This weekend turned out to be one of the bloodiest in the history of Chicago. Ten people killed and roughly 40 people were wounded in a weekend full of violence. You can check out the story here.
Also, a teen was shot and killed in Jamaica Queens. The murder was caught on tape, check out the story here.
There’s so much dying going on right now in the world today. At times we seem to be more focused on the GOP nomination and March Madness when it’s so much going on in our immediate environment. Society goes to crap when we stop caring about lives being lost to violence. Whether it is Trayvon Martin, or Aliyah Shell, a 6 year-old girl gunned down outside her home by Latin Kings, we need to care. Nothing breaks my heart more than when people stop caring about murder because it happens where they can’t see it. That’s a very dangerous trait in Americans. We move the crime into a section of town we don’t go to all that often, and we fight all our wars overseas where we can change the channel to keep from knowing that people are dying.
Here’s what we’ve got to do in our communities almost as soon as possible:
- Realize that gang violence is no better than it was 20 years ago, and it’s going to take a community to drive gangs out of neighborhoods.
- Enforce hope in our community. The reason why most of the violence occurs is because people lose hope that things can be any different than they are.
- Make sure that our local politicians know what the issues are in our community. Many people spend more time worrying about who is going to be President rather than who actually picks their Police Chief.
It’s a very critical time in our society. I don’t want to lose our communities across the nation. I want to do everything in my power to make sure that we have safe streets. I refuse to live in fear. I’m willing to do something about it too. Everyone have a great night, say a prayer and spend a few moments in meditation.
I had no idea that happened this weekend here! WTH…..
I do agree with all you typed above. We MUST do something, it breaks my heart reading these stories and what makes it worse is when the children are involved 🙁
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Great post Dr. J. I agree. We have to focus on our local government ie, councilmen and women, legislators, mayors, and senators as much as the president.
We also need to go back to the old skool mentality where we looked out for each other and didn't expect anything in return.
We need to get back to the days where there was a village raising the children…..we just have to start caring again about more than just money and ourselves.
🙁 I agree. Sad too, that the two people that killed Aliyah were just teenagers.
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If we are going to address economic empowerment in the Black community, we have to address the current crime situation. Right now, our current environment has a lot of people just running their mouth about the issue. You got some African-Americans referencing our Black youth with the n-word and saying they are out of control and have no respect for life. Then you have the other cats in denial saying the hood is not that bad and ignore the high amount of unreported rape and robberies that go on every day. No matter which way anybody thinks or run their mouth, crime does go on in the hood and the real discussion is finding a solution.
J has a couple of points worth exploring too.
The one i care to comment on would be the idea that we need to grab the attention of politicians , and a great way to grab the attention of politicians would be to use our power to vote. Can't reason with a politician without showing him what he will lose.
Also we don't own our communities- we just live in them. Other races control the cashflow, and they have the politicians ear.
With drop out rates being what they are no one will be coming back with real business solutions. Real business solutions can give hope while we are creating jobs to return power to us, or even extend a hand to these other races to learn what they know.
And understand SMART business solutions are what we need, because we need to learn prototyping (and not just opening up a business hoping for the best), story boarding (instead of trying to explain your "hustle" to the next man), and approach it all with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) to better prepare ourselves.
annnnnnnnnnnnd i'm ranting.
*steps off box*
Peace
Truth!!! Need more power…
Truth!!! Need more power…
write-my-essay.us A good point but I have another opinion…