By Demetairs Bell
Guest Commentator
Sixteen years ago, on October 16, 1995, Minister Louis Farrakhan called upon one million Black men for a meeting in the nation’s capital. This meeting was to a call to action.
During this meeting we were instructed to apologize to Black women for the unfair burden placed on their shoulders of keeping the Black family, church and community afloat. We were instructed to get involved in our children’s lives, participate in the political process, join a civic group, take a stance in our community, and rid it of guns, drugs and senseless violence.
Many of the social ills that affect the Black community were identified at this meeting: high unemployment rates, damaged school systems, crime, drugs, etc. After leaving the meeting I felt good, recharged, and ready to do my part to make the community — this country I live in — a better place for children that come after me to enjoy as I did as a child.
I’m a ’70s child. I lived in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul, the Jordan neighborhood in North Minneapolis and the West Side of Des Moines, Iowa. Some people would view those communities as a tough place to live, but I can honestly say the communities I grew up in were a safe place for children. Sure, crime existed, always has, always will. However, children were off limits.
Fast forward to July 2012 in North Minneapolis: two Black children under the age of seven murdered in cold blood less than eight months apart. On the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, gun violence is spiraling out of control, averaging more than 25 shootings a weekend. Many of the city’s mortuaries are concerned because they’re burying more children than elderly adults.
Black man, Black woman, this is downright awful. So often I hear people say, “Children are the future” or how much they love children. I say, really?
After the call to action in 1995, things did get better in our communities, but lately there seems to be some serious regressing with the emergence of a new enemy. This new enemy doesn’t care about anyone or anything that isn’t a part of whatever they’re a part of. It has been identified thatBlacks don’t have the means to flood our communities with illegal guns and drugs, yet this new enemy gladly partakes in the drug trade, which is largely responsible for much of the crime in urban areas inhabited by Blacks.
This new enemy doesn’t realize how they’re being played by the power players that allow them to turn the Black community into Beirut, thus causing many to leave the community and driving down property values, leaving the door wide open for gentrification. My questions to Black men and women are, “How much longer will we continue to suffer in silence? How much more running are we going to do? How many more innocent children do we have to lose before we say enough?”
There has been much talk in Black communities throughout America lately regarding how to address this wave of crime that’s literally robbing our children of their childhood. One tactic that has been brought up is to bring in the National Guard. Some oppose this idea for various valid reasons, one being that they don’t know when to leave.
Some people within the Black community don’t believe things are “that” bad, but I say to you, don’t fool yourself. It is that bad, and maybe help from outside the Black community isn’t such a bad idea.
I firmly believe we as Blacks have had ample opportunity to work out any differences and clean up our communities ourselves. However, that hasn’t happened. We haven’t learned and/or practiced conflict resolution, which is resulting in generational beefs. Personally, I’d gladly take some harassment from the National Guard about a curfew than to catch a stray bullet from someone that doesn’t know how to correctly use their weapon.
It’s admirable how other communities are able to set aside differences when it comes to the welfare of their children. Had one child been murdered in any other community over some nonsense, heads would have rolled. Aren’t Black children worthy of that same affection, love and protection? Or does saying, “I love children” just sound good coming out of your mouth?
The problems that exist within the Black community are extremely complex, and no one person or idea is going to fix them. I won’t pretend to have the answer, because I don’t. But just like in 1995, I’d like to be a part of a call to action to make the community I live in a better place for children to come to.
How far are you willing to go for peace? How much do you love Black children? Do you want Black parents to allow their children to play outside in front of their own house or at a park without the fear of gunfire erupting?
The time for action is now. We’ve already identified that guns and drugs aren’t manufactured “in the ’hood”; now is the time to stop selling drugs and using guns versus intervention as a means to settle differences.
My question is a simple one: What are you going to do?
Demetairs Bell lives in ??
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