Respectable Negro New Year's Resolutions in 2008

For time immemorial, people have made New Year's Resolutions. In the spirit of this time honored tradition, we, in our inaugural year, offer the following--

Respectable Negro Resolutions for 2008:

1. We resolve that as a nation we need to stop saggin'. Stated differently, these United States of America need to stop showing their collective asses and looking raggedy to the rest of the world;
2. We resolve to ask ourselves if they are laughing with us, as opposed to at us? Do "they" really get our jokes?
3. We resolve never to support authors and pundits who profit from positioning black men and women as enemies.
4. We resolve to elect our leaders rather than have them either appointed by the media or be self-appointed. Relevant question: how in the hell does one earn the title of "black leader?"
5. Like the rest of the world, we resolve to get some Euros and to use them as our benchmark currency;
   
6. As black men and black women, we resolve to work harder to understand each other and to address our problems as a collective issue in our community;
7. We resolve to condemn all efforts to paint black folks as a monolithic ideological group;
8. We resolve to be more sympathetic to tragic mulattos (qualifier: this only refers to those who are truly tragic, and not to all mulattoes);
9. We resolve to be less sympathetic to self-destructive black athletes and entertainers;
10. We resolve to follow the example set by of our nation's leaders and to never, ever snitch;
11. We resolve to not frame our decisions and actions in response to white expectations;
12. We resolve to always keep in mind that, in spite of the success and power we might attain as individuals, we as Black people have yet to see success as a group in the promised land (A Luta Continua!);
13. We resolve to critique adolescent-minded music made by people pushing 40, but we also resolve not to praise mediocre music simply because it's "positive."
14. We resolve to complain to the management at local bookstores about their conflation of "niggerlit" with African American literature. (Candy Licker shouldn't be shelved next to Their Eyes were Watching God);
15. We resolve to learn Mandarin and/or Cantonese;
16. We resolve to do more for each other.