The news is filled with stories like, "A single mother of 3 is afraid of her children being victimized by bullies..." or "Little Christopher, 7, is scared to go back to school after a bully knocked him off of his bike..." or "People are outraged by how guns are killing their children..."
Here's the thing.
Guns aren't killing your kids. Mental illness, fear, and the age of isolation is the culprit. The guns are the method of how these people get their aggression out but the real blame goes to each and every one of us. In this age of multi-media, social networks, and "virtual" everything, we've become so disconnected to reality. How many of you know who your neighbors are? No, really think about it. Get a piece of paper and write down the names, occupations, and general feeling about the people who live around you. If I died today in my house alone, nobody from the street I live on would have any idea for weeks. You know who would know? People who I connect with on Facebook who live all over the world would be more likely to wonder where I am or why I haven't posted some stupid update about "how I'm feeling today."
I am careful about how I word this blog because the subject matter is very sensitive and I certainly don't want to come across like an old man who says things like, "back in my day there was no goddern interwebs and if'n you get bullied, then shame on you for not kickin' their ass sooner."
However, saying that I can now go into the meat of what I'm trying to get across...
Being a super fat, dorky, socially awkward, lispy kid- I was the target of every bad ass bully in the school. I went to a terrible private school until 8th grade named, Dallas CHRISTIAN School. (yeah I said it, so what) I was enrolled in this school because my mother FEARED that I would be treated differently if I had've been in regular ol' public school. She worried about this because of her own insecurity and irrational fears having something to do with me being her adopted child. In her rampant fear of my safety (really her mental safety), she quite literally manifested for me, every "afterschool special," scenario worthy of the Lifetime channel.
At 11 years old, I ran away and took my brother with me. We lived from that point on with my grandparents(RIP, they were the greatest people in the world) in a neighborhood that would be classified as "ghetto." My grandmother never locked her doors. The front and back door of the house were usually propped open with a brick or something so that the neighborhood, if they wanted to, could come over for a visit or for some of her delicious chocolate cake and a scoop of Blue Bell Ice Cream. The house was usually filled with so many people of various races, religious beliefs, and backgrounds... it was like a Colours of Benetton advert.
My grandfather, a war hero who was on the torpedoed USS Hornet during World War II, wasn't afraid of anything. He was 5'6 inches tall and about 125 pounds. He would spar with the neighborhood teenagers, most of them black guys about 6'0 tall and 200 pounds, and he would teach them in the backyard how to defend themselves. He would always say, "listen, if someone is pushing you around, don't reach for a knife or y'daddy's gun, just knock 'em in the jaw and kick their ass like a man." These lessons weren't just for the neighborhood guys, they were also for the girls too. I learned how to defend myself physically because my Pop(grandfather) said, "Booger(me), women have come way to far in this world to lay down and let some creep make 'em into a court case."
If you haven't seen the movie, "Friday," I suggest you find it and watch it. It's hilarious, full of characters that are more relatable today then they were when the movie premiered. There's a speech given by the actor John Witherspoon, who plays the crabby put-out father of Ice Cube(Craig) when Craig accidentally gets in too deep with a situation involving a drug dealer named, Big Worm.
Although this movie is one of the funniest films I've ever seen, it's depth wasn't truly understood at the time it was made when the gang wars were ruining once-peaceful neighborhoods in places like Oakland and Compton. It was brilliant timing on the part of Ice Cube to take a risk against his "hard core" reputation to write a film like, "Friday." The speech given by the father in the show is exactly what everyone needs to teach their kids during this time of school shootings and the irrational overblown fear of "bullies." Remember, "as we thinketh, so are we." What we fear the most will come to our doorstep. By fearing the "what might happen" as though it will happen, we give all of our power and energy to the ones who crave it the most for their attention-getting destructive outbursts.
Here is the scene from the movie "Friday"...I think this says it all:
- [Craig's father catches him with a handgun]
- Mr. Jones: What's that for?
- Craig: Protection.
- Mr. Jones: Protection from who?
- Craig: Me and Smokey...I've got to walk Smokey down to his house.
- Mr. Jones: Aw, man. Your mother and I never would've moved to this neighborhood if we'd known you need a gun to walk down the damn street.
- Craig: You know how it is 'round here.
- Mr. Jones: Oh, no, son. That's not the way it is. You kids have been nothin' but punks. Sissified. So quick to pick up a gun. Too scared to take an ass-whipping. [raises his fists] This is what makes you a man. When I was growing up, this was all the protection we needed. You win some, you lose some. But you live. You live to fight another day. Now you think you're a man with that gun in your hand, don't you?
- Craig: I'm a man without it.
- Mr. Jones: Put the gun down.
- [Craig complies]
- Mr. Jones: C'mon, put up your dukes.
- [Craig raises his fists]
- Mr. Jones: Now you're a man. Your uncle picked up a gun, too. He found out the hard way. 22 years old. You've got a choice.(holding fists up) This is all you need, alright?
- In closing...
- We have a responsibility, all of us. If you don't think that you affect everyone around you, you are mistaken. We need to start paying attention. There is no healing, no solution worth holding on to, no progress for the human condition if we persist in burying our heads in the virtual kingdoms we've placed in the highest of priorities. These forums can be a gift if we use them as such, OR they can be the harbinger of fear, the temptress of lies, and the god of a half-lived existence.
- I could argue about how automatic weapons should be banned from civilian use, but that's not going to fix the civilians who use them for the shocking attention getting terrorizing displays of violence. It takes a village to raise a child and there's not many real villages left to do the raising anymore. We have to care enough to know each other. Every great movement of change started with an individual person who was unrelenting in their desire to see something come to fruition. Likewise, every terrible act was the product of an individual or the select few who follow them because of their unrelenting desire to see something evil come to fruition.
- It's a fair game folks. There is no more power in the "bad guys" conviction, than there could be in ours. I just think we, as a collective and as individuals, are relying on "someone else to do the job." Ex. "The government needs to do such and such...." As though a piece of paper signed by a bunch of men in suits, sitting in desks in Washington, D.C. is really going to prevent the individual from pursuing an act of great terror? Or worse...Blaming the government/employers/faceless suits of power for preventing us from living the life we haven't had the balls to live. I will go so far as to say we've become afraid to commit great acts of valor and courage because we might "get sued" or "that's not my job, that's the police' responsibility..."
- We must take ownership in all things in our lives, both good and bad.
- Lastly, I think the fear of "what could" happen, the suspicion of people you don't understand or know is the breeding of this irrational, illogical fear. It will not help prevent bad things from happening.
- Trust that most people are good, believe that most everyone around you wants to live in peace and be happy, be convicted that those around you want a wonderful life for you and themselves... That is the truth by the way, not some "cup half full" Miss America speech I'm giving you. Let's stop assuming that we are perpetually in danger, stop blaming bad events on faceless agencies/government, stop ingesting the news as though it were live giving serum, and take a little ownership in how we got into this mess... When we do, we will gain our personal power back and that power will heal, inspire, and patch up the missing pieces in our society- preventing history from repeating itself.
