Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Look At Outrage And Then See Why We Must Stay Outraged.

I participated in the National Day of Outrage in New York City and gave out flyers on the reasons why we need a "Youth Violence Awareness Month". It was good to see a celebrity, Spike Lee, participate and speak to the media about this plague. One of the most chilling moments of the rally came when a wooden coffin was rolled out into the center of Times Square and its metaphoric message was clear. The coffin was a symbol of the past, present and future. For all the kids already gunned down, lying presently in funeral homes and for the ones who will be killed tomorrow, next week and next year if this epidemic is not stopped.

I was disappointed that there weren't more people. There wasn't that big a turnout in New York and from what I saw in the news from St. Louis and Cleveland, they could have used more support, also. What I know is that it is OUR young that are dying in vast numbers and it is at the hands of people who look exactly like them. It is us killing us and until WE decided enough is enough and stand up and fight this, the shootings and killings will not stop. It brings me back to a comment I read on a website when it reported Derrion Albert's death in Chicago. The person leaving the comment said he didn't care because it was "just another black kid" that was killed. It's as though he felt that the lives of Black people don't matter. And if we, as people of color, Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow do not care about our youth dying on the new killing fields that are the urban streets, then why should anybody else?





Ironically, on the same day as the Day Of Outrage, the NYPD busted a gun ring pipeline running weapons from Florida to New York. Two Brooklyn men, (who look exactly like us by the way) were arrested for allegedly buying guns down south and selling them on the streets of New York. It was said a handgun selling for $200 in Florida can go for as much as a thousand bucks on the streets of Crown Heights and the South Bronx. So as one of the signs someone was holding said yesterday, GUNS HAVE BECOME THE NEW CRACK.

1 comment:

  1. I don't want to minimize the integrity and the importance of having a Day of Outrage.We pay homage to the lost lives taken prematurely by gun violence and as we should do. The next step is vital and crucial in going past the understanding of what is being permeated in our communities.As Brother Batista has stated that Guns have become the NEW CRACK! What does that mean? Does it mean that we have an epidemic of grandious proportions, strangling the very essence of what we have become? the 21st century has played a horrible trick on us,it has left us behind in every moral aspect of what a progressive society should be.We are functioning regressively in a stagnant and stenchful vacuum.There isn't any responsibility and/or accountability for most of us. If there were we would have resolved this craziness in the 80's and if not definitely in the 90s, we turned our back on something that we chose not to respond to in a force that would have had this country take notice not for a MOMENT but for a LIFETIME.We played see no evil,hear no evil,SPEAK no evil and now WE are OUTRAGED? Let's be honest with ourselves before we go any further we know why this is happening? We ALLOWED it to happen We have to be the first ones to take responsibilty for the failure the besets us now with our children and NOW be accountable for what happens from now on. Change the thinking Change the lives. WE have a great deal of work to do and a very short time to do it in This has ALWAYS been serious ask Brother Batista.Let's start will a real and truthful education for our children.

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