Forgive any typos, all I have is my iPad mini today.
At any rate, last night I was going through downtown on a bus and came across an all too familiar scene: crime tape surrounding a bus stop, news cameras on the other side of the street and a few cops who appeared to be crying.
I got off at my stop to catch the next bus and seen a group of kids going south and I told them to stay up this way because they still hadn’t caught the guy according to a transit cop I talked to.
It was a 35yr old man who was shot and as far as I know he actually survived it.
The kids surmised that it was probably gang related and they seemed to be wearing their “colors” as well, I asked them if they were gang related and they said yes. I asked them why they were so willing to throw their lives away and make sure that the white community could point their fingers at us and say “See they’re nothing but a bunch of animals killing each other over nothing” well the kids said it was about “the hood and respect” I asked them who they thought could possibly respect them, they had no jobs, sold drugs, hurt others and ruined so many other lives. Well they said if they didn’t, someone would do it to them, and they’re probably right.
Two of the kids said they’d do anything to get out of it but they had nowhere to go, no one to go to who lived a differently. I got their numbers and emails and caught my bus… And I wondered just how many other children didn’t see any other way out, or how many just wanted to be a child, and how many of them had no hope for any future.
Well this one I have to blame on the parents, if they were watching, teaching, and guiding their children. We wouldn’t have this crap going on. Sorry but it’s true. I raised 7 kids, 7 siblings on occasion and 43 foster kids here and there. I have one son who is in prison for the dumbest crap but he’s a hard head who would have probably been dead right now if I didn’t keep my foot in his butt through his teen years. The rest are married, except one, they have kids, jobs, and don’t hit or hurt their spouses or kids and contribute to society, so the decades old excuse that poverty creates these kinds of kids is absolute garbage. I don’t care how poor or rich you are, if you don’t take time to parent the humans you bring into this world then you are 100% responsible for how they turn out.
I am so sick and tired of the 99% v. the 1%, we are the majority, being poor is no excuse for being ignorant and acting like animals, plenty of poor people rose up, struggled and became something. Look at the pro sports players and usually they have a momma Sherman who is still up their kids behinds keeping them in line.
Battles aren’t fought on the battlefield in this country anymore, they are fought in boardrooms, classrooms and courtrooms. They way to come up is to educate yourself well enough to enter those arenas, the best revenge has always been, and will always be: living well, but hanging on to your ancestors anger and using it for an excuse to fail is nothing but cowardice and stupidity at its worst.
Worse yet there are still cops out there in spite of what the media tells you that don’t see color: What they see is a kid who had so much potential laying there with his or her brains splattered on the ground who will never get a chance, they wonder what they could’ve done to save this one and they know sometime in the next week they are going to see the same thing and they go home and cry… but they show up the next day to work and hope that maybe today they can save just one, or maybe make a change for someone in the middle of this storm we call life.
I go to the Rez and see my family drugged out, alcoholic, child beating, woman beating, remnants of a proud people that once were Warriors talking about oh the white man took our lands and they don’t give us anything. Guess what? That happened decades ago and it keeps happening because no one is trying to better themselves, only blame others so they don’t have to take the blame. I have anger over what was done to my peoples but instead of being a drunk loser I keep struggling, I don’t always succeed some days I don’t even come close. I fall down 7 times but you can best believe I’m getting up 8, even if it takes a minute.
The art of war tells you you should know your enemy and I am telling you sometimes all it takes is a look in the mirror. Most of our biggest obstacles in life come from our own thinking, you must know where you are your own poison.
