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FinalCall.com News
Perspectives
FCN Editorial - Our children deserve a future
By FinalCall.com Editorial
Updated Apr 23, 2008 - 2:37:00 PM
(FinalCall.com) The stories are terrible and the statistics are horrifying when the media portrays life for Black America’s youth. A distorted picture of a disrespectful generation addicted to gangsterism, violence, drugs, sex and ignorance emerges. “Whose children are these with their explicit rap, crazy hair styles, $100 sneakers and constant fighting, shooting and stabbing?” media analysts seem to ask.
Never mind the children that do the right things on a regular basis and never get noticed, or the youth working to solve problems in their own neighborhoods. Never mind the reality that Black youth suffer more from poverty, suicide, homicide, broken homes, disease, and police harassment. Never mind that this generation is growing up fatherless, sometimes motherless, and often with no one to direct and guide their actions.
The children that analysts don’t want to recognize are truly made in America, the product of a nation addicted to guns, violence and solving problems through sheer brute force. They are the product of a nation that has oppressed Black people for over 400 years. They are the product of a nation that has targeted every Black leader, every Black movement, every Black scholar, every Black businessperson, every Black institution for destruction, if the institution defied the power of White supremacy and challenged the White power structure.
Social scientists know what happens when you deprive a child of love, security, a nurturing environment, good parents and give them violent TV programming, chaotic neighborhoods, failing schools and an unhealthy dose of self-hatred.
The result is death and destruction that is seen in communities across the country as a dangerous triad of guns, drugs and gangs meet. Neighborhoods are besieged, innocent lives are lost, human potential is wasted and hopelessness sets in.
If the seeds of peace and healthy development are not sown, the fruit of peace cannot be reaped. America has never sown seeds that would lead to the healthy development of Black people. Even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., recognized in 1967 that America’s so-called War on Poverty was a farce and millions spent by a country drunk on war in Vietnam had no intentions of applying the resources necessary to undue centuries or inequality.
The record actually shows a government obsessed with destabilizing the Black community to make sure a “Black Messiah” would never arise to inspire the masses and, in particular, Black youth. America was given a sign of the power of youthful energy and dedication during the civil rights and Black Power movements. She moved quickly to destroy young people committed to ending the status quo and bringing her closer to honoring the promise life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and justice for all.
Civil rights workers were beaten and killed. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was infiltrated and young leaders like Stokely Carmichael (later know as Kwame Toure) slandered and subjected to dirty tricks. Stokely had to flee the country to save his life after government operatives falsely painted him as a government plant. Police and government agencies killed young leaders like Black Panther Party legend Fred Hampton in Chicago and jailed Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton in Oakland. Domestic surveillance agencies planted hypocrites inside the Nation of Islam, a movement that inspired and attracted youth, and set out to destroy the movement. Churches were bugged and pastors were followed. Everyone was fair game when it came to targeting Black people.
Anyone who youth might hear and obey was deemed a potential threat.
Youth who had a political philosophy that included the right to self defense were especially troublesome. And the government unleashed a vicious wave of nefarious activity through the Counter-Intelligence Program of the FBI.
The aim was always to stop rebellion. Just as slave patrols sought to keep Blacks on plantations, America’s willful neglect of the masses of her once slaves is aimed at keeping things under control.
Youth find few allies today. They are guilty until proven innocent and perpetrators until they are proven to be victims.
But the question isn’t what White America will do, but what will Black America do to save her own children? And what will our children do to save themselves?
In the 1980s, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan embarked on a nearly decade-long “Stop the Killing Tour” that culminated in the Million Man March in 1995 to provide a true picture of Black manhood and a declaration that Black men would commit to shoulder responsibilities for themselves, their families and their communities.
The Minister has been a stalwart and unapologetic voice for peace, whether among the so-called street gangs or within the hip hop community. He has convened meetings, supported summits, provided counseling and defended Black youth. He has never apologized for trying to save Black children and has chastised those who benefit from their misguided actions.
He understands that this generation is the fulfillment of the dreams of our ancestors and desires to rebel against the world as it is, even if they start out as rebels without a cause. The Minister can offer wisdom needed to give youth insight into how to survive this dangerous time.
The Minister has also warned that Black youth must make the proper decision to save themselves and their people. That means rejecting guns, drugs and violence and self-hate and embracing a deeper knowledge of themselves, of God, the time and what must be done.
The Minister has warned that high levels of violence and insecurity in Black neighborhoods set the stage for a crackdown in the name of fighting drugs and death. He has pointed to prophetic pictures in the Holy Qur’an and Bible where a wicked pharaoh decides to deal wisely with the fast multiplying population of the Children of Israel.
As the Minister has said, wise dealing means employing subtlety, deception and manipulating the natural forces that move human beings.
Black youth cannot afford to be fooled and need to heed the call of a divinely-inspired warner and those of us who love our children must echo that call and build a future for them. No one else is going to do it.
