WHEN BLACK MOTHERS NEED TO LET GO OF THEIR BOYS TO BECOME MEN

Before I get in, can we take a moment to observe the mother, what she represented, the language, the dress, the attitude? OK ... now for my POV:

I love Mom and I know she meant well but her MALE CHILD'S purpose was to protect his future and as such, his MOTHER. This is what MEN do. This is what Black folk have done since chained and bound for our Trans-Atlantic kidnapping from Africa. There isn't a time or generation Black Men and Black Boys have not had to step up and represent Civil and Human Disobedience to survive in The Americas. At no time in American History has the country freely extended Human Rights to Black folk. It hasn't freely done so to Hispanics, Native Americans and Indigenous Peoples, Women or to its own White folk for what matters. That being said, I can't honestly say I know all the details and background of this mother's intent but I do know it was personal, counterproductive and selfish to her cause of; "let some other kid get hurt and die and not mine" and all the while those others are taking the hit for her not seeing the Big Picture. The MAN in her child that needed to grow, evolved and experience what needs to be done is/was being crushed. THIS IS WHY SINGLE WOMEN NEED A STRONG MALE ROLE MODEL FOR THEIR SONS. JUST FOR MOMENTS LIKE THIS.

Imagine in India, South Africa, Mexico, Syria, Libya, Russia, Pakistan, China, Korea, Palestine, Vietnam, Columbia, Argentina, Poland, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Ireland, Egypt, Burma, the Congo, Ivory Coast, Haiti and I can probably list 50 more countries had mothers telling their children ... their male sons, to stay indoors, to STOP throwing rocks at an oppressive force that uses military tools to oppress them, kill them and their families and keep them in fear? To coddled and sheltered their BOYS ... their YOUNG MEN? The attitude of "NOT MINE" doesn't work when you are fighting for justice. This is the "sheeple" way of looking at life. She has in essence tamed and neutered her child into submission maintaining that only Martin Luther King Jr. is the way and light for social justice is the only way for pushing the agenda of human rights forward.

What needed to be done was she should have been by her son's side guiding him in a way (or out of the way) that had equal impact. If she didn't know how, then a person equal to the

challenge should have been by her side or had that person guide him. Be it mentor, pastor, boyfriend or MISSING FATHER. And just like people have issues with public shaming on the Internet, I have issue with the public castration of Black Boys to Men because we are too scared to "Do the Right Thing". You all do remember that movie right? No one left the theater saying how you would have told your child not to react and get involved then. You actually applauded the actions because it was real enough to connect to. If that was true then, when did it become fantasy today? Same actions, same scenario just absent the stereo.

This mother was wrong in her methods because at the end of the day, if her child had his neck broken by the Baltimore police and got off without accountability, she'd want more than a few kids throwing rocks at their oppressors. She'd take all and every attempt to Right what was/is wrong with the System. She coddled him into submission and this his Manhood took a backseat to a mother's misguided notion that what was going on was too ignorant, dangerous and un-Manly for him to experience. A warrior to the cause taken out by an unfriendly fire, a Mother from the inside. So now I have to ask, who was more dangerous, the Baltimore police for murdering a Black Man and getting away with it or a Millennial Mother not connected to the history to how she was able to achieve her relaxed two toned hair, hoop earrings, gold necklaces and watch, makeup, nails, high heel shoes, club dressed with a Love and HipHop attitude? Her agenda was to keep her Boy a Baby and let others do the heavy lifting while her stay at home and wait for the benefits to continue to rain down as those in the 1950's, 60's 70's and still into the 2000's are doing. Her excuse was that she didn't want her child to be another Freddy Gray ..... truth be told, he already is. I get it, she is a MOTHER but like all

things that matter and affect boys, you have to allow them to be Men, make mistakes and let them go.I used the word coddling for this Mother's actions defined as a disease. Yes, respecting one's mother means coddling, in my opinion, if a mother actions keep a Boy from becoming MALE or keeps the Boy so closed off to the World that he becomes stymied by its reality and easy prey for manipulation and easy marginalized as an adult male. This situation required a MALE point of view which would have allowed this boy to make a balanced and focused decision (i.e. a Male and Female perspective). Granted there are Men who feel the same way the Mother did or does and may have told this boy not to get "involved" but the only difference is that the Male would have represented "differently". This wasn't about safety for her child, it was about NOT letting her child make an adult decision to do what he felt was the RIGHT THING."I went because in the past, a lot of my friends have been beaten, killed, abandoned, hurt by the police—so I went down there just to fight for what I stand for ..." - Michael Singleton, the Young Man who was beaten by his mother participating in Civil Disobedience in Baltimore Md.

"We should applaud our young Black (boys) for having bravery their parents' have not." - Craig Schley

MY OPINION

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

There is one thing about being inspired. There is another thing about being inspired for a purpose of doing. Today was one of those days. A day for Doing. I often remind Black folk that our work is not done. Like any job or career pursuit, one does not go into it with just working for that day and then coasting on a days profit. There is  a point in one’s life when we have to choose between what is RIGHT and what is EASY. Today was a day for choosing what is RIGHT.

Twenty-four hours after the damning decision that cast cold stones into the hearts of the Bell family, a community gathered to express that although you were blindsided by the legal system, your community has your back and will not allow New York City, the State, a Country and quite possibly the World to witness how the NYPD and the New York City Justice System to create a separate Black or Brown rule. The role we all will play isn’t that of Revenge or Reretribution but of LOVE; a Love for keeping children alive. The community has decided that Black and Brown children are not and will no longer be defined as Collateral Damage as part of the rule of Over Policing without Accountability.

Policing is never the issue when talking about a community. Communities want Policing and look to law enforcement as part of keeping rule in a Nation of Laws, but the cancer that has grown, maturated and expanded has inflicted deadly damage to Black Families in great numbers and the only people who are most concerned are Black folk. Today’s rally is a reaffirmation that the NYPD and New York City will no longer get a pass. Every death will be deal with a series of political assaults, economic shut downs and civil disobedience. A declaration of commitment from Religious, Social and Community Groups and individuals were signed and a public understanding that sacrifices will need to be made for the many who walk the streets Disconnected from the reality that WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE to save the children of tomorrow.

“April 25, 2008, they killed Sean all over again. I’m still praying for justice, because this is far from over. Every march, every protest, every rally, I’m going to be right up front.”, said Paultre Bell. This is what the public will hear as the universal sound bite, which will be looped over, and over for days to come and as so, forgotten by the media and public often does. What the rest of the world needed to know were the words that followed:

“I may have broken down, but I'm OK. I was bent, but I’m not broken.” she assured the Ralliers, and with those words, the tears flowed throughout the hall.

Valerie Bell, the mother of Sean Bell spoke, “I didn’t go through labor pains with my son because he was born C-section. But on Nov. 25, 2006, that’s when my labor pains started. The pains that come with bringing life into the World. When a mother looses a child to violence or any kind of loss, she experiences those pains all over again. I felt my labor pains then.”, as she explains while holding her stomach.

Through out the rally, Rev. Al Sharpton and the families detailed and answered why it was important and necessary for the methodology before the trail and to the day as well as where the Community goes next. We learned how Youth organizations are helping, partnering and not being absorbed but given free reign to develop their own strategies to enforce change in the community. With emphasis on Non-Violent Disobedience, part of the rally was making it a matter of letting those who plan to participate, understand that people talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but people don’t understand him. So as part of the lesson of demanding Massive Civil Rights, we have to look back in history. Highlighted was the legal decision, which lead to the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 where Courts decided that there were no Black Rights that any White was bound to Respect. If you understand the nature of that 1857 decision and how the argument to support that law was applicable to the justification that Justice Arthur J. Cooperman gave as to why the NYPD aren’t responsible for taking innocent life and the reason why obsessive force was merited in the Sean Bell case, the decision sends a message that there is a DIFFERENCE between Black lives and White lives. Black Justice and White Justice. That we value the lives of "caged animals" in zoos more than the freedoms of innocent Black American citizens.

So all the while Black and Brown people were meeting peacefully, the City of New York is pumping millions of dollars beefing up patrols, having armed guards standing outside the homes of the attorneys and offices involved in the shooting, and having helicopters flying over Judge Cooperman’s house and while this happening, in a Peaceful Rally we are discussing meetings with the Attorney General and meeting with Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. So we all sit back and call to our Faith in GOD to give a clear path for Righting a WRONG and in “fear”, the NYPD cling to tax payer dollars to beef up against an enemy that doesn't exist. Clueless in understanding how all the training and military style conditioning has no purpose against a Peaceful people. So what do they do NEXT?

Calling upon biblical text, Rev. Al Sharpton tells stories or in this case, gives examples of what we will all face as people demanding JUSTICE, the rules by which the agents against positive change will use. How the rules change for those that question when the game all of a sudden is skewed against Black folk when their fairness is written out. How there will be times when those dressed to protect will test you by agitation and ridicule, but if you are in the know, if you know the truth in your objective, you can overcome it all without screaming or physical violence. The law is the LAW and Black folk will inquire, challenge, change and keep LAW. That is how it was. How it is and how it will always be because when you rest, somehow, some way, we can go from 2008 to 1875 in the time it takes to send off 50 rounds of bullets.

“It has always been a struggle to keep young men alive when the “wicked” are in change. You can find this in the Old Testament with Abraham, in the New Testament with Jesus and throughout history. Sean Bell was a good YOUNG man and what happened to him was wicked.”, spoken by Rev. Al Sharpton.

So now the commitment begins and from a cross section of Black and Brown New Yorkers are and have made the commitment. Now that Black folk have made the pledge to save Black Babies, it is only a matter of time before Asian, Foreign born as well as other People of Color will come along and JOIN once they realize that their children are next and need equal protect.

TIME TRAVEL with Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.

The mind is fragile. I work with it all the time. As a standard practice I try to check my thoughts as much as I can and I surround myself with people who will check my actions and words as well. My Momma told me when I was young that if ever I get in trouble, it would be because of my mouth. It was funny back in the day when my mouth would say something before my brain realized but as an ADULT, I now have the power to bring down PRESIDENTS or start WARS so its not so cute anymore. So not only as an adult but in this new-age a FEAR, there is a fine line between "keeping it REAL and keeping ALIVE. So it's not unusual that I’d be out and about and go off on a rant with no common sense and I hear, “HEY, you going there” by friends which would snap back into reality. I think as Black people we need a little checking because we do know we can all GO THERE. The problem is that when we do, and there is no CHECKER or LIFELINE to bring us back, we go all the way into a place where there is often, no return. This characterizes and stunts our SPIRITUAL FEAR because that "THERE" is also our ownership of our reality, the midpoint of one’s responsibility and possibly the one thing that defines your existence. Is being checked always a bad thing? That’s hard to say since we do not have the ability to foresee the future, but we can see into the past.

We fantasize about going back through time, the power of knowing what you know and going back in time to re-do or even drop knowledge to those close to you. A question like this you can find popping up at dinner conversations or job interviews. They look like fun games to play but it’s really a very dangerous thing to do. The mythos of time travel being dangerous is true because it cannot only open up the good in MAN but it can open up a DARKNESS as well. I’m not talking about Armageddon-type stuff, what I am talking about are the emotions that spill out of looking backwards into places sacred.

I like history. I've loved it since I was a child, throughout high-school (yes I was a nerd), college and I use to teach it during my post-graduate commitment to Urban schools. World Cultures, Western Civilization, Northern Africa and Middle-Eastern Studies, Russian History, US History and African-America History all were part of my teaching regiment and vocation for my students. The more I got into it on the teaching side, the more my Worldview changed and expanded and it wasn’t from appreciation. Once you look into what mankind has done to itself, the way Man’s very nature towards itself and others, you begin to have an underlining anger at the ignorance, fear, horror, exploitation, destruction, waste and manipulation we harbor. Then there is the trust factor. Since history is the rule of patterns and circular events, for the most part, the POWERS THAT BE come calling with the same “banter and bane” and as a historian you can smell them coming.

On the day we appreciate Martin Luther King Jr. I took a trip back through time. Looking back at a lifetime of King streets and boulevards, centers and squares, elementary and high-schools, the speeches and documentaries, books and theories, the audacity of past employers explaining to me why I have to take a PERSONAL DAY to celebrate the KING'S NATIONAL HOLIDAY and then I looked outside of my window watching some man yelling at a woman about her use of twenty dollars to buy groceries (they had to be on drugs or something because no one normal argues about buying food for the house). I think back at King’s beginnings, his original ambition and how it evolved into a reluctant Civil Rights Leader, how he was the center of the Sun, the hottest part and out from that energy he lit all others within his shine. I looked at how once that sun implored, many of those dreams and shared ambitions fell in upon itself into something less radiant yet just bright enought to still see the road to be traveled. Still there is the Hope but not as HOT or as BRIGHT.

We know who those people are today, we know those that continued the movement and still we continue to look back at the glory days as a reminder of what use to be, what can be, should be, and if we have the ability, to ask WHAT IS?

If you are a time traveler, your answer is No. If you were there at the point of origin you should either me MAD AS HELL or just MAD CRAZY. My friends and associates can never watch historical shows highlighting Black struggles. They often reply, “It makes me mad and makes me want to hurt some White people.” And so they avoid those feeling by avoiding their history. So who is really safe? Who benefits?

That’s the power and the flaw with TIME TRAVEL; you have to be careful where you go and what you really want to see and know. In all the Sci-fi stories on Time Travel, there is always that fear that to do it, and possibly "change" something, it would cause "catastrophic" events to mankind and possibly the UNIVERSE. The theory is the “Butterfly Effect”. But I think it goes deeper than that. I mean, if you physically had the ability to go back, would you just want to see or would you become an active participant? Now take that same theory but place it on a mental level, if you can mentally go back in time (history), would you just want to observe or would you want to be an active participant and "change" it? Fix it? Make it right?

Regardless of the effects, the change would in essence remove POWER for those that covet it and redistribute it to others (sounds like a REVOLUTION to me). The end result might destroy Man, Country or even the way we praise our Higher Power but the arrogance that it will destroy the universe or even GOD? ... HELLO PUT ME IN THE TIME BUBBLE, I'm going back to Carthage and chillin' with Hannibal.

Carl Sagan, the famous Astrophysicist and Astronomer once said. " I have mixed feelings. The explorer and experimentalist in me would very much like it to be possible. But the idea that going into the past could wipe ME out so that I would have never lived is somewhat disquieting."

OK so you know, I am talking about Knowledge and Memory and not wiping out the Human Race but it's all the same and relevant. Are we really just here acknowledging just the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. or do we Time Travel back and relive his existence. I was not born when King was alive but his intense ambition lives within me, my only frustration is, there are few that can brave enough to Time Travel with me to take on the fire hoes, the marching, the boycotts, the sit-ins, the real closed dialogue and the demands of being a Martin Luther King Jr.

Only Great Leaders Die (.... for the Cause)

Exhausted by the labors of the day
I became a physical casualty of a reality war.
My body ached.
My head pounding.
Visibly tired,
Too weak to continue,
I desired to release my burdens upon an angry world.
On someone.
Anyone.
Dump them into a box
Deep and wide,
One capable of withstanding the years.
A box to stand the tests of time.
To house excess baggage.
To drop my brother into
for he is heavy.
I want to be free enough not to ask the question often asked.
Is there life after death?

I see no evidence of such a thing,
The living dead.
I know because I wake and walk the Earth daily.
Talking, and not saying anything.
Working, and not making anything.
And praying, and I getting
Nothing.
So tired am I that its effect bring me full circle.
Circle into rings,
Rings into links of chain,
Chains fastened at the ankle
-- Balled and chained.
Weighted down by the human condition .
I struggle and pull for freedom.
Tugging away for just an inch ,
Until I can only ask but for one thing ,
"Sleep".

So they say
To sleep is to give up,
And to give up, is to die.
As a result I cheat,
and slave.

More and more,
Harder and harder,
Until the skin that is on my hands
Rip free from each finger.
And bones snap under pressure.
The pain from my shoulders arch into my back
Causing my knees to buckle from the stress,
Allowing my foot to tear free from its shackles.
Giving my all
To you.
My people.
My cause.
Sacrificing
Life and limb.


Only Great Leaders Die by Shazza Nakim
Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim