“Love Ours”
Over the the past 24 hours there has been a crazy uproar about the 9 year old that was killed yesterday afternoon. This story hits close to home because of a few things. 1. He was killed on 80th and Damen I spent my entire life in that neighborhood. I used to wanton the bus stop on 79th and Damen every morning in high school. 2. He was killed literally four blocks from my grandmother’s house. 3. He went to the school that was my elementary school’s rival. I saw a post on Instagram a little while ago that made me cringe. The post basically said that we as a people only speak up when the crime is White on Black. (that part I do agree with some extent) but then it went on to say that “we can’t blame the system we have to blame Niggas.” Really queen??? All these things that are happening because the system is doing exactly what it was designed to do and that was to create conditions that allow a 9 year old black child to be murdered at 4pm on a school day. We as a people lack the vital things it takes to prevent this violence epidemic. We lack jobs, proper education, leadership, opportunity, a healthy environment, mental health services, peace, hope, faith, and most importantly we lack LOVE. We have continued to fail our children because have fail to teach them what love looks like mostly because we as an older generation either don’t know what love looks like or we ave just written off this latest generation as the lost souls. . When we hear stories about young blacks being murdered by each other we never ask ourselves “I wonder who loved the killer?” We don’t even allow the story of 9 year old to make us pause and feel for a moment. We are so focused on getting our individual selves ahead that “WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO STOP AND CARE ABOUT A 9 YEAR OLD OR ANY YOUNG CHILD LOSING THEIR LIVES. Unless it’s someone close to us. The institutions/system that effect how we view ourselves are more powerful then we give them credit for. The Education system teaches our kids to be robots who don’t feel, just fill in the circle. The music industry pushes the violence and self hating music to the masses so if you’re not black or brown and you listen to it without losing value for self but if you are black or brown then how can you not look at you 18 or 19 year old skin and feel little less worthy than you’re white counterpart. If it doesn’t have the ability to turn the listener into a mindless zombie then it doesn’t get air time. Finally the Media/social media is an evil that seems to be growing. Do we not realize the images that we allow to be shown of our people have a long lasting effect on black self esteem? How many tv shows, news and social media outlets, teach our children about their real history? How many of them tell or children that they are beautiful, and smart, and valuable? Very few!!! We have allowed these things to condition our children to think that they don’t matter and then we in previous generations encourage and support the very same people and things that teach our kids to hate themselves. Hell a lot of us hate ourselves and don’t even know it. We have to learn how to love our people. We have to love the things that make us different. We cannot love the whole while condemning some of our parts. Love is the answer people. Not hate and damn sure not indifference but L.O.V. E
