DVDs with the Elders: Ibrahim Ferrer with Santería Faith
Above is a snapshot of the legendary Cuban master vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer telling the world about how he sees life in symbolic objects of the Santería faith. He’s in Ry Cooder’s acclaimed document, Buena Vista Social Club, talking about how he and his wife make sure the symbol in the altar behind him is properly fed, saying “Sometimes my wife makes him a meringue.”
In a single sentence he has told me that he and wife commune in symbolism. He is setting an example that we young people so easily overlook and suffer deeply. I am not adequately trained to produce an explanation but it has been told to me that the ability to function within a system of symbols that cause behaviors of vitality is the very definition of what it means to be blessed. In our modern Negro mega-church, “we” now “know” that to be blessed means having money and other signs and wonders of material wealth. This is the abomination of “keeping it real.”
Allowing our children to grow up in world without vital, traditional symbolism is at the core of any of the problems pinned on “at risk” youth. Nothing happens in anyone’s “real” world without an idea making it possible. This is why it is important to get our ideas together (out of Hollywood and Madison Avenue)—weave them together tightly and coherently into a mother’s basket to hold the sustenance that feeds our youth forever. The Black ways of warlike rebellious children lead nowhere without this inner revolution.