Tragedy & Hope of St. Louis, MO–Mike Brown

“That STL case was my hometown. In fact, the young man graduated from my old high school. I can tell you this. The bruthas I know ain’t behind a keyboard. For real. It is really time to take a good look at nation-building. We must understand that violence anywhere is a threat to peace everywhere. The destruction in our communities comes from us which allow others to continue the same devilish behavior towards our kids and adults. If we don’t police our own, install knowledge of self in the form of education, empathy and self-reliance how will we stand?

What foundation are we building?

From this forth, any destructive message in the form of entertainment, drugs, material wants, needs to be address and check. Enough of the bullshit. We either step up or step the fuck off and if we don’t see the need for true nation building??

Save the BS for others.

Save the I’m on for me for others. Because trust and believe other cultures are building nations.

They are building wealth, business, educational systems, spiritual base, and self-relying upon money that doesn’t jump out of the community every second of freedom. They believe they are free, we need to do the same.”

That above was a very emotional statement I posted on Facebook that came about from the regrettable actions happening in my hometown of St. Louis, MO. On August 9th, a young man, Mike Brown was shot to death by a Ferguson City Police Officer (part of St. Louis County)from mix reasons (stole some cigarettes, tried to grab a gun from the police car) From eye-witness the young man did not have a gun and even the Ferguson Police Chief confirmed this. What is striking was this young man’s body was left out in the streets, barricaded by policemen for 4 hours before taken to the morgue (or at least taken away from the scene). Four hours to which his mother and step-father look in shock, anger and horror.

Mike Brown was a recent graduate of Normandy High School and was set to start classes at Vatterott College the following Monday.

Now I will say by no means are all police bad, meaning all police are trigger happy. I must say that this looks like on surface and from initial reporting another young black man gunned down by the police. I know all have heard throughout the years of young people; young black people shot by police and private citizens under the suspicion of being a threat. St. Louis from when I grew up has always had a long history of racial tension ranging from worker’s plight for equal jobs to racial profiling. The situation is at a boiling point to which the real discussion needs to be heard..

“What are the reasons for such a tragedy, a continuing tragedy?”

One could explore this two-fold. First the obvious. There are racial tensions in St. Louis and it has not disappeared. People remember past transgressions of racial profiling and allegations of police brutality. People remember that nationwide cases of blacks being killed by police officers and private citizens using the “stand your ground” defense. No one forgets, the anger just settles for a bit until the next incident occurs. This time it is different.

This time the anger exploded!

This must be addressed, no longer will African-Americans will sit by and allow such transgressions to occur in their community. Any other minority group would have responded the same. I can assume that the majority White Americans of European descent would be angry if they believed a horrible event has happened with no other recourse to be heard. Sadly the anger transformed into mob violence, that is another calamity that has occurred, and it is still continuing.

Second we in the African-American community must continue but take a harder approach to the violence that has been plaguing our society for many, many decades. We must be honest with ourselves and fight against the gangs, drugs, apathy, poor educational systems, piss poor parenting that destroys our families and communities as a whole. We can not separate the two, violence is violence and the spirit of such must be stomped out. If some of us have no regard for each other lives, how would one expect another person, an outsider to have the same regard? It is our communities, our problem and we need to have ACTION SOLUTIONS!

If that means calling out rich, prominent African-Americans so be it. Nation building is not a foreign concept. Anyone heard of “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, OK?

Or the teachings of Marcus Garvey?

The Founding Fathers of the United States had such beliefs in nation-building, it is time for us to reclaimed that.

The conclusion..

If we want to call our Americans if we want to believe in such a belief of common brothers under one banner. We need to seriously have a discussion on race. That means leave out the personal feelings and discuss each other perceptions and own beliefs.

Discuss what improvements in communication and realistic education that is inclusive to all.
That also means inclusive economics, no more building the deck against one segment of society.
African-Americans need to hear what others think of them as well. Our kitchen isn’t the cleanest so a discussion on that, a real talk needs to occur. I will warn that our culture needs to be respected and because one is different from the other doesn’t mean that is bad.

It doesn’t mean something is wrong as the variety of life is a reward.

It just means we are different and that is OK. Money and resources need to look at as an equal value. With only knowledge of self and the realistic view of the prison and media industrial complex, we can sit at a table and discuss honestly.

Because remember, we are viewing more prisons being built, by private ownership and it has our face as the look of the tenants. We see media painting different pictures of us to make us look horrible, thugs, and dregs of society for sensationalizing news. Oh, rappers and piss poor entertainers we have not forgotten about you. You are on notice for the glorification of classless women, disrespecting women/mothers and praising money and drugs over life-sustaining qualities such as education, spiritual and natural mental health. You are part of the media industrial complex. We see you as well.
In closing, well as I repeated before..

“Violence anywhere is a threat to peace everywhere.”

I also think Francis Paul of the comic book Shadowkill says it best as well..

“Freedom isn’t just a word, but a way of life.”