Have you seen the latest report which came out yesterday about the murder rate amongst Black youth being on the rise? (the USAToday article, the NYTimes article)
It’s not really surprising news though is it? We’ve all been reading headlines and statistics like these for over 20 years now which has produced a certain numbing effect. Are we making progress? Sure we’ve just elected our first ever Black President of the United States of America, but are we making progress?
This trend can and must be reversed. This problem has to be solved if we are to truly make progress in this country. There is no one solution or approach to solving this problem. However, there is one thing that we can all do today to help begin the reversal of this disturbing trend. And that my friend is to begin caring.
We have to start caring in the broadest sense of the word. We have to care deeply about the young Black lives which are being wasted in the streets of America. We have to care about ourselves more. If we cared about ourselves more then we would pay attention to how we feel deep down inside every time we learn that a young Black man has killed another young Black man.
We have to care about our sons and daughters more. If we cared about our sons and daughters more we would take an interest in the things that they are interested in. If we cared about our sons and daughters more we would pay attention to what they consume mentally and spiritually. It’s a fact that they care more about what their friends think about them more than what their parents think about them. Teenagers also rely on one another for most of what they learn. We should care enough about them to find new and engaging ways to feed them the knowledge that they need to survive in a hostile environment.
If we cared more about our youth as a community then we should all be bothered by how this makes us look as a community and commit ourselves to improve our image. These are the youth that we produced acting like they’ve lost their minds. I remember growing up I couldn’t just walk out of my Mother’s house looking any kind of way. OH NO! She wasn’t going to let me embarrass her and she meant that. With the eyes of the world on the Black Family now that the First Family is Black we have to care enough about our community that we don’t allow these young Black men to embarrass our community. It’s not their fault, it’s ours. It’s also our responsibility to do a better job of caring about them.
If we cared more about our youth as a nation we would care how this barbaric behavior is perceived around the world. We have made tremendous strides technologically as a country and we don’t care enough about the least of our citizens to teach them better. Our young Black brothers are products of a hopeless environment which could be changed easily if we cared enough to bail them out. If we cared about them the same way we care about the financial and auto industries we would put together a comprehensive bailout plan. How much do we really care about the rising murder rate among young Black males?
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