Cattleprod, rather than a wake-up call

I woke from a nap with my tee shirt sopping and my head on fire: "Yeah, that's what we need. "Wake up call" sounds so wimpy. And haven't we had enough of those? No more symposia or panels, no more "outreach" or "positivity" concerts arranged by self-aggrandizing pols and celebs. Look at what happened to Chauncey Bailey, editor and chief investigative reporter at the Oakland Post. Look at the schoolyard murders in Newark. Look at the USDOJs recent report on African Americans and murder (as victim and perpetrator) and then look at what happens in the parking lots of suburban malls close to Section 8 housing, or a corner in Baltimore or a row of shotgun shacks on the southside of Atlanta or the northside of Charlotte and any given weekend and tell me (1) the white man's utterly to blame and (2) our leaders, our clergy, our educators...and our own families haven't utterly dropped the ball. Shame on all of us.

Bailey was a true muckracker--white or black, ignorant politician, greedy corporate leader, corrupt pastor or silly rapper--all were in his crosshairs. Yet it was a member of a black Muslim cult-gang that used to be about something positive who gunned him down in cold blood because he was exposing their drug dealing, murder and racketeering and financial mismanagement of their "legitimate"/cover business and social programs. Your Black Muslim Bakery was the cover indeed, and in the 1960s they were at the forefront of community self help. But of course like many black institutions, it became about the cadre or single HNIC who ran the ting, and not the thing itself. Slowly they descended in crime, and a couple of the pseudo intellectuals whose usual tack is to support every gold-toothed fool in Hip Hop, have actually stated that this murder was a "fatwa" against "bourgeois" blacks. WTF? But these are the idiots who our young people look up to for some reason.

In Newark, a group of college bound young folks, the kind of folks we dream about rising from difficult circumstances, are murdered on a playground by yet another illegal alien--out on bail for sex offenses? And he had teenag help--other illegals and another kid who should have been locked up long ago. Thank God Corey Booker's been out in front on this but like most urban black mayors and other pols (be they in the lame Congressional Black Caucus right down to the local city councilman or district attorney), he refuses to go the extra mile. We have kids who are bound and determined to act like gangs of animals. Thus they should be hunted down like wild animals. No excuses, no kowtowing to the community because the community refuses to "snitch." If the neighbors want a decent life then must it come at the cost of a their sons, nephews, grandsons etc who are committing these acts against their own people? Yes. Jesus Lord, it already IS? The strategy: we don't let the buzz-clipped steroid white cops do it. We must clean up our own backyards, take care of this in the "family" as if we were Rudi G, unfortunately. Black cops, black sheriffs, black judges, black prosecutors dealing with the knuckleheads and thugs; black teachers and social workers locating the kids we can save. Help the parents of the kids who are salvageable; flush the others. No doubt. Some people just plain have got to GO. What else can we do? What else CAN WE DO? God, tell me...

In the suburbs we now have our own hoods. Many are near clusters of Section 8 housing, but some have middle class families. The trouble is, the kids think they have to emulate the same thugs and thugettes their parents labored to escape with an overburdening mortgage. Gangs of pre-teens roam the streets, the strip malls, the McDonald's parking lots in communities all over this country...bored, nothing to anchor them, nihilistic as their cousins in the cities or Dirty South shotgun shack clusters. The result? Oh no, not multiple murders but hundreds of armed assaults, burglaries, sexual assaults. Our black pols like the arrangement because the population plus gerrymandering assures them safe districts even far out into the ex-burbs that were once either rural or lily-white. Surburban police forces are ill equipped for this type of law enforcement, and usually just show up after the fact. if it's an illegal immigrant enclave, forget about it. So what do they do? They restrict their cruising (God forbid they walk a beat or get on a bike) to protecting the affluent white suburban areas. Interesting, for as we all know, if you're white, it's your spouse who's more likely to cap your ass in the driveway or as you're jogging, not a black person. We are our own victims.

Please, please people--tell me I'm wrong or ranting misguidedly. Tell me that this isn't the reality we've created. I want to see some glimmer. However, you can't have patchworks of mentoring programs and this and that, blah blah and say "here's the hope, just pump more money into it." That's not going to work. There must be something twisted going on. Either in the people out here destroying their own lives and communities, or we who exuse it, look the other way, deflect or displace. People, help me. My heart's so heavy. I'm afraid even a cattleprod won't be enough to jumpstart my spirit..."