About a week or so ago turneresq had a diary about a Newsweek article addressing some concerns in some part of Black communities about Senator Barack Obama's authenticity and his commitment to "Black" causes. In my opinion he knows what is at stake in this struggle for a generation of youth. I've seen the results of growing up in the projects and ghetto’s where on the 1st and 15th drug dealers pulled 16 hour shifts. They were selling rocks to their classmate’s parents, brothers and sisters and terrorizing everyone else. The only time they took off during the summer was to go ball, and like Biggie said you either slang the crack rock or had a mean jump shot, luckily for me I had the latter (not the jumper but a mean handle, my jumper was above average but I was a true PG) and I got out of that life and that mentality using sports as an avenue to the Air Force. More below.
I say all of that to get to this, there is an epidemic in our neighborhoods and it’s the lackadaisical attitude that we have when it comes to lives of Blacks in the inner city. Bob Herbert of the NYTIMES has a piece here on how Obama went back to Chi-Town to address church goers about the death of children in the streets of Chicago from random violence.
Reading this particular piece of the article had me shed a tear or two and my 3 year old son asked me if I am alright because that is the first time he ever seen me cry.
Speaking to an overflow crowd of worshipers at the Vernon Park Church of God, Mr. Obama, a resident of Chicago, said:
"I asked to come here because I wanted to talk with you about the spate of violence that’s been robbing the city’s children of their future. In this last school year, 32 Chicago public school students were killed, and even more since the school year ended. This past week alone, two teens were shot in a South Side schoolyard."
You’ve probably heard more than you wanted to about David Beckham and Posh Spice in recent days, but not a lot about the deaths of these children and teenagers in Chicago. Black, Latino and poor, they are America’s invisible children.
"In one Chicago public school," said Mr. Obama, "a teacher was calling attendance, and when she got to the name of a particular student who wasn’t there and had missed a lot of classes, she asked if anyone knew where he was. And the answer she got was, ‘He’s dead.’ "
Over the past school year, Mr. Obama said, the number of public school students killed in Chicago was higher than the number of soldiers from the entire state of Illinois who were killed in Iraq during that period.
I know how it is growing up in that situation of guns, drugs and no hope. I know a lot of Democratic supporters have a problem with politicians and religion, but as a Black man growing up in times of oppression our religion and our family are the only things that got us through, especially being deployed from my wife and sons. The Civil rights were birthed in churches all over the South. I guess I am writing this diary because this is one of the reasons why I support Obama so much. He understands problems like these aren’t a Black, White, Ghetto, Suburb, City, or Country problem but it’s an American problem that isn’t going to get solved until we stop pointing fingers, and start lifting our shirt sleeves up and get to work.