There’s too much violence
in black communities:
Is there an answer?
Hint: Values Matter © 2017
Part 1
Every day, not one, but several people are shot. It’s our strongest reminder just how violent many black communities have become. Some of the acts of violence have been triggered by the smallest, the dumbest of arguments. Remember the woman on a city bus who stabbed another woman to death over a bump? Remember how one man tried to kill another man over a potato chip?
As Malcolm X might have said, “The chickens have come home to roost.” Translated, it means the failure of black parents to teach their children socially acceptable values is now coming to the surface to haunt the black community.
If it is true that you can judge a tree by its fruit, then, you sure can judge a parent by the behavior of that parent’s children. Maya Angelou said it so well: “All vices and virtues begin in the home.”
Not all black parents, but too many black parents have been failing to teach their children the following values:
• Respect themselves.
• Respect others.
• Respect for the property of others.
• Respect for life.
• They must work for what they want in life.
• They must put a premium on education, and it’s not an option.
• The must respect the law, authority and their elders.
• They must get God into their lives.
When parents fail to teach their children these values, their children will inevitably drift, they will hang out late at night, they will get involved with the wrong crowd, they will carjack, commit home burglaries, robberies, get into drug use, etc.
The violence in our communities is terrible, to put it mildly, but it’s solvable. It won’t happen overnight. It will take about 20 years for the current menaces to be imprisoned, die off, or settle into old age. The good news that is almost every problem has a short term and a long-term solution.
In the short term, the black community has to be more aggressive in protecting itself. We must set up neighborhood patrols that will work closely with the police. The community has to protect itself from black criminals who have no allegiance or love for the black community or any other community. Criminals need to know they’re being watched, and they will be “snitched” on. People can snitch anonymously, by the way.
The black community must not feel guilty about demanding long prison sentences for people who have proven they have no love for the black community. Popular rhetoric will decry the number of black men who are imprisoned. But most of the ones imprisoned are there because they’ve committed some very serious crimes against their own black people, up to and including murder. They’re hardly “political prisoners.”
in black communities:
Is there an answer?
Hint: Values Matter © 2017
Part 1
Every day, not one, but several people are shot. It’s our strongest reminder just how violent many black communities have become. Some of the acts of violence have been triggered by the smallest, the dumbest of arguments. Remember the woman on a city bus who stabbed another woman to death over a bump? Remember how one man tried to kill another man over a potato chip?
As Malcolm X might have said, “The chickens have come home to roost.” Translated, it means the failure of black parents to teach their children socially acceptable values is now coming to the surface to haunt the black community.
If it is true that you can judge a tree by its fruit, then, you sure can judge a parent by the behavior of that parent’s children. Maya Angelou said it so well: “All vices and virtues begin in the home.”
Not all black parents, but too many black parents have been failing to teach their children the following values:
• Respect themselves.
• Respect others.
• Respect for the property of others.
• Respect for life.
• They must work for what they want in life.
• They must put a premium on education, and it’s not an option.
• The must respect the law, authority and their elders.
• They must get God into their lives.
When parents fail to teach their children these values, their children will inevitably drift, they will hang out late at night, they will get involved with the wrong crowd, they will carjack, commit home burglaries, robberies, get into drug use, etc.
The violence in our communities is terrible, to put it mildly, but it’s solvable. It won’t happen overnight. It will take about 20 years for the current menaces to be imprisoned, die off, or settle into old age. The good news that is almost every problem has a short term and a long-term solution.
In the short term, the black community has to be more aggressive in protecting itself. We must set up neighborhood patrols that will work closely with the police. The community has to protect itself from black criminals who have no allegiance or love for the black community or any other community. Criminals need to know they’re being watched, and they will be “snitched” on. People can snitch anonymously, by the way.
The black community must not feel guilty about demanding long prison sentences for people who have proven they have no love for the black community. Popular rhetoric will decry the number of black men who are imprisoned. But most of the ones imprisoned are there because they’ve committed some very serious crimes against their own black people, up to and including murder. They’re hardly “political prisoners.”