When I was young, I always wondered why so many men stood in front of liquor stores? It was a question that stayed with me as I grew up. I never thought of those men having a childhood. It seemed to me that liquor stores were the action centers and it was their jobs to be there. More men stood guard at the liquor stores than anywhere else in our community. I also wondered how many of those men had children in our neighborhood. I told myself, when I become a father, I won’t hang in front of the liquor store.
“I got mines, you get yours!” This song is sung for capitalism and it’s not all that bad with all things considered, but it is an unspoken phase song, as many who acquired a little money ran as fast as they could from the hood. We continue to have issue after issue in our community (maybe the talented tenth should have stayed) and after tragedies, our recourse is to march. It boggles my mind that we still need marchers and demonstrators to protest after a hundred years. And over and over again, the bell rings in my mind and says, “But what about the man, a man, true in form. What is his duty and responsibility?” Just the presence of a man has value, but that doesn’t translate in my neighborhood. As I came to be aware of this and other global issues, I thought it was better to stay local and help my hood. The lack of quality black men around me and my friends was limited in our everyday life. But we didn’t care, as long as we had money, girls and fun.
I noticed recently that members of our community were marching and demonstrating for Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown; I’ve watched the Blessed and Great Martin Luther King, Jr. march and demonstrate. I’ve watched dogs attack men and women and I’ve heard about Nat Turner’s march for freedom. It seems as if the marching has never stopped.
As a young adult, I was neighborhood focused, and responsibility driven. I made that my first mission. I started coaching little league football at #11 boys and girls club. I studied the game, learned the rules and taught young boys. I joined the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Some of the young boys had fathers, but many of them were fatherless, and had no day- to- day interaction with a positive male figure. They came to the club with their mothers. Some of their mother’s got real comfortable with the coaches which would allow for extra time and support with their children. I went to many of the young boy’s homes and schools. I mentored, coached, became a friend and concerned citizen. I would help with food and give hugs when life issues seemed to get the best.
As I got to know the young men, the more I wanted to help. When you get to know their personalities and life situations you want to help more. Some of them were funny, some were bad, and many were good. In this atmosphere you run across, as many as one hundred youth in a day, with great respect for our youth coaches. Our youth coaches are selfless men and women who teach our children skills, team work and discipline at a cost to their own households. You watch these young men grow and move onto middle and high school, and some to jail. Soon, you start to hear the wailing of their mothers as the teenage years set in.
You watch these young men go from innocent 8 and 9 year olds to sexually active teenagers. This is when the pain comes with bone crushing pressure. This pain has been felt for decades in my community. Death calls and announcements – a numbing effect. So much so, you become use to it.
When I received a call that Devan got killed, and Brandon got killed, and Pookie got killed and Omar got killed, each time I was at a loss for words, looking for answers, trying to hold back tears. The caller would tell you what they heard or thought. What you get over an again is young lives lost. These young men were part of a Pop Warner Regional Championship team, and they lost their lives. I found each of these young men special in their own way. How was this even possible? These young men were part of a youth championship team! Young lives gone too soon, yet this happens too much. And I ask again, “What about the men, true in form, what are their duties and responsibilities?”
A couple of years ago, I was taking about five children home and a lady in a stretched Mercedes Benz motioned to me with her hands prompting a conversation. I rolled down my window and asked, “Ma’am, what you say?”
She was dressed in haute couture. She had on a light blue suit jacket and I couldn’t tell whether it was pants or a skirt. Pearls graced her neck.
“Why, why?” she asked, with tears flowing down her face.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
She was well kept and didn’t look like she was from my neighborhood, with the pearls and that high quality suit. She could have been a product of Jack and Jill or The Links, not the hood.
“Why?” she screamed.
“Why what, ma’am?” I asked. As tears were rolling down her face, she said, “They keep killing our boys, why?” She continued, “They keep taking our boys and men, why? They keep killing our boys and nothing is being done. My God, why?” By this time we were holding up traffic and the horns were blowing.
“Ma’am, I don’t know, please calm down, you may need to pull to the side,” I said.
“They keep doing it over and over and no one can stop them!” she said.
“It’s gonna be ok, please calm down,” I said. She shook her head and pulled off. This encounter was the same day of the Trayvon Martin murder – trial verdict.
I knew she was talking about Trayvon Martin and I understood. But what I didn’t understand and what bothered me concerning it was this, Zimmerman didn’t introduce himself to Trayvon Martin. There are rules of engagement even for neighborhood watch groups, but sometime rules don’t apply. Instead this is how it went.
Zimmerman calls cops “…. There’s a real suspicious guy.” He also says, “…. These assholes, they always get away…” Then he says “….Shit, he’s running…”
Dispatcher: “He’s running? Which way is he running?” “…… Are you following him?”
Zimmerman: “Yeah.”
Again, how do you follow someone, whom you just called a “kid” but not introduce yourself, without scaring the “kid?” Then 3 minutes after he hangs up with police, Trayvon gets shot in the chest.
This is the reason why she was crying so hard, but many mothers even before Emmett Till and after Trayvon Martin’s mom, have cried. And the jurors said, it was okay because of the Stand Your Ground law, and I ask, “what ground would that have been? “ To pursue, catch and kill? We’ve been marching about this for a long time. Trayvon had his father in his life, but the community that he was a part of has little value in the world; when men in our community get killed in record numbers, go to jail in record numbers and stand in front of liquors stores in record numbers. You could understand why there is so much pain. And again, I ask, “What is the true value of a man?”