesse Jackson, have failed them by not practicing what they preach in an age when one’s indiscretions can appear on a website — and the national news — in an instant.

Then there’s Bill Cosby, who castigates the younger generation, as well as the underclass, with vile and stereotypical language.

Their peers, the new class of young celebrities, concentrate on “bling-bling.” I’ll admit the term is probably outdated. But the lyrics to hip-hop I hear still gleefully celebrate sex, flash, and cash. So young people look up to folks touting P. Diddy race consciousness: folks who think they advance the race by showing others how to live fast, glittering lives.

Where were they when the Republicans stole black votes to put their boy in the White House? Sampling beats?

Who where they talking to? Each other?

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, and the others confronted the white, predominately male senators who sat comfortably on their behinds and approved an election that they knew was illegitimate. These were people who hid their cowardice and cynicism behind rules of order.

It would have only taken one senator to sign a petition that could have stopped the process that made Bush the president of the United States.

Not one came forward.

And the representatives knew that before they came to deliver their petitions. But they came anyway.

They welded the power they had even though they knew the final outcome.

And that’s what I want my niece and nephews to see, so that when their turn comes to speak out —and it will — they will not hesitate.

They will remember those who went before them, and stand strong.

STORY INDEX

FILMS >

Fahrenheit 9/11
URL: http://www.fahrenheit911.com

ORGANIZATIONS >

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
URL: http://www.cbcfinc.org

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Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs