We Taking Losses...

So Iast Tuesday night, I got a call from my mama saying that my uncle was killed in West Oakland. I got the usual feelings… hard to sleep, headaches from thinking, wondering "wtf" just happened. But after a minute I started thinking about how numb I am to these situations. When people ask me how he died all I can think is, “How do you think he died?” Never even tripping off the fact that this isn’t normal everywhere. Before I went to college I thought that all black people had the same backgrounds and same issues. I thought that all black neighborhoods had crime, murder and ratchet girls. That’s not really the case. I remember a girl from Birmingham or some rural Alabama town not too far away asking me when I said I was from California, “Have you ever killed someone?” I was beyond amazed but I just didn’t expect that from a black person my age that I thought had the same background as me. My little cousin from Hayes Valley and I thought the same way. As we talked about our past experiences people would be so surprised and advise us to stay out of California.

The point is isn’t really that California, Oakland or any other rough cities around the nation are bad places. I feel like that there is a learned helplessness in the hood today. People don’t feel the system is made for them to get out or that it pays enough to make legal money. Why make a $2,000 in a month, when you can make the same in 2 days. This mixed with lack of opportunities and businesses in low-income neighborhoods make it hard to succeed. Most businesses in low income neighborhoods these days are corner stores. These stores are owned by Asians or Middle-Easterners, who hire family members and rarely hire within the neighborhood. Where do the people in the neighborhood work? That kills the chance of a quick and easy to get to job that you would have minimal paperwork. While I cannot discredit programs such as YEP that are in the Oakland flats, they can’t save everyone. If you didn’t graduate high school and have no prior work experience by the time you are around 23 it will be hard to get something worth your time. This usually leaves only a chosen few to make it out the hood and usually those people don’t come back to help. Somewhat of a Talented Tenth kind of idea, but the talented comes off as fed up sometimes. Yet, our hoods need that help. They need those role models. To be honest a lot of the adults that I saw every day were dope dealers and it seemed like a good job to me at the time. There is a huge downside to that life though. If you make it out, unless you had a pretty good plan… you have good chance of being old, broke and full of stories.

Long story made short is that we are dying out here in these streets. Around 100 in most major cities are homicides and a lot of them are black men around my age (23). Those people that are dying aren’t just bodies. They are someone’s uncle, cousin, brother, father. These girls out here hoeing is somebody child’s mother, sister or niece. I can’t sit here and act like I don’t know how it goes and why but it really doesn’t matter until its people you know and in Oakland this starts in middle school. I really don’t know how this could stop but I am tired of taking my losses. Some say it’s the music. Some say it’s the poverty but at this point there needs to be a real team put together to figure it out. Job training and good programs may actually help these situations but there are large issues with funding. Regardless of the reason we need to know how this can be solved. Its people living this life everyday but nobody speaks on it in class because it is only a handful that are street smart enough to talk about it. While some professors, professionals and student would like to believe that if you are in low income neighborhoods, on section 8, government assistance then you are just lazy. With me knowing people that hustle 17 hours a day, every single day, I can’t believe that that’s the problem. Thoughts?

Rest Easy:

Acorn Jay

Thomas
Chuckie

Georgio 

Velle

Diamond 

Fame

D.Craig

Brodie

Lil E

Johnny B

Trouble

Vuke and to every one else that took a loss... Comment them on the bottom if you like

Q.Young