The recent arrests of a dozen young Black men for their alleged participation in four separate violent crime actions across the Dallas-Fort Worth region are an indication that some young Black males have no sense of what the civil rights or the freedom struggle means.
In an age where Black men and women should be lining up and competing for promising jobs, careers, college admission, and opportunities, more and more of our youth instead are making bad choices and becoming prime candidates for “The Man” as the new “slaves” in the criminal justice industrial complex.
In Lancaster, three people were in connection with the shooting death of a 7-Eleven clerk. Investigators said the men were allegedly high on drugs and in need of cash to buy more when they shot and killed Anthony Flanery, 19, early Monday morning on Pleasant Run Road.
In Dallas, police arrested three Black teenagers in a fatal beating in a downtown Dallas of Joseph Davis, an 18-year-old Black youth. Davis, who did nothing to provoke the attack, was allegedly beat in a downtown parking lot by a group of 15 other Black youth with as many as 100 people watching as the crime occurred. Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price described the savage public beating as nothing short of terrorism.
In Duncanville, an 18-year-old was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. According to police, the youth fired shots into a church parking lot Friday after a nearby game between Duncanville and Cedar Hill, wounding three Duncanville High School teenagers.
Three Dallas teens and one young adult are in custody and face charges of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old in Richardson following a high school football game.
It appears the struggles, sacrifices and messages of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks and many others like these have fallen on the deaf ears of younger African Americans. Some Black teens and younger adults appear to be on a self-destructive path and way out of touch with our rich African American heritage.
We apparently have some children growing up willing and content to line up and trade in their precious freedom for a chance to enter the criminal justice complex and wear orange and be prodded and controlled 24-hours a day inside prison walls, under the constant watch of trigger and stun gun happy guards for life. They are unaware that this is a life with no guarantees, except that you will wake up each day being told where to go, what to do and could possibly be forced to do some things you never ever imagined a real “heterosexual” man would do.
They have chosen to be and are out of control and have lost the sense of right and wrong. If the prison life is such a great life, why aren’t the great promoters and influencers of this culture and thinking (BET, MTV and personalities like 50-Cent, Jay-Z, Snoop-Dogg, Paul Wall, Puffy Daddy Combs, Ice Cube) and other violent rappers who promote such criminal behavior lining up and trading in their mansions, money, bling-bling gold, girls and cars and personal freedoms for a lifetime vacation in prison. Rappers are smarter than that. Many of them have children and don’t even allow them to listen to rap music.
Talk is cheap. Unfortunately, some of our Black youth don’t understand the tragic and horrible impact that such a dead end can bring.
You will get caught and they will find you!!! It makes no sense to realize this after the police pick you up and the cold iron bars of a jail slams behind you at the jail and your freedom and innocence is gone.
You need to understand that when the jury issues the final guilty verdict and the judge passes sentence, that banishes you to years of “lining up for the man” in a gulag hell environment where everyday is a nightmare and you can’t go home to mamma. Facing Capital Murder, Death Row, Lethal Injection or Life in Prison is no joke. IT IS PERMANENT and FOREVER… You lose your rights, freedom, your privacy, your dignity and eventually your life!!!!
The next time you are faced with this life and death decision – CHOOSE FREEDOM and LIFE. That’s what our ancestors want for you.
Don’t wager your future on a “high,” thrill, vainglory or few pieces of silver. Think about it first and ask yourself what freedom am I willing to give up and if my friendships with my “homies” are worth iron bars, chains and the slavery of “lining up for the man”… and you know what I mean.