Violence has imbued our lives and our continue fight to control it has come at the expense of our love ones and friends.
EXCERPT FROM BOOK---- EARLY DEPARTURES FOR THE SUN
“Is Violence all we Know”?
Chapter 37
As I look at the current events and the innovations that are transforming our world, I cannot help to think of my Grandmother Lena May Martin. She died in 2004 after living for a century in this world with all its chaos, wars and pollution. I became curious of whom her parents were and the history of my family after discovering her on the census charts. After gathering information from my aunts and uncles, I started my search on Ancestry.com looking for my great grandparents and my search took me into the early 1800’s. During the years of 1880 through 1950 in Fayette County, Kentucky, I found my relatives had names that are familiar to me today, like Keith, Washington, Jenkins, and Martin. My paternal grandfather Samuel Sturgis who is from Valdosta, Georgia, apprise me that names like Hill, Jones, and Mc. Keever are names of distant relatives. As I continued my search, I discovered that majority of African-Americans living today, have genealogies that include people whose bloodlines intertwine with mine and the discovery gives me a new outlook on living.
One of the most tragic moments in American history was slavery and the horrid conditions perpetrated on peoples of African descent. Africans taken from their native lands became unlimited wealth and was force to reproduce which enlarge white slave owner’s security. White families that had an abundance of slaves increase their production faster, social, and sometimes political standings.Many black people do not amplify the shame of having a past that mentally and physically scarred their ancestors. Black people love their history and family; sadly, they are unaware that when they have violent disagreements, these disagreements could intercept bloodlines of an enriched heritage. My proud journey of my family led me to the census of 1920 where my Great Grandmother Mandy Washington’s home in 1920 was worth $6.00. Although the price appears cheap by today’s standards, it denotes how much we take opportunities for granted. She worked in a tobacco factory, and she did so without ever learning to read and write.
In addition, slavery and the reconstruction years may teach us the horrid conditions of which our people lived, however, it indicates that we are tied together as Dr. Martin L. King Jr. said, in a “single garment of destiny, that whatever affects one directly affects us all indirectly”. We are interrelated, and unfortunately, we lost that uniqueness that makes us all family, by collectively destroying the essential dreams of our ancestors. African Americans collectively have a billion dollar surplus, which depreciates as we solve our problems through violence. We are losing countless opportunities to be a force that could transform this world that respects the worth and dignity of our people. For some strange reason, we are forgetting that we are African-Americans, and that God has bless us specifically to have abilities that enable us to endure and reinvent cures and technologies that could change the world. Participating in violence, we are destroying God’s promise that would make us revered and respected among nations, by the continued killing and disrespecting of our people whom are distant relatives that we need in our struggle to be free. America, we have to do something about this violence. Due to our inability to disagree peacefully, we are losing our children and people to violence. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, I experience violence at such a young age, and I realize today, that humanity understands violence and continues to make excuses for advocating it to solve problems after deliberations fail. Well, I am telling you my people, we need to continue talking, because violence is not bringing any solutions that solve and each day that we live, we are becoming increasingly acceptable of using violence as means to our ends. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has taken much criticism for advocating non-violence and peaceful resistance. Has anyone ever thought that maybe he was not only speaking for us but about us?
Uncompromising is Our Only Option
Therecomes a time when must be uncompromising to the wayward and destructive children that continues to imbrue our lives with chaos. One morning I rose from my bed after hearing my newspaper slam against my door, and to my surprise, someone stole my car. Now, I say stolen because if something was missing it is because either you misplaced it or someone you are familiar with borrowed it. After a few hours, the police contacted me and recovered my vehicle a few blocks away from where I live. I paid the towing service and took my vehicle home where I patiently waited for the thieves all night to return and try to steal it again. Well, my wait was in vain, because as I lay down after seeing the sun, when my eyes look through the windows to see my vehicle, someone stole it again and this time the police never recovered it.I wanted the thieves dead, I wanted them coughing up blood and I wanted to torture them until I got a reasonable explanation of why they would do such a thing.
Unfortunately, after carefully examining the situation, I relieve myself of those angry thoughts and logical thinking prevailed. In my logical explanation, why should I destroy my freedom over a car and a fool? And if I take the law into my hands, I could lose valuable time with my children, and it would be difficult raising children on visits in prison. I know some of you have been in such similar situations and wanted retaliate against someone who has wrong you, and your better judgment won. I believe we need to become less restraint and uncompromising to the people that dedicate themselves to vices that ruin communities and families. No person should have to change their lifestyles just because thieves or crack heads decides to steal rather build in their communities. Violence have taught us all that it can solve war disputes, but the aftermath leave nations, people and this earth morally damage and spiritual evil. The only way communities and families are going to rid their communities of violence, drugs and theft, they must be able to show one another that they can live together and protect one another‘s property from deviants on mission of self-destruction.
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