Black Lives Matter

“When I was a child I spoke as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things…”

    1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a young man, most households were headed by women. Strong African American and Latino women were filling the role of mother, father, disciplinarian, humanitarian and Santa Claus all at the same time.

Mothers would look out for each other’s children. Your mother was my mother and my mother was your mother. Everybody was one extended family and if you were acting the fool and someone’s mother came by, you would check yourself.

Since that time, something has happened to the African American man and woman. We no longer honor and respect those who carry the genes of our ancestors.

As I look out into communities of color today, I observe the condition of our people, especially the self-destructive behavior of women and children sleeping out on the streets and eating out of trash dumpsters. I wonder if there is any hope, then I think of our ancestors, and I am sure that many of them were confronted with situations that they thought were hopeless, but they endured and their endurance paved a pathway to the freedoms that we enjoy today.

So, I know that there is hope and I ask myself over and over, “What can I do?”

No matter where you are, or what position you are in, there is always something that we can do.

I will use my writing to help lift my people from this devastating way of life that many of them have found themselves trapped in.

If my words can prick the conscious of just one, then I am hopeful that “each one/teach one” strategy will be the beginning of a moral revolution that will spread throughout our communities like a wildfire.

African man and woman…Latino sisters and brothers… sometimes the truth can be a very bitter pill to swallow but we have to start somewhere. So why not begin by taking a long hard look at the man in the mirror.

We have become our own worst enemies. Before we can liberate ourselves from anything, we have to first take responsibility for our own actions.

How can we expect others to respect us when it is we/us who are running around calling our women “bitch” and “whore”? And it is us who are selling the drugs that cause them to sell their precious bodies on street corners that eventually result in their contracting Aids and denies our next generation the right to come into this world with a clean bill of heath.

It is us who are killing our mothers, sisters and brothers over drugs.

Something has to be done about this out of control problem.

I have noticed the things that many of our police commissioners have been doing to try and bring this problem under control and I appreciate their efforts.

But, the police cannot do it alone. We need all of our politicians and religious leaders to come together and attack this problem from all sides.

Respect for authority begins in the home. So, instead of running from the police, we should be running to them with ideas and solutions to help them take back our communities from the thugs who prevent our mothers and grandmothers from sitting out on their porch and watching children and grandchildren play without being shot or killed.

It is time for all men, whether you call yourself Christian or Muslim it is time to unite and take back our neighborhoods from the drug-pushing thugs who have  taken control and who prevent our children from going outside to play in a safe environment.

Daniel Cummings #AF-4891