A Fair Response….

I was reading this blog and I felt I needed to reply with my opinion.  I was afraid though it might be a bit too rough and the comment wouldn’t be published so…The question this blogger asks; We should pull in the PHA, the police chief, the city manager, the school district, even the health department and hold them accountable for all the shootings and deaths we have had in Peoria.  Well, here is what I think…..

99% of the crime you speak of is black on black crime including the vile beating death of a 16 yr old youth who, by the way,  was breaking the law by simply breaking and entering into a house. Did he deserve the beating?  No. But bad actions create bad results and it is sad how this turned out, another black on black crime. 

Now you want the whole community to come forward and do something?  Great, I tend to agree because on the white side of these things, or great leaders only care about where a strip club will go, a new hotel, and the warehouse district which mostly is owned by rich white guys. Then in the schools, people celebrate that kids can march down the hall way and behave only after we have retired prison guards show up in the schools. Prison guards!  It has come to the fact to make 8 year old kids behave in school, they need prison guards to run our school hallways. I’m so proud.  How sad.  One the other side, our great leaders, mostly upper crust white folk, celebrate that the Civic Center only lost $4 million dollars last year.  My Lord, this community is worlds apart aren’t we?

OK, I ask where is the NAACP, the Black Policemen clubs, the black firemen club, the afro-American league of women, and all the other afro-this and afro that (or whatever they are called) ? Why?   This all reminds me of a speech a renown columnist gave in Peoria sometime ago, Mr. William Raspberry, a nationally syndicated black columnist spoke.  He basically said that most poor minorities, like the Chinese or Koreans (Asians)  come to this country and they take any job they can get and work. No matter how low paying or whatever.  They work hard and save and better themselves. They never pull a race card and they usually end up owning the business or start a business and end up helping their relatives and friends succeed.  It doesn’t take generations for this to happen either.  On the other hand,  Blacks, it seems, tend to hang out in the store front, stare in the window and wonder what they should be entitled to and why they don’t have it. He said this at Peoria's Black Achievement Awards dinner.  I would have loved to have been there and seen the faces on some of those people.  Don Jackson and his wife were there that night and he is the local President of the NAACP which by the way, collects funds and exist for the advancement of colored peoples.  Black is a color, so is white.  Where is their help?  Oh please don’t tell me of the token help.  When I was a kid in the 60’s, the most vocal group in this city was the NAACP and it was because of the times and the injustice that was happening then.  So killing black youths in vacant lots isn’t an injustice now?

This whole mess with kids started generations ago with baby's having baby's. (Yes 15 and 16 years old is a baby having a baby)  How come young high school girls, mostly black inner city girls, seem to have babies at a young age?  Go to any high school.  You can’t count on both hands the number of pregnant girls in school and how damn proud they are of it.  Then it hit me. Because they can!

There is no responsibility, the hospital bill is paid. There is no doctor bills, they get a med card.  No job needed, they get a link card. The father need not hang around lest he will have to support his child so he disappears and the girl gets more state aid. Kind of like the latest shooting victim in Peoria.  This guy had 2 kids and one on the way and yet, the paper uses his mug shot and he is killed by multiple gunshots in a vacant lot.  Not many hard working fathers go out like that. 

If the kid becomes too much, pass it off to grandmother. Granny in turn enrolls the kid into Head Start or Early Childhood Development. as a baby sitting tool.  On paper, these places should work and be an excellent resource for any inner city youths but they aren’t.  Of course they are free so to speak. Head Start has been around for what, 25 years?  How’s the quality of student our schools are getting by middle school? High school?  Well one only has to listen to a police scanner or visit our schools to see how that money went down the drain.  These places are nothing more than a money trough for black leaders, and white ones too, to get jobs and draw a pension. The people that run these organizations know this and this should be criminal but the wheels of big government and red tape turn very slow and as long as the paper work is in, the numbers are fudged correctly, they work like a chute. Kid goes in, they get paid, kid goes back to the dysfunctional drug dealing family.  And we wonder why these kids lose sight of goals and ideals. They are taught from the get go to take what they want and take no shit and most of the time this attitude gets them killed.

Are there hard working single black mom's out there? Of course but mostly we deal with the lower end of the spectrum. That is what makes the news. Those are the ones that grieve when their child is gunned down or beaten. Yes they are loved by their families.  We are humans and we all desire to be loved and to love but year after year of this hardens the public and while people may be smart, the public is loaded with idiots.  This is where you get people who seem to have no sympathy for a young black man gunned down who’s family says was just getting on track to straighten his life out.  He was just on the verge of taking care of his kids.  Who’s to say all this isn’t true?  Yet, shooting after shooting, mug shot after mug shot and the public hardens. 

Do you think I for one minute want life like this in Peoria to go on?  No way. Really, who would? I would love it if we could all come together and get things done for the betterment of everyone but again, we have labels.  When you label things, people tend to put items labeled into different places.

It’s time, for once, the entire community stand up and say enough.  And for a change, it’s time for the black community to stop looking through the window and take the lead.  Let’s start in the schools by teaching kids a little differently.  You have to work your home work to get an extra free lunch.  You have to understand that respect is earned before you get any in return.  You have to understand that choices you make, no matter how old, has consequences.  Most important, having a baby is a life changing event and that event will cost you.  You will have a hospital bill, a doctors bill, and damn, you may not be able to finish your higher education and have to get a job.  Remove the cuteness from having babies and maybe the girl will think about herself first instead of the guy.  And guys, you will be held accountable for your children and your actions.  Being a man means supporting the family you help create.  Being a slimy snake, is weaseling out of your obligations.  Yep a few new simple classes starting in middle school discussing nothing but life and choices.  There is no NBA contract, there is no rainbow when you have 3 kids and no job. 

Ah  what the hell….just my opinion.

UPDATE:  Hell I have railed on this subject many times and yes, I get carried away.  I could have simply put it this way:

A older white couple parks at the mall. They get out of their car and see 3 Asian kids walking towards them.  They most likely smile and go on their way.  Say they see 3 white teens in hoodies coming towards them.  Again, they may look and smile and assume they are college kids.  But, they see 3 black kids in hoodies coming their way, the wife double clutches her purse, the man tends to move quickly towards the door with his wife and both feel fear.  Why?  Today, you can replace this with an Asian couple, same thing, or even a black couple, same thing.  It’s all about perception.  Because actions are louder than words.