Be Your Own Hero

To what extent does our celebration of our past heroes get in the way of our being heroes or recognizing the heroes in our own time?

This question was inspired by reading somewhere the theory of ages in history (Age of Gods, Age of Heroes, Age of Men . . . As in: God = Lincoln, Hero = LBJ, Man = Obama - just to give an example that is wide-open to argument, but illustrates the point, I think).

Also, thinking about my own life and sense of impotence relative to my heroes (like my Mom).

Also, this post from Somebody's Daughter.

As a progressive/radical leftist, I might quibble with the yearning for capital and ownership of the means of production by individuals (rather than by the working-classes as a whole), but as far as integration goes, control of capital in the US is absolutely essential. If it is true that African-Americans are nary to be found in the hair-industry, then it is a sad irony that the industry itself was founded, basically, by Madame CJ Walker. I suppose it just goes to show that having heroes in the past doesn't necessarily have much meaning for the present. And I wonder if, under certain circumstances, worrying too much about celebrating past heroes (a la Black History Month) gets in the way of dealing with current issues. Is Black History Month a bourgeois scam to distract the proletariat from demanding change in their own time?