There's something about the light of innocence that glimmers in the eyes of a child. I've wondered about how my life would end, what twists and turns would occur, what adventures would I have but one thing I've always wanted is children. It's always been non-negotiable. I love kids. Watching them succeed and fail, stand and fall, and just develop as the years go by just brings a tear to my eye. What I don't understand is how anyone could ever harm a child, under any circumstances. I'm not talking about the occasional whooping, which I feel is necessary but has to be dictated by the circumstances in which it becomes necessary, something you have to learn and observe in your child as you mature as a parent. Sometimes hard discipline is the best discipline; but, as with everything, there is a line.
Child Welfare
The rampant child abuse and neglect that goes on in the world and definitely in this country is utterly deplorable. From the rape, molestation, and incest to actual murder and assault, what could a child possibly have done so great to deserve that? Personally, I feel that rape and molestation are the most virulently revolting action that can be committed against another human being. They not only ravage the physical self, but the emotional, spiritual, and psychological self as well. Fortunately, no one in my family, that I know of, has been raped or molested- Thank God; but I have friends who have experienced that, for some of them, it has completely altered, in their opinion, the person they would've been.
Some of my male friends who have been either raped or molested by males are now in some way now attracted to men. I'm not saying that homosexuality is wrong; but what I am saying is that, how can you forcibly subject someone to that? You have taken choice away from them; and choice is the most fundamental part of life. You have killed a part of them that is difficult to resuscitate. But the part that makes me so upset- is that it's completely unnecessary. What sexual pleasure can a child give you that you can't either a.) Give yourself or b.) Receive from another consenting adult? The only way I can even begin to comprehend it is as some sort of power mechanism meaning that you, a rapist/molester, feel so powerless in your own life that you have to assert some sort of physical power over someone weaker than yourself so as to boost your own pathetic ego. How absolutely pathetic is that?
Generally, I'm of the belief that God will sort it all out and that no one deserves to die; but, when it comes to rape or child molestation or child abuse, my body seizes up with blind rage such Jesus better intercede quick or there will be no need for intercession, ya dig. The recent news story of the woman in Lusby, MD who had "unwittingly" been living in a house for months with frozen remains of her dead children in the refrigerator is testament to the type of mental illness, depravity, ignorance, disillusionment, or perversion that we have somehow allowed to seep into our social consciousness. How the hell do you not know that your "missing/dead" kids' remains are in your fucking freezer?
It turns my stomach when I think of the dastardly reprobate who would dare to do something like that. These two girls, who the police believe have been dead for a year or more, would be 11 and 9 years old now and supposing that it has been just a year, what the hell could a 10 and an 8 year old have to piss you off so badly that they deserved to die? The woman, Renee Bowman, has an adoptive daughter, 7 years old who was also being abused and was the key to discovering the other daughters. We all have only one life…JUST ONE LIFE…and who the hell are you to take it away from a child? I just don't get it. As I'm writing I'm holding back the tears, because this shit hurts to think about.
Another issue I have is this Safe Haven law, that most states have which allows you to drop your child off with a health care worker, if you are unable to take care of it. I don't have an issue with that in general. I'd rather you give it away and let it live than keep it and kill it. But, in Nebraska, the law intended to protect infants has taken an unexpected turn. The Nebraska statute, which in the infinite wisdom of the lawmakers strove not to piss people off, doesn't give a specific age limit for the decriminalized drop-off and utilizes the very broad, very ambiguous term "child." Last time I checked, we were all somebody's child. Parents and grandparents have been taken liberty with the law and construed it to mean anyone under the age of 18. So, in Nebraska, you have parents leaving teenagers to become wards of the state because after 16+ years of more than likely doing a poor parenting job you realize that you simply can't cut it. I understand that there are some kids who are horribly misbehaved; but, the last time I checked, it's your blood flowing through their veins. Take care of your kids. Bottom Line.
Darfur/Congo
I was listening to a 60 Minutes podcast the other day that really reminded me that there was still a crisis going on in that region. The Darfuri people have been mass-murdered to an extent that can only be described as genocide. Even President Bush recognizes that; but, yet again, we expend our military might in fighting a war in a country that at the time was not an immediate threat while we watch millions of people be savagely murdered, raped, and killed. The refugees, survivors of these atrocities are then herded up into villages where essentially they go to die, generally because they are left unprotected or have sustained wounds, injuries, or diseases that cannot be treated in time by the very limited medical staff on hand. Millions of children are left orphaned in all the violence. But hands down, the most disturbing part of it all is the rape.
The Human Rights Watch has a 44-page report out detailing the rape and sexual violence in Darfur. The rapes are systematic and are designed to instill fear into the hearts of the survivors and their families: "Soldiers, militia, rebels, and ex-rebels also rape women and girls outside displaced persons camps and in rural areas. A 12-year-old girl described how an armed Arab man in uniform lured her and her younger sister into a secluded area by pretending to help them find their lost donkey. He said if we went with him he would show us. He grabbed me and took off my clothes to do bad things to me. My younger sister ran back to the camp…In another case, an 11-year-old girl was raped by three armed men when she went to collect grass with her 7-year-old sister. The attack left her so badly injured she had to be evacuated by an African Union helicopter to the nearest hospital for treatment."
"'The victims of these horrific attacks have little or no hope of redress in Darfur's current climate of impunity,' said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director of the Human Rights Watch. 'By failing to prosecute the perpetrators, the government is giving them a license to rape.' Despite the presence of Sudanese police – at least in main towns of Darfur – and a somewhat functional judicial system, most attacks on women and girls go unpunished. Survivors are often too afraid to report their cases and lack confidence that authorities will assist them. Even when women do report incidents of sexual violence, police routinely fail to register and properly investigate reports. Some police exhibit a dismissive or antagonistic attitude toward the survivors. In addition, police and judicial authorities are unwilling or unable to prosecute most crimes committed by soldiers or militia. For example, during a large-scale attack on the village of Abu Sakin, North Darfur in late 2006, government soldiers and Janjaweed militia abducted eight women and girls, brutally raped at least three, and forced them to walk back to their village naked. The suspects were identified by the victims, but to date the military has refused to hand them over to the prosecutor. In other cases, police openly admit that they cannot take action if the case involves the military."
CBS also reported on a secret deadly war that was going on in the Congo in the last 10 years. The genocide in Rwanda spilled over into the Congo after the "end" of that genocide. The war over territory and resources is tearing the country apart. Each new battle has brought rape and pillaging. The fleeing people have run to U.N. refugee camps which are overcrowded. Women are still subject to daily rape. "Rape is the norm…this is not rape because soldiers got bored… it is a way to ensure that communities accept the power of that particular armed group," says Annika van Wootenburg, the top Africa researcher for the Human Rights Watch. In one story, a young 24 year old woman was living with her 2 kids and younger brother when militia men busted in, tied her up and raped her one by one. They forced her brother to hold the flashlight so he could clearly see them rape him. They asked him to join in the very savage and brutal rape but he refused. They turned to him and stabbed him to death. They took the young woman and dragged her to their camp and forced her to be their sex slave and she was raped daily. She escaped to find out that her children were. Her husband left as is common of husbands of rape victims. And to put the cherry on top of this shit pie, she had been impregnated by one of her rapists. Pregnant, single mother of 3 now, abandoned- Where is the justice? These women have been violated by bayonets, broken bottles and are even sometimes shot between the legs. One of the top surgeons in the region has seen female patients ranging from age 3 to 72. The efforts to repair the vaginal damage are largely successful but not always, living women often barren, unable to use the bathroom properly or to even control their bodily functions at all. I can only strain to imagine the type of psychological damage that goes into having the essence of both your womanhood and personhood violently destroyed. And for the young girls, even before you come to know what it means.
All of this simply begs the question: What kind of a world are we living in? The answer, and the only one, I can really come up with is a world of disinterest, a world that largely is completely disengaged with issues that do not profit itself. America, in your infinite nobility and valor and Christian piety, how can you overlook this? But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because global issues only matter to America when we are either A.) Pretending to give a damn for the sake of public image or B.) subverting our main objectives of deeper global greed by continuing to rape the planet as the energy whores we are. For once, before I die, I would love to see the president be completely honest about where we are going and what we are doing.
Black Men
Now to everyone's favorite topic, Black men. This summer I had the pleasure to work with the Mayor's Green Summer Job Corps as a team leader. My job was to supervise groups of young men in various ecological and environmental efforts throughout the summer while also seeking to help improve their socialization skills and general livelihood and welfare. The youth range in age from 14-21. I worked primarily with the older young men who were all 17+ at the sites I worked. I personally supervised about 20 young men between the two sites I worked. Of these 20 young men, 3 were expectant fathers, one of a set of twins. And I asked myself, how does this happen nowadays? How do people have unplanned pregnancies? There a wide variety of prophylactics and contraceptives on the market now. We have the morning after pill, birth control pills, female and male condoms, most of which you can either get for cheap or free.
So I asked them, in as serious a manner as I knew how, "how did you get her pregnant?" All of them looked at me and laughed. And I repeated, "No, really, how did you get her pregnant? I know the physiological workings of reproduction, we all know that, but let's put that to the side for a minute. Did you just not use a condom, if so was it on purpose or accidentally? Was she not on the pill? Did she poke holes in the condom while you weren't looking? Did you bring your own? Did the condom break and just say was, "Ohh, it just happened man," and laugh. And instantly, I was paralyzed by fear for the children yet to be born to these young men, all of which are either engage or were engaged in some sort of illegal activity that could potentially put them behind bars and make them purely another statistic.
As a side note, despite the propaganda machine to the contrary, more Black men are in college than there are in jail, shocking, I know, particularly among college age inmates; but the statistics are kind of wonky, I'll get back to this. Funk it; I'll just explain it now. Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2000 Census, there were 816,000 Black men in college as opposed to 791,600 Black men in the total prison population at that time. But if you look at the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) analysis, their 1999 numbers show 603,032 Black men in college during that time. The discrepancy comes in with the fact that the NCES numbers are hand counted and total each and every student, it's "a mandatory institutional survey of all degree-granting institutions eligible to disburse federal financial aid funds (the overwhelming majority),"according to an op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun. However, when you dissect the numbers into a college-age bracket of 18-24, there are more Black men in college than in prison by approximately a 4 to 1 ratio. So ladies, you can go ahead and let out a little sigh of relief, we're not all locked up! (lol)
Something else I found interesting and will mention only briefly. Dallas Mavericks Small Forward Josh Howard was caught on tape saying during a flag football game for Allen Iverson's charity, "The Star-Spangled Banner' is going on. I don't celebrate this [expletive]. I'm black," while the national anthem was playing. Josh Howard has admitted to being a marijuana user and has had a few skirmishes with the law. When PTI briefly covered this story, I didn't appreciate the way that I feel Michael Wilbon attacked Josh Howard for expressing himself. His sentiments there, in my opinion, are representative of what most people of color during a real moment of reflection as to what this country has really given to them and have thought quietly to themselves at one point or another. I feel like it was a sentiment that needed to be expressed publicly given his semi-celebrity status and media-accessibility but I think it was honest and not just the ramblings of an ignorant, immature young man. Media have decried his comments as simply unpatriotic without giving any real weight as to the possibility veracity of his comments.
Parenting/Role Modeling
Sometimes, I just sit back and think about all the advice that I've given to other people that I really should've given to myself; but, I guess that's how it always is, easy to say, hard to do. In life, when we really look back on all the things we did that damn near killed us but didn't, all the pearls of wisdom that have been passed down to us, and all the silent moments of unconditional love and unwavering support that we have been blessed to experience, there are generally a very small group of people responsible for that. These magical, wonderful people, who have given us all the tools to live beyond our imaginations, didn't just come out of nowhere. They were made. They were forged by the fires of indecision, discrimination, retaliation, ignorance and hatred; but, they were cooled by the waters of love, patience, and tolerance. I realized that the things that mother and father have told me, have said to me are the things I end up saying and telling others, and the things that were said and told to them.
My family didn't come together by happenstance; no one's family did. It is a series of defined decisions that brought us to this moment. Each and every one of us has millions of great grandparents; if any one of those people had made a different decision, we would not be here at this moment sharing this moment. To me that's the beauty of the chaos of the universe, the infinity of possibility that we have to play with, if we really think outside of ourselves. I believe it's one of the driving forces of man. But while we cannot choose our lineage, we can choose our legacy and in doing so redefine our lineage. So many of us who were born in poverty complain about, how about we decide not to carry that legacy to our progeny and make the money that our parents couldn't make because they were too busy sacrificing.
Too often in life people forget the simple things. The simplest being that you are the one you have been waiting for. You know that change you want to make? Go make it happen. We can't choose who births us but we can choose who influences us. If we allow ourselves to be taken in by the sheep, then we are simply sheep; but, if we sit at the feet of the shepherd, we will become shepherds. That's why to me role models are so important. While my father was never rich, he never quit and always did what he had to do to make things happen. While my mother hasn't always done things the way I like, she has never stopped loving me. If you have someone in your life that needs to be loved on, love on them. That's what I tried to do in all my attempts to really be a mentor. I didn't always succeed but I have gotten better and I am getting better.
Anyone can mentor but not everyone will. So that's why it's so important that we take each other seriously. That's kind of why my experiences with the AmeriCorps Heads Up and Manhood Training Rites of Passage programs are so important to me. It forced me to be the leader that I said I was. If I call you for help, will you answer me? Real mentors aren't there to give you the answers; but, merely serve as a conduit for unlocking the answers within yourself. I think of it this way: I can tell you all day that the stove is hot; but you won't know it's hot until you touch it. Information without experience isn't knowledge; it's simply retention.
Final Thoughts
There are too many parents who never should have been parents, in my opinion. All life is sacred and intended to live; but I suppose the question is, live how? My response would be according that person's own individual plan for their lives; but, I suppose, the overwhelming majority of us never get to that point in our lives because we are simply too busy reacting to our sociological and psychological conditioning of the illusion of life as opposed to living in the real reality which is solely based on our individual ability to forge ahead and press on with our personal virtues, aims, and goals. It is the belief of the individual that makes the individual an individual. We grow; we develop; we mature, and the day we stop doing that, is the day we start to die. Let the world see your passion. It does the world a disservice to hide your light under a bushel.
