July 7, 2004
Dr. B
As Intrepids will know, my younger daughter has been suffering from a bizarre amoebic eye infection. After four months of treatment we will go to Dallas and get the down low on response. Our prospects are sanguine, thanks to the treatment regimen of Dr. B: Frank Bowden, MD, FACS.
Did I tell you Dr. B is Black? No? I never felt the need to. He's merely Dr. B to me, the man who saved my child's eyesight, and probably her eyeball.
Am I making a point here? Sure. I rant at times about rap culture, and I even blaspheme the sainted Cosby. But it is all for good measure. I have faith. I believe Americans Who Happen To Be Black can achieve the greatest of life's rewards.
I entrusted my daughter's vision, her eye, to Dr. Bowden. He is the fucking Man. He is a corneal transplant surgeon, and the best his peers believe exist.
There are probably 1,200 professional black athletes, of all genres of sport. There are probably 400,000 black lawyers, 200,000 black doctors, 300,000 black architects out there. Likely more. Much more. I say look at the numbers. Where does your destiny lie?
Dr. B grew up in a middle class home, I'm sure. His daddy probably whipped him, like all good daddies whip their boys to teach them Right from Wrong, and he brought home straight A's.
Do those homes exist in the black community any more? Sure they do. I just don't see the pressure, the desire, for blacks to make their children achieve, and over-achieve, anymore. There is opportunity out there, of unbelievable proportions. I see a culture that once fought against all odds against racism capitulating, for no good reason. It stuns me, and saddens me.
How do we get back to where we were 50 years ago? I don't know. I get paid to think about more mundane things. I worry, though. I worry.