Why Bryan Wilhite Failed Miles Foster
The image below shows a letter sent to me by a young Miles Foster:
My guess is that this letter is over four years old. I can only guess because I failed to respond to the letter. It is my duty to document my shortcomings as a pathetic community service—because what I failed to do for Miles Foster is typical of what I hate the most about the captivity of the Black man in new-millennium America. The following paragraphs make an unrelenting critique of Bryan Wilhite and how his non-generate and degenerate tendencies are nothing special at all—Bryan Wilhite is a typical adult child of a “me” generation:
First of all I have afforded more attention to young Black males who have formal criminal records than young Black males like Miles Foster. I have contributed to the possibility of the deep resentment—the indignation—that young Black people who successfully avoid the “ghetto traps” might develop when they see how much attention straight-out criminals get while young brothers like Miles are ignored. My behavior means that I have no right to feel disappointed when a right, honorable young person with strong African features has very little respect for so-called “Black community.” Miles Foster made an organized, direct appeal to this community—you could not ask for anything more—and, with me, he found no extended family. With me, he found only disconnected individuation—the very Greek concept of the individual that is an abomination.
Second, I did not respond to Miles Foster because I am not a “big shot” who could help him in a manner that would impress the audience of a typical Hollywood Film. My knee-jerk reaction to Miles’ report and Miles’ expressions of gratitude was to dream of preparing a substantial endowment for him—or hire him as a summer employee to work at my non-existent bricks-and-mortar offices. Since I could do nothing so spectacular for Miles, I effectively hid my face from him. This is another thing I hate about Black captivity: we tend to do nothing when we can’t do the one thing we want to do. You know Mumia Abdul-Jamal is on death row—and he could have done 1000 times more than what I did for Miles Foster. I know this for a fact because I have heard stories about the objects Mumia makes by hand in prison for certain people with whom he corresponds. This was one opportunity to teach Mile’s as his elder that a Black man can do something even when there appears to be nothing. But instead of Bryan Wilhite thinking like a Black man, he spent his time thinking like some shit out of Hollywood fantasy.
Thirdly, because Bryan Wilhite was so egocentrically thinking of what he can do for Miles Foster, he failed to think of what another person can do for this young man. What I should have done was alert the astute, diligent Miles Foster to the existence of my extended family member Keith L. Charles, a Black architect with his own firm in Santa Fe Springs, CA. The second sentence in Miles Foster’s letter states, “It has been my life long dream to become an Architect and I have now made plans to attend the architectural school of m y choice starting Summer 2004.” Can Bryan read?
So these Blog entries are my personal therapy but I am more than sure that these public confessions help the community—especially the generative, constructive younger generation who are doing well and not getting any answers from us loafers…
This note is for all debts public and private.