Who Is Fooling Who?

This summer has taken a number of young lives, especially Latin and Black males between the ages of 12 to 25 and the year is just half over. Many people want to point the finger at the police, the government, society as a whole. However, before you or I point our judgmental finger at someone else, remember there are three pointing back at yourself and me.

• We have allowed society to take the place of the Parent, via the schools, TV, music, and movies to the point that some are raising themselves as they run the streets until all hours of the night. It seems that the younger the parent, the more likely their children will be in the street, because they are so young themselves that they don't understand what it is to be a responsible parent. That grandparents are raising two generations of children because parents are in jail, rehab, in the streets or dead! I know that this not the case with all young parents. They need to be praised and honored for the good job they are doing. Although, there are many children between 7 or 8 to 17 in the street most of the times after 11p.m. every night and no parent to be found.

• We have allowed our children to become uncontrollable, disrespectful, unlawful, rude and mean! We are fearful of not what they will do to someone else, but to us. We have allowed ourselves to become fearful of our own children because it is so easy for them to get a gun in the street. That we have lose control of our homes, neighborhoods, communities, cities and country to the point that we turn our heads and cover our eyes and ears.
  

• The teen-age people know this and take advantage of it on every level, especially in school and on the street corner. Something else to think about, many kids that have a gun are not even gang banging. They feel that the police is not there to protect them, but only there to keep things from getting into the better areas of the city. Survival is their main objective, that they have no other way to deal with things but to carry a gun. Then you do have those that have an ego problem and feel that thy must be respected by killing the one that they were dissed by, But they end up killing someones grandparent, Innocent child or getting killed themselves. The mind set of many Black and Latino males is becoming like the Old West, "kill or be killed".

• Then the Supreme Court made the "bone head" decision, which allows everyone over 21 to own a gun. this is not going to effect the streets on any level. Why? BECAUSE ALL THE GUNS THAT ARE ON THE STREETS, IN TEENAGERS HANDS ARE ALL ILLEGAL!! It will make it easier for regular people to get killed with their own gun. The NRA and all the white supremest groups are jumping for joy. But remember there are more minority groups than white people. And even a majority of whites are realizing that we can live together with out hate due to skin color, religion or nationality.

The business world has put so much pressure on the common man and woman to work 40, 50, 60, sometime 70 hours per week, so that the business owners and stockholders will be wealthier. Which is making the gap between the "Haves"and the Have Not" that much greater. This why that our young black man have it so bad. Single parent homes, where the parent has to work long hours or more than one job is contributing are the problem that the Black community has continue to face since the late 60's .

When we as parents can not be at home to raise our own children, they are left to be raised by the TV, and/or the streets. There is a need to change our way of tinkling as it pertains not only to our families and communities but also in the way we have to make a living. God created us to be creative, we have become lazy and dependent on a few power hungry people to make the hard choices for us. That is why things are the way they are. God blessed you with a brain , us it. Be creative as he was with you.

I don't know what the solution is, but didn't God make us the steward's over this world? Didn't God give us a mission that holds us accountable to him ? What are we to do about it ? You know that He is watching to see what solution we come up with? He isn't going anywhere and neither are we. We are stuck on this Planet that he created, but this is our mess that we have to clean up before he give us something better!