Dr. Cornel West and Black Nihilism's Impact

Dr. West defines Nihilism first as “the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness.” Later in the article he says that mainly Nihilism is a disease. When I think of Nihilism I think of obstacles that have been put in place to deter and even in some cases stop the development of African Americans as a people. But I would like the reader to also consider the strength of one. If you don’t want to seek out a solution or listen to someone else’s ideas then we are going to slip further and further down the path of destruction. A good illustration of this point is from an article from Black in America entitled “Commentary: Raise a Ruckus, make a difference.” According to the article people became upset when an episode of Black in America aired that showed the negative side of the experience and the issues of black people in America. It illustrated children dropping out of school and black me who were in prison. Please consider why this made so many people upset and if you yourself would be upset? It is because we have been programmed to turn the other cheek and not look our problems in the face, and when someone brings those issues to the front it gets a negative reaction out of people. This is the main problem that I mentioned earlier the fact that we are not willing to change things even though they are staring us in the face. Instead of just going along with the norm in many cases we should do what the article says, raise a ruckus and make our issues more than just something mentioned in conversation or something that is viewed as an everyday occurrence that will eventually go away. Don’t make it simply go away, deal with it and fix it.