"CULTURE"

Culture keeps the youth going, we breathe culture, inhaling every single aspect of the word. Two syllables, and yet a lifetime of traditions and creations, merely our existence. Good or bad it keeps us grounded. Keeping us motivated in a society where being who we are, our authentic selves isn’t enough. Culture reflects the light of the soul at a time where homicide and genocide and even suicide effects our daily lives. Who are we? And why is culture so important to us? We are the voiceless that somehow manages to influence mainstream America. Without us where and what would society be? For example as a young Black woman from Flint, Michigan the idea that youth in Flint are being effected on a day to day basis subconsciously by crime, gentrification and or the water crisis, hurts me. It is merely a reflection of every other inner city in America. This is what keeps the youth grounded and ready to fight by educating themselves. For the pain inflicted within, it gives us the strength to write, to create, to envision lives worth living. Culture is the epitome of who the youth are and long to be. For it creates and shapes generation after generation. From our ancestors down yonder. Culture is Change. It is hope, resilience, joy, pain, it’s the imagination of every writer of every visionary, artist, poet, etc. Culture gives us, even in the toughest of times a taste of freedom. It is more than a word. It’s a lifestyle.