Taking Responsibility

This morning on the way to Church, my family and I were listening to the radio and the announcer was talking about young people killing each other for car rims. Apparently car rims are now new and improved and everybody wants them. There were so many disturbing things about this report. Most disturbing of all is the fact that kids are killing each other for material possessions.

As my family and I were having a discussion and listening to the radio, someone said something to the effect of “they make these rims and sell them to the community”. Somehow this was to explain all of the death a destruction that has resulted from these material things, these things that are not even needs. This explanation also suggested that someone had a malicious purpose for selling this product to this community. So the businessman is at fault for the killings. Not the individuals killing each other.

My friends business is business. If I make a product and a certain segment of the population buy it more than other populations, I am going to promote my product more to the population that will bring me profit. I don’t care if the population is Black or White. I want to make money. How on earth can you blame the businessman for kids killing each other? This is crazy.

People!!!!! We need to wake up and take responsibility for our communities and our children. I have heard civil right leaders and people over the air ways say over and over that they want change. The barrier to change is the system, they say. Ok I will give you some points on that, but how about the minor details of day-to-day living that we all have control over? Let me list some:

1 You have control over whether you wake up on time to get to work. It is in your control. You don’t have to wake up late and get a speeding ticket. If you do wake up late and get a speeding ticket that means you have to come in contact with law enforcement and once that happens suck it up, pay for your ticket and wake up early the next morning.

2 You have control over your children. They should be on a schedule. They should not be in street making themselves easy targets for the police who are “simply out to get the Black kids in jail”. Your children should go to school, come home, do their home work and have conversations with you. They have no business being in the streets coveting other people’s property to the point of committing murder.

3 You are in charge of your education. Go get financial aid like the rest of us poor people. Go to school and improve your employability. Then apply for the appropriate job. The job that matches your skills.
See the thing is all of us just want to talk about the bad situations. We want to rant and rave and get angry. In the end when we do not effect constructive change, we are our own jailers and our own prosecutor. We are our own worst enemy.
Do the hardest thing in the world and take a look in the mirror. Until you can get you act together this nation will just be spinning its wheels and equality will just be an illusion.