It is wrong to kill people. You see, I don't have to put a color or occupation in there. It is just wrong to kill people. It doesn't matter who is doing the killing, it is still wrong.
I don't like this whole turn we have taken as a nation. But, this is what we have been working toward. We all know that at a deep level, it is wrong to not adequately educate children in some schools because of economic conditions in that school zone, but it is happening every.single.day. We all know that at a deep level, it is wrong to see entire generations lost to reliance on entitlements because of inadequate opportunity across large geographic areas, but it is happening every.single.day.
We all know at a deep level that it is wrong to have huge segments of the population, in the most economically depressed areas, in the highest entitlement reliance zones, operate with totally inadequate family support systems. We all know that the likelihood things are going to turn out alright for the children is lower for an unwed teen mother already part of the significantly impoverished. It is lower for single parents overall, and it is abyssmal for young, teenage moms. We all know at a deep level that TV show like Teen Mom are part of the problem, and not the solution. We know that the children of these at risk teens are the ones that suffer the agony, but it is happening every.single.day.
We all know at a deep level that the complete absence of any kind of positive male role model during the majority of childhood is just a recipe for disaster. We all know that children that are never shown how to behave in a decent and supportive relationship, have no clue how to have one as adults. We all know that children that are never shown cooperative parenting or cooperative life skills, have no clue how to do these things as adults, or even recognize them.
We all know at a deep level that the continuous and unmoderated exposure to violent video games is damaging and mind altering. We know that children imprint deeply and with very little filter, and that they absorb and internalize. If done with context, guidance and oversight by parents, teachers, responsible parties, it can be enriching and expanding. When done in isolation, with no context, children convince themselves that the real violence they see on TV and around them, have the same rules and permanence of Grand Theft Auto. By the time their minds sort out the conflicting data, and come to a substantive judgement, they have to survive puberty, hormonal imbalance, rage, inadequacies, juvenile righteousness. Kids don't know better, because no adult interrupted their mind meld with the PlayStation and made them understand reality does not come with three lives, and they kill others, themselves and their dreams every.single.day.
We all know at a deep level that children raised without faith, and an understanding of a greater calling that is personal and available to them, grow stunted and selfish and absorbed psyches. If never exposed to a mythos that involves selflessness, piety, charity, faith, comprehension of something greater than themselves, they struggle deeply as adults to attach to those ideals. If never asked to join in corporate worship, or corporate morals of some kind, they struggle to involve themselves as adults. If never told that there is a definite right and a definite wrong, and that it matters to them, their social circle and their own self, they have no compass as adults. Yet, we are seeing children with no compass, no comprehension beyond their own self absorbed existence, throw away the next seventy years of their lives to crime, abuse and assault every.single.day.
We all know that if a child is not given community, family, belonging, a sense of concern for their well being at home where it is traditionally to be found, they will find it in the world around them. The reason gangs work are not because they are cool, it is because they can belong. People like them, look like them, background like them, concerned about them, wanting them, are a powerful attractant. And with the preceding background, there is no hope that the children will understand how corrupt and corrosive the situation they are being offered is. They just know everyone else is doing it, and when they are members, someone cares about them, at a deep level they have never before experienced. Want to know why gangs work so well? It is because there is almost no other avenue to fill the void in these children we are developing every.single.day.
There is nothing more powerful than the feeling of family, especially to someone that has never before known it. When you produce that feeling for the first time, outside the home, outside positive boundaries, outside of the norm of the society I want to live in, you get what we see. Damaged, broken, and horribly neglected children, by the hundreds of thousands, creating a tsunami of continued suffering, because they know no different, and can build no different world, because they have no different context. Chicago, Detroit, Compton, Harlem, SE DC, Baltimore, Houston, Atlanta, they are going to be different in 20 years, because we are creating worse situations and even more deprived children every.single.day.
Nowhere in this have I mentioned a race, because it is immaterial. Our children are not born knowing that they are black or white or Latino. They are taught that. And right now in America, they are overwhelmingly taught that that means they are different. We do it on the evening news, we do it in school, we do it in church. We do it to them. On top of all that I have already covered, we then tell them that they have differing expectations for something as stupid as the amount of pigment in their skin. We even do it among white groups, black groups, Latino groups. "You light skinned." "You dark." "Your hair is nappy." "Your eyes are weird."
We do this to them, regardless of their other situations. Then, we mix them all up together, and make sure they know who they can and can't trust. If you lock your car doors when you see someone wearing dreads and baggy pants on the sidewalk, and your kids are in the car, you teach them. When you generalize the homeless as unworthy, you teach them. When you comment about the news, and who deserved to have what happen to them, you teach them. When you see the cops and tell them to fear them, you teach them. I don't care what your motivators are, or what your perceptions are. You are teaching them to perpetuate that which you hate. And we all do this, all day, every.single.day.
Why do I focus on children? Because it is clear every.single.day. that we adults are not going to solve these things permanently, that are driving the shootings and protests and shootings and protests. If we want to fix it, and aren't just saying we do, because we are uncomfortable with folks knowing we are alright with how things are, we need the kids to be different every.single.day. If we are alright with how things are, we should stop contributing to the tension, just so we don't appear racist or conservative or liberal or hippie or whatever other you are afraid of appearing every.single.day.
We have to make our children better every.single.day. That used to be the true measure of American greatness, every.single.day. Mom and Dad worked hard, to do better, and give the best options to their children every.single.day. We, as a community, cared about and watched over our children every.single.day. We worshipped, we cooperated, we identified our compass, and passed it on to our children every.single.day.
Now, we are afraid to call a wrong thing wrong, because it offends someone every.single.day. We are afraid to call bad parenting bad parenting, because it offends someone every.signle.day. We are afraid to interact with others, because they are different, every.single.day. We have given up on stamping out drugs, because we want to lock everyone up over it instead of treating it, every.single.day. We have made things like prison, truancy, bail profit centers, because we can't bear the cost of our social failings every.single.day.
None of this is about race, none of this is about whose life matters. I don't have any issue with any of those things, except they do not address the leavening of the system that we need. We are abdicating responsibility, leadership and reason. We are giving ourselves over to wholly unsatisfactory and unworthy leaders in this election cycle. We have spent eight years demeaning and derailing a President that would be considered even more successful than any since Reagan, simply because he is black, and we don't have the balls to admit to our children so that they can at least put a name to the unreasoning hate.
We are not conservative and liberal, we are racist and we know it every.single.day. We blame the President for the shooters and the tragedies, and then imagine he is plotting to steal our guns. We publicly proclaim that we would shoot him dead if he tried, when there is zero evidence that anyone is trying to do that. We claim that the opposition hates minorities, because they do not want to continue the entitlement tidal wave we are experiencing, and we call them that, racist. We imagine slights where none are meant, we treasure up and never forget slights that are real. There is a zero sum game at play, and if you lose one point, you lose all, every.single.day.
If, and when, we decide to be better every.single.day., we will forge some common ground. We will decide that we cannot continue as we are on either side of any argument, nor can we fix it all in one step. We will identify areas of agreement and take them whenever we can. We will raise the tide for all boats, and make it so the tide is not feared, nor something you cannot swim against. We will continue to find agreement, instead of focusing on disagreement. We will all gain some, instead of all losing more every.single.day.
Maybe when this election is over, and whoever is in the White House is white again, we can get to governing. We can nominate and confirm Supreme Court Justices. We can pass laws. We can see something like government, instead of petty childishness. We can get past our failed leaders, our failed ideology and be American. We can make an attempt to not be African American, or Irish American, or Anything American, and just be American.
There is a long way to go to get there. But, it used to be the goal everyone had, every.single.day. Even Dr. King, and his dream, that was about us all just being Americans every.single.day. We have lost that dream, and it shows every.single.day. And it shows to our kids every.single.day. That part is the worst every.single.day. Can't we all just be Americans every.single.day? And if we could just consider everyone else at least as worthy of being alive as we are, ourselves, it would be so much easier to do every.single.day.
I mourn for the cops killed, the people killed, the children killed and the dreams killed. None are more important or more damaging than others. They are all wounds we bleed from every.single.day. We have to stop the bleeding and work to heal every.single.day. Because we do not know how many more days we will ever see, every.single.day. That ought to make it even more important to be something today, every.single.day.
GLYASDI
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