ride for me

What if it were me? What if you heard that I was unarmed and I died at the hands of a policeman. How would you feel? More importantly, how would you react? I would hope that you would want to bring those who took my life to justice! Would you be mad...sad...angry...hurt...or all of the above? What would you say to my family? How would you honor my death?

These questions are rhetorical but here's my point...you don't know what you would do because it has not happened. I would want you...because YOU are reading this...to do EVERYTHING in your power to bring justice to my killers. While I would never defend the actions of those who burn things and riot for no real reason, the voice of those who feel oppressed and ignored will never remain silent.


I would expect you to do what you have to do to get justice...the right way...BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.


4-27-15






I posted this on my Facebook page 4 years ago. I still feel the same way. I'm tired of seeing unarmed United States citizens being gunned down and their killers walking freely.

How Bill Cosby Divided Black America

*repost from the Root.com*

In the wake of the Cosby verdict, former Ebony editor-in-chief Kierna Mayo reflects on her “shattered glass” Cosby Show cover and how it highlighted a great divide.


Wednesday, when the news broke, my stomach reacted first. I was home writing when the CNN ticker flashed: COSBY FOUND GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS. The rush of emotions that followed was confusing, not fully placeable if you will. I texted a few friends (COSBY!!!!) and then I sunk back into my sofa, heart racing, belly in knots. What the hell is wrong with you? began the internal talk. I just wanted to understand the sensation. I needed to feel something less indecipherable. My nerves were a wrap; I reached for the vape.

Two years ago, after the soul-stirring funeral of a friend’s beloved mother, a glamorous, gorgeous, silver-haired black woman of a certain age approached me in a parking lot filled with hundreds of mourners. She stopped right in my face and grabbed my hand.

“I wanted to send you roses,” she said.

Initially, I had no response. I had no idea who she was, and no idea what she meant. I was frozen; struck partly by her unique beauty, but mostly by her odd comment and sheer intensity. Lady, I’m emotionally spent, I didn’t quite get out.

“Thank you so much. For that cover. For supporting me. I was one of his victims.”

One. Of. His. Victims. All of a sudden it clicked. She was talking about Bill Cosby. The cover she was referring to was the November 2015 issue of Ebony magazine. I was its editor-in-chief at the time. After a raucous debate about what image should cover our “family” issue, a staff member suggested The Cosby Show. The sexual assault accusations against Cosby had been pouring in by the day. First five women, then 12, then 30 and so forth.

As journalists, we were steeped in discussion about it for months; the entire black community had been. The problem was that there was a deep divide: those who were inclined to believe the women and wholly rejected Cosby’s social status as a reason to think he was incapable of the crime, and those who believed that white women, with the help of some black women, acted as agents of “the white man” and were all conspiring against an otherwise standup family dude, also known as Dr. Cliff Huxtable.

The magazine cover, featuring a classic shot of the original Cosby Show cast, was dropped with a press release, and before the issue hit stands I was being booked on cable news shows. The sweet image of that darling black T.V. family under an overlay of shattered glass (the crack began over Cosby’s face) struck a chord. As editors, we were attempting to capture a cultural moment: the Cosby Show mattered to America, to black America, but the black “respectability politics” that it trumpeted, for better or for worse, was being metaphorically challenged by the crimes of its star. Something about this perfect black family image was cracked, something was indeed shattered, and Ebony didn’t do it. But that didn’t stop the vitriol from coming.

“John Johnson (Ebony founder) would be turning in his grave,” read one comment from a reader. For some reason, that one stayed with me. Would he be? He was friends with Cosby, of course.

I admitted to CNN’s Brooke Baldwin that I hadn’t slept in two days in anticipation of the release. I knew that the pain, frustration and anger we held over the accusations against Cosby were deep and real. Wendy Williams asked me on camera if I felt physically intimidated by some of the backlash I was receiving. I responded half-jokingly by looking over both shoulders, and then explaining that it was exactly what I did walking out of my house to come to her studio.

After nearly a year of publically talking about the accusations and intently listening to whole swaths of black America debate the facts—and the feels—on that day in the parking lot, I was standing in front of a black woman who had actually been raped by Bill Cosby. Both of us already a mess from the service, we simply cried and held each other the way we both clearly needed. For about an hour, I listened to her story. Her young model-actress life. How they met. The what, when and where. All I could hear though, was the weight of her irreconcilable sense of guilt.

“I still feel so guilty,” she said, weeping. “I just feel like I really, honestly let black people down.”

She never wanted to tell. Not because it didn’t happen, but because “we need unity with our men.” She was sacrificing the self for the whole.

“Don’t say that! We are completely here for you,” I heard myself half-way lie. But is black America here for the victims of black men?

I re-posted that old Ebony cover on IG yesterday. And I’ve since confirmed that what I felt in the moment of his conviction was an emotional lack of clarity that actually made sense. Because there are no absolute winners here.

For Cosby’s victims, there may be some resolution, for his family—his stoic wife Camille in particular—there must be devastation especially now that Cosby is 80 and legally blind, and for his people, confusion. Looking at my Instagram, there is still palpable heartbreak and for some, frightening denial. Why our Dr. Huxtable? Why???

A few comments on my post right now:

“Fuck that metoo movement. I used to support it but its taking down successful black men and I’m not with it.

“This show will never be broken. It is one of the few things that was whole in Black history.”

“I don’t believe not one of these women.”

“We needed to see his shattered image. He is flawed! He is clearly capable of being twisted in spite of the contributions he’s given to our culture.”

“This cover is literally one of the bravest most amazing things done in media in the past few years.”

We were split and shattered by Bill Cosby. And I promise a single magazine cover didn’t create the maelstrom. After this verdict, the courage to face the truth about one black man and to really be “completely there” for his victims and for the countless other women who are sexually assaulted every year is our clear option.

Which way, black America? My profound hope is that with the Cosby conviction we have turned a page as a community. There was, sure enough, a time when we confused black genius, and the illusion of what is “respectable” with lived black decency, black integrity and black life.

Perhaps after yesterday, we’ll crack all the illusions that cover up great lies.


Kierna Mayo is the former Editor in Chief of Ebony and Honey magazines. She is a veteran cultural critic whose writing has appeared in national women’s publications from Essence to Marie Claire. Ms. Mayo was most recently the Senior Vice President of Content and Brands for iOne Digital where she developed and launched the new millennial culture brand, Cassius.

After reading this article, I wanted to re-post it here. Like many, I grew up watching Bill Cosby. From Fat Albert to The Cosby Show. I firmly don't believe that SIXTY women got together to come up with the same story. Bill Cosby is guilty. For some, that's a tough pill to swallow. I know who Heathcliff Huxtable was. I don't know who Bill Cosby is. I know what he did and what he was convicted of. For those that think he was "framed", I ask that you go read the deposition like I did. He framed himself. While I understand why people take this so personal, you can't defend what he did. I won't. He did the crime. Now, he must suffer the consequences. 

For those that scream "Free Bill Cosby" or those that proclaim his innocence, let me ask you this...if this were your mother, aunt, sister, or daughter that made these claims against him...what would you say? 

Freddie Gray and Baltimore...through our eyes (show preview)

WHO: 12 Radio Show - host 12kyle & co-host, Krishna

WHAT: Freddie Gray and Baltimore...through our eyes

WHERE: www.blogtalkradio.com/12kyle or (347)215-7162

WHEN: Tonight from 9pm-11pm est

WHY: You know why!!!!

Ferguson...Through Our Eyes

Tune in to the 12 Radio Show tonight at 9pm est to 11 pm est

Topic - Ferguson...Through Our Eyes

Don't miss this show. It will be raw and uncut!!!

More importantly...it will be the TRUTH

co-hosted by Krishna

(347)215-7162

www.blogtalkradio.com/12kyle

Ronald Reagan’s hip-hop nightmare

Since it's inception, one of the first things that hip hop exposed was the problems of it's communities. The infestation of drugs in communities has always been an issue that has been rapped about. I found this article and wanted to share it since we're talking about hip hop this week.

The hip-hop community is convinced Reagan oversaw a vast trafficking network during the crack epidemic. Is it true? You be the judge...

Ronald Reagan’s hip-hop nightmare: How an ugly cocaine controversy reignited 30 years later

Two recent films are reigniting a debate that was never really settled, not for everyone: Did President Ronald Reagan permit (or even facilitate) the sale of tons of cocaine into the American inner city during the height of the crack crisis? It’s likely that audiences of “Kill the Messenger” and “Freeway: Crack in the System” will be shocked to hear the allegations. The reverence shown Reagan, much of it bipartisan, shields the late president’s legacy from the Iran-Contra affair’s web of gun-running, terror support and narcotrafficking. Reagan, so grandfatherly, so esteemed, couldn’t have possibly presided over such criminality, right?

Right?

There’s a good chance your favorite rapper indicted Reagan long before these new films. That Reagan permitted or actively facilitated a massive influx of cocaine during the 1980s is not even an allegation in the hip-hop community — it’s accepted fact, political bedrock. And it’s not underground agitprop artists no one’s ever heard of making the claims; it’s household names, legends, global superstars.

Jay-Z has made the allegation multiple times, both on records and in print. On 2007’s “Blue Magic,” Hova, a former crack dealer, raps:

Blame Reagan for making me into a monster

Blame Oliver North and Iran-Contra

I ran contraband that they sponsored

Before this rhymin stuff we was in concert

Jay even flirts with American sacrilege and makes a faint equation with Osama bin Laden on his 2003 remix of Punjabi MC’s “Beware of the Boys”:

It’s international Hov, been having a flow

Before Bin Laden got Manhattan to blow

Before Ronald Reagan got Manhattan the blow

Long before al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center, Hov says, Reagan had already decimated the city (or parts of the city) with his “blow.” The parallel construction of the lines likens the two figures in a way. Jay repeats the accusation in his 2010 autobiography “Decoded,” in which he expands the indictment to involve Reagan’s simultaneous escalation and racialization of the “War on Drugs.” Platinum-selling artist Pusha T, signed to Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music, echoes Jay-Z’s dual indictment in his music, considering both the alleged narcotrafficking and the concurrent drug war. Pusha also delivers nice wordplay on “Along in Vegas,” with the line “Reagan era I ran contraband,” which embeds the phrase “Iran Contra” in the lyric about Pusha’s former life as a dealer.


Kanye West, arguably the heir to Jay-Z’s throne, makes the claim as well on his 2005 “Crack Music”:


How we stop the Black Panthers?

Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer

Kanye nudges the allegation into conspiracy theory territory, as many do, suggesting that the trafficking was expressly intended to quell black radicalism brewing in the increasingly desperate inner city during the 1970s and ’80s. 2Pac offered a similar theory on his much-beloved “Changes”:


First ship ‘em dope and let ‘em deal to brothers

Give ‘em guns, step back, watch ‘em kill each other

No evidence exists to support these claims, and the overblown propositions potentially distract from the ample available evidence pointing to criminality on all three fronts of Iran-Contra: arms sales to Iran, support for Contra guerillas, and the bringing of Contra-based cocaine into the country. The single surviving memo from Colonel Oliver North’s infamous “shredding party” reveals the administration’s arms sales to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism according to the Reagan State Department. The 1989 Kerry Committee report found that “[i]t is clear that individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking” and that “[i]n each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter.” The report goes on to detail how U.S. officials “failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua.”

So while a sturdy case can be made for willful negligence on the part of the Reagan White House to stem the flow of cocaine, the less defensible cocaine-as-social-control theory remains a popular one. Yasiin Bey (BKA actor/rapper Mos Def) offered his version on his 1999 classic “Mathematics”:


Nearly half of America’s largest cities is one-quarter black

That’s why they gave Ricky Ross all the crack

Bey refers to “Freeway” Ricky Ross, the subject of “Freeway: Crack in the System,” allegedly the primary conduit through which the Contras’ cocaine flowed into the American inner city. Two rappers, former Jay-Z labelmate Freeway and superstar Rick Ross, both derive their stage names from the Los Angeles kingpin. At its height, Ross’ coast-to-coast coke empire was selling half a million crack rocks per day. The LA Times reported on the infamous crime boss in 1996, finding that “if there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los Angeles’ streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was ‘Freeway’ Rick.” Ross himself claims that his connection was a CIA agent, and the CIA itself admitted to turning a blind eye to Contra cocaine traffickers in the 1998 report from the agency’s Inspector General, but theories based on a master plan to chemically subdue black Americans are too outlandish to be considered.

Before Jay, Kanye and Yasiin Bey were Golden Era icon KRS-One and Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha, whose 1998 “CIA (Criminals In Action)” took aim at the intelligence agency’s involvement in the affair. Forming a trio with The Last Emperor, the rappers offer a critique in the vein of Kanye and Yasiin Bey’s, but both broadened and more substantive than the latter’s accusatory couplets. The song weaves together postcolonial theory and critiques of neoliberalism, imperialism and the surveillance state to situate alleged government narcotrafficking in a wider web of power. KRS and de la Rocha exchange lines in the song’s hook:


You claim I’m sellin crack, but you be doin’ that!

You know the cops, they got a network for the toxic rock!

“CIA (Criminals In Action)” was perhaps the first substantial accusation of Washington’s narcotrafficking. Nearly 15 years later, the most recent lyrical assault of note, Atlanta rapper Killer Mike’s 2012 “Reagan,” echoes the song’s expansive critique and demonstrates that the anger felt toward Reagan has both intensified and spread in the intervening years. The song interrogates the national security apparatus, the prison industrial complex and racism from Reagan to the present, which, by including President Obama in the indictment, presents persistent Reaganism as the real danger.

“Reagan” is a fan favorite from Mike’s album “R.A.P. Music,” a collaboration with Brooklyn producer El-P that made the rapper the new darling of Pitchfork and other indie tastemakers. On Rap Genius, the song’s lyrics have been viewed nearly twice as often the next-most-popular song on the album. While the early anti-Reagan songs communicated the message among the rap underground and traditional hip-hop audiences, Killer Mike’s angry anthem is a favorite to a largely white listenership. In live performances, Killer Mike often recites the song a capella, despite the track’s bombastic production, in an attempt to drive the lyrics home to white, middle-class audiences. Mike concludes the song in concert by rousing the audience to join him in repeating the song’s last line: “I’m glad Reagan dead!” The crowd, a sea of raised middle fingers during the explosive coda, screams in unison this American heresy. Something is changing.

As Tea Party canonization brightens the aura around the late president for the right, Killer Mike’s “Reagan” reveals a contrapuntal, inverse reaction on the left and among many youth. In the age of Occupy and the Tea Party, diverging attitudes toward Reagan represent a widening gulf between political poles, between generations, between holders of privilege and those without. The anger of those left behind during the Reagan era is perhaps now an anger shared by younger Americans whose futures feel sacrificed to the prerogatives of those with their hands on the levers of power, whether in legislative houses or boardrooms.

The sea change may not be apparent to some observers of Washington politics. While Reagan’s legacy suffers rot and corrosion among black Americans and an increasing number of white youth, he remains unchallengeable in Washington. Even President Obama, the socialist bogeyman to conservatives, cites Reagan to justify policy propositions and endear himself to conservative audiences. Obama acknowledges that Reagan altered the course of history in a way that no one since Lyndon Johnson has matched. Some critics contend that the change promised with the election of Obama has done little to sway the general direction charted by Reagan.

Ultimately, as anti-Reaganism solidifies and spreads, the argument is not only about whether cocaine was allowed to be dumped into black neighborhoods; it is about who gets sacrificed in the service of power. To some degree, and we’ll likely never know the extent, black Americans were seen as expendable in the mad dash to illegally fund pro-capitalist guerrillas in Central America. The documented arm sales to Iran to fund the Contras made expendable an unknown number of Iraqis during the two nations’ bloody eight-year war. Reagan is not, in hip-hop parlance, merely a “dead president,” but a national metonym for power, privilege and a particularly brutal means of its defense. “They only love the rich, and how they loathe the poor,” raps Killer Mike in “Reagan,” a song that ultimately aligns a global myriad of the relatively powerless against the elite, symbolized by Reagan.




http://www.salon.com/2014/11/17/ronald_reagans_hip_hop_nightmare_cocaine_controversy_reignites_30_years_later/

Trayvon Martin vs George Zimmerman...12 RADIO SHOW

The verdict came on this past Saturday night.

I wanted to talk about it and what I was feeling. But I could not find the words. I had planned to do a blog about it. Then, I thought of something better.

Tonight on the 12 RADIO SHOW

Trayvon Martin vs George Zimmerman (a look at the trial and the fallout from the verdict)

9pm EST - 11pm EST

(347)215-7162  (Call in and join the conversation! If you have something that you want to say, call the show and get it off your chest)

co-hosted by Krishna & Tiff Jones

www.blogtalkradio.com/12kyle

online ignorance...

When was the last time you kicked somebody's ass? Think about it for a second...

I mean REALLY kicked somebody's ass!!

You're prolly sitting near somebody right now who's ass you wanna kick. If you can't find someone's ass to kick...lemme introduce you to Alisha Dean. She REALLY needs her ass kicked.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- A 13-year-old girl's sexual shenanigans have put a second man behind bars. Morris Williams, 22, told the judge he thought the girl was 18-years-old, but he found out Tuesday that ignorance is not a defense. Morris Williams' mother wailed as he went off to jail. The judge asked for media not to show 13-year-old Alisha Dean's face in court, but her pictures are all over her MySpace page and they portray a sexy, 19-year-old divorced woman.

"She told me she had just turned 18," Williams said.

Williams said Dean picked him up on the street and after a few conversations they had sex. When he heard she was not 18, he went to her father.

"He was like 'well, she's 13,'" Williams said of a conversation with Dean's father.

Williams said he never did it again, but Dean has done it before with 24-year-old Darwin Mills. Mills was sentenced to five years in prison. Dean's father wanted Williams to join Mills there.

"One of the reasons for the law is the fact that minors have poor judgment," said Jerry Dean, the girl's father.

Williams' father believes the jail sentence sends the wrong message to Alisha. "I guess we just sit back and count how many after this," Henry Smith asked after his step-son was sentenced to jail. Dean's family admits Alisha still stays out late and has yet to delete her misleading MySpace page. Williams will serve six years probation with the first year in jail. The other five years he will have to wear an ankle monitor. His attorney says he will come back to court to ask again for a shorter sentence.

Ok. She's obviously dead wrong. This is the SECOND dude who's going to the big house b/c of her freaky ways. Shouldn't there be some type of penalty for HER?? Why is her page STILL on myspace? What are her parents doing?

I can't let the dude off the hook either. How do you NOT know that she was 13? I'm not buying it. A 13 year old will have the conversation of a 13yr old. You feel me. You know my motto..."when in doubt about a woman's age...look at her feet to see what kinda shoes she's wearing."

Your thoughts. Holla at ya boyyeeeeeeeeee!!!

here's the video clip on the local news...

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhIwwD22Ivth8nMpXN#z

i gotta story to tell

Growin up in the hood just my dog and me
We used to hustle in the hood for, all to see
Problems, I called on him, he called on me
We wasn't quite partners, I hit him off my P
Met him unlocked doors, off my keys
Yeah we spoke, much more than cordially
Man he broke bread with me, my business spread swiftly
The Feds came to get me, we both fled quickly
Wasn't quick enough to jump over the hedges with me
Got caught, and that's when our relationship strayed
Used to call me from the joint til he ran out of change
And when he called collect and I heard his name
I quickly accepted, but when I reached the phone
he's talkin reckless, I can sense deceit in his tone
I said, "Damn dawg, what, nine weeks and you're home?"
He said, "Main man, you think shit's sweet cause you're home."
I just sat, spat no more speech in the phone
The crackers up there bleachin your dome, you're reachin
I said, "The world don't stop I've got to keep keep on."
From there I sensed the beef was on
I ran to the spy store to add some more features on my phone
To see if I had bugs and leeches on my phone
Can't be too safe cause niggaz is two-faced
And they show the other side when they catch a new case
It's on

Jay Z (A Week Ago)


Soulmates. Inseparable. A great compliment to each other. That's what people thought when they saw the 2 of them together. Xavier and Reign. He was that dude that everybody liked. If you ever heard someone say something bad about him, it'd be because they were simply hating on him. Xavier was a good catch...and he knew it. He had graduated from Howard with a degree in business administration. He came from humble beginnings in East Atlanta. His childhood home was located in the slums in the shadows of Turner Field. Not many dudes from his neighborhood finished high school...none went to college. Not only did he finish college but he just got his masters from Morehouse. To say that he made his momma proud is an understatement.

Reign was no slouch either. She had rec'd her undergraduate degree from GaTech. She was one of the best in her class. It spoke volumes to see a sista doing very well in her field despite being a minority. They had been friends for 2 years but they had been dating for a year. They had no kids but you could see that marriage was on the horizon for them.

Xavier was an entrepreneur. He owned several small business (barber shops, car washes, etc.). He also had a several investment properties. He had a keen business sense. Reign was fully aware and proud of Xavier's business accomplishments. She didn't like the fact that Xavier had employed his brother to help with some property management. Xavier's brother, Rodney, was a knucklehead. He was always getting into trouble. Every time Xavier did well in school, Rodney came home with bad grades. Rodney had also been in and out of jail for various reasons.

One day, Xavier leaves his house to pick up Reign for dinner. They went to a fancy seafood spot in the city. After dinner Xavier excuses himself from the table...only to return with a box in his hand. He got on one knee and proposed to her. She cried tears of joy and accepted his proposal. They immediately set the wedding date for a month from that day that they were engaged.

Two weeks before the wedding, Rodney was arrested for driving with a suspending license. After the cops pulled him over, they found a loaded gun in the car. Xavier called Reign to let her know what had happened and he told her that he'd bail him out. Well, that didn't sit well with Reign and she decided to go to Xavier's house to find out what was going on. On her way there, she rec'd a phone call from her friend Janet. Janet was a well known gossiper. And when she called...she usually had dirt on somebody. Janet was a dispatcher for the county police dept and that made matters worse.

Reign: "Hello"

Janet: "Hey girrrrrrrl. You ain't gonna believe what I just found out."

Reign: "Janet...I'm not in the mood. Rodney just got arrested and Xavier is gonna bail him out.

Janet: "I know that already. Tell me something that I don't know."

Reign: "Huh? What the fuck are you talking about? I know what's going on. I'm not in the mood for your silly shit today."

Janet: "You betta listen to me. Do you know everything? I know everything. I know about the crew, the money, and everything in between."

Reign: "Huh? Will you make some sense please?"

Janet: "They are about to come down on the crew. Xavier and Rodney are members of the Parkside Crew. They are about to get charged for all of this dope on the streets, guns, and some dead bodies that turned up in Decatur. My source told me that they are trying to get Rodney to wear a wire to set Xavier up so that he'll do less time than him. Mmmmm hmmm, girl. This shit is about to hit the fan. You need to cut him off before they drag you into it. If I was you I would..." CLICK

Reign hung up the phone. She was speechless. She knew that her man wasn't some drug dealer. She'd never even seen him around those kinda folk. He didn't dress flashy nor did he have any thing that would suggest otherwise. He had the investment properties and businesses. Could they have been a front so that he could launder his drug money through them? How could this be? They are getting married in 2 weeks. How could he be tied up with a notorious drug gang in Atlanta? What was SHE gonna do? Before she knew it, she had pulled her car into his driveway. He was walking out of the house and was headed to bail out his lil brutha. She froze when she saw him. What should she do? Should she let him know about the wire? Should she leave him and protect her own neck? Should she act like she doesn't know anything? Is HER life safe? What should Xavier do? What would YOU do?

Holllllllllllla!

DARTS

Most critically acclaimed Pulitzer, prize winner
Best storyteller thug narrator my style's greater
Model dater, big threat to a lot of you haters
Commentators ringside try watchin my paper
Almost a decade, quite impressive
Most of the best is in the essence
for this rap shit that I stand for
Expandin more to the big screen, Bill Gates dreams
But it seems you'd rather see me in jail with state greens
Want me off the scene fast, but good things last
like your favorite MC still makin some mean cash
First rapper to bring a platinum plaque, back to the projects
but you still wanna hate, be my guest, I suggest

NaS (Hate Me Now)


I love to watch the world evening news on NBC. Every night, I'm in front of the tube at 6:30. I dunno why. Maybe it's because I like to look at the world globally. I really don't like the local news. I probably SHOULD watch it for more than the weather. But if you watch the evening news here...you'll be depressed within 10 mins. It doesn't matter if it's the story about the high school kid who was gunned down, the mother of 3 who was stabbed to death, or the people who were shot outside of a nightclub. I can't watch it b/c it's soooo much bad news. I'm not suggesting that the world news is much better. Especially when you see the scenes from Iraq. But the crime that happens here locally is unreal. I heard a story about a month ago about a 17 yr old kid who accidentally shot his mother who was in the next room in their house. He was cleaning his AK-47 and the bullets discharged. He wasn't charged with a crime but my immediate thoughts were..." what the hell is he doing with an AK???"

What is wrong in this country? Are we desensitized by the crimes that we read about? Do we even care? As long as it doesn't happen in our hood...is it really an issue? I have to point the finger at myself sometimes b/c I' sometimes wonder if I am solving anything by looking the other way. For example, I saw these 3 kids standing on the corner in the middle of a school day. They should have been in school but they were pushin rocks. I know it and so did everybody that passed them that day. Did I stop my truck? Did I try to talk some sense into these lil knuckleheads? Did I show them that there is a better way of life? They weren't in my nice, middle class, suburban neighborhood. Why should I give a shit? Those 3 kids weren't my sons!

I did nothing. I drove by and gave them a look and that was it. Then I pumped up the Jay Z cd and sped off. Were those kids mine? No! But I am responsible for them to a degree. The life that I've built for myself is one that they could relate to if given the opportunity. I'm not LeBron James or Jay Z but I can have more influence on these kids as a role model before they could. I am a role model. Not just for my 3 sons but for any young person with whom I come in contact with. And you are too! Live your life so that you can set for the example for others to follow. Not only should you do that but you should also give your time. We always find reasons NOT to give our time but then we complain when these kids are on the news...or worse...in jail. There's a continual cycle that MUST be broken. I can't change the world but I can do my part. And so can you. We can't afford to walk around with our heads stuck in the sand.

Sorry for the sermon, y'all...but I had to say somethin.

Hollatchaboy...