Save Our Sons

Sunday morning I was listening to a radio talk show. The Black community leaders who did the show, had the NYC Police Commissioner on answering questions from the listeners. There was one comment that he made that really stuck out to me, regarding the recent shooting and killing of young unarmed Black men by the hands of law enforcement. He said, "If you don't want to be stopped by the cops, don't do anything illegal."

WHAT!??! Did he really just say that? Of course, that would seem like a fairly reasonable statement to make and practical advice to follow. But if you are a minority male living in NYC, LA, Ferguson, Chicago or basically anywhere in the US right now, that statement becomes null and void. We've all heard about the shootings of young Black men over the past month (Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford) and although I believe there are three sides to every story (yours, mine and the truth) the fact still remains that too many young souls are being buried.

It seems as though some police officers have nothing else to do, besides harass innocent people. But we don't make it any better for our communities, when we don't train our young men to be respectful of themselves. If we only criticize them, but never take the time to teach and model for them positive behavior, we are doing them a disservice.

The likelihood of my brother ever being stopped by the police, is much less than that of the students I work with. Not only because of where he lives, but also how he carries himself. Even when he has on basketball shorts and a t-shirt, nothing is sagging off of him. He doesn't look "threatening." This isn't to say that I agree with the stereotypes that are many times used, but sometimes we have to know the game of the hunter, in order to live and play another day.

Our young men are being victimized. We are losing them to cemeteries and prisons. Those of us that know better, need to do better. Talk is cheap, if there is no action to back it up. Let's do what we can to save our sons. If we don't do it, we have no right to complain.