It pains me to write this. But even more to the point, I write this knowing the people who need to hear this probably never will. But this missive is directed at you, Mr. Young Black Male in Flint. No sugar coating: I’m sick of you. I hate everything you stand for. You embarrass me. You embarrass your people. I know I shouldn’t speak in generalities, and I try my hardest not to. But it’s too late in the game for me to be polite at this point.
First, I’m sick of looking at your underwear. What could have possibly possessed you to think that it’s sexy to have your pants hanging half way (or in some cases all the way) down? As a side note, ladies, if you actually find that attractive, then you’re a part of the problem. Anyway, why walk around with the need to yank your pants up after every fourth step? Exactly how hard is it to buy a belt? Believe me, I’ll be the first one to say that respectability politics is laughable. MLK was shot wearing a suit and tie. But does that mean you should strip away your own dignity by having your pants pulled all the way down? C’mon, man. Just, come on.
Next, I’m sick of how you rob and steal from hard working people just because you can. Thing is: the people you are targeting – far more often than not – are not that different than you. You’re not victimizing millionaires who can recoup their losses with no problem. You’re attacking people who get up every day to work for a living, who struggle to pay bills, who have dreams and aspirations, and who have families to care for. What I need you to understand is that when you steal from us, we don’t get our goods back by some stroke of magic or by wishful thinking. We have to pay good money (which we probably needed for something else) to fix the damage, replace what was stolen, AND usually to brace for the increase in our insurance premiums. Congratulations. I hope the TV you stole and pawned off for some bling, weed, or whatever you’re buying was worth it.
Also, I’m tired of you being the opposite of intelligence and civility. At what point in our existence did it become ‘the thing’ to not be able to form complete sentences, to not use terms like “please” and “thank you”, not shake a person’s hand, or to look them in the eye? I’m not sure why you decided to leave school – where some of these educational and social values are taught. But judging by what I see you doing every day, it certainly wasn’t so you could jump into the job market. Being intelligent and civilized is NOT “acting white.”
Finally, I’m sick of being afraid of you. Afraid of the fact that you can take a person’s life with zero remorse for your deeds or with no concern about innocent victims who get stuck in the middle of your violent rampage. These are people with families and friends, with jobs and church homes. People whose lives on this Earth are over. Lives that you took. I hate that you have negatively changed who I am with your never-ending attacks on my community. In my earlier years – high school, college, and such – I was an unapologetic idealist, volunteering as much as I could; helping wherever I can. But now? I avoid people like you. And it shames me. But how can I effectively advocate for someone I’m afraid of? Perhaps the better question is: why should I even bother? Why go to the mat for a person who will turn around and break into my car in appreciation? Or who will respond to my concern by shooting a person dead in the street? Why defend a person who will senselessly snatch a life without losing any sleep? How can we declare that #BlackLivesMatter when the description of person involved in last week’s shooting is “…young black men…”?
Perhaps you didn’t have a father around or a man you could consider a father figure. Perhaps your mother didn’t establish ground rules for the house. Perhaps nobody held you accountable for your actions. Maybe your mother thought you were a precious gem who could do no wrong. Maybe your family thought it was cute when you were cussing by the time you were three years old. Frankly, I don’t care. Most of us grew up poor in our respective Flint hoods. Most of us struggled day to day. But we made do. We made a conscious decision not to victimize our brothers and sisters. Later for all that “product of my environment” stuff.
Then again, even those are just excuses. Some of you DID have at least one parent who cared. You had at least one person in this world looking out for your best interest. A person who taught you the importance of education, or the value of hard day’s work. But leave it up to you to ignore them, because you were so sure you knew everything. Maybe it was because you glommed onto the words of some other thugs instead of the advice you got from people who know you and love you.
Do young men of other races and ethnicities commit crimes? Absolutely they do. But in my world? In my city? It’s you. You’re the terrorist. Maybe things are different in other parts of the country. I can only hope. But I’m talking about what I know, what I see, and what I personally experience.
What angers me most – maybe hurt is a better term – is that when I look at you, I see endless potential. I look at you and I see potential husbands and fathers to our women and children; scientists, college professors, laborers, musicians, athletes, entertainers. I see you as the protectors of our women, the guardians of our community, the hope of our race. I see you as a person worth fighting when it comes to injustice, and worth giving a damn about. But what we get in return is some thoughtless person responsible for making us afraid to even leave our homes. Instead of being the person going around the neighborhood shoveling driveways, raking yards, or coordinating beautification projects, you’re are out casing the next house to rob. Instead of adding aesthetic value to our neighborhoods, you’re tagging public property with crap nobody can even read. Instead of using your God-given time and talent to make the world a better place, you’re turning draining the life out of our city with your never-ending assaults. Please stop it.
It saddens me to know that I can’t look at your generation with a sense of pride. I just can’t. In trying to accentuate the positive, I’m fully aware of all the amazing things many of our young people are doing. But their accomplishments – impressive as they are – aren’t stopping you from creating dark clouds hovering over your generation. I’m asking you – scratch that, BEGGING YOU – to step up to the plate. Not just your own sake, but for the sake of your people. You may not feel connected to the rest of us, but you are. Trust me when I say: I’m not some grumpy 80-year-old Republican who is out of touch with the common folk. I’m a 30’s – something black man born, raised, and raising a family of my own in Flint. Trust me when I say, I’m not too far removed from you.
I’m not completely callous here. I’m sorry if you had a rough life and you’re trying to fight through it. I’m sorry if nobody cared about you enough to show you the right way to live. I truly am. But that doesn’t give you the right to make the world a miserable place for people who don’t deserve being subjected to your anger, selfishness, or whatever motivates you to do what you.
You may not be aware, but black people around the world are accomplishing monumental feats with all kinds of odds stacked against them. Every day. I’d really like to believe that one day, we’ll be celebrating some of your accomplishments. It’s a wonderful thought to have. But unfortunately, my thoughts are usually interrupted by the sound of me locking my doors.
Please, brothas. Do better. We need you.
– ACL
The Unmitigated Word 
Wow. A complete and utter breakdown of truth. It was really painful to read this (and I’m sorry for whatever happened to you to get you to this point). But these words needed to be said. Add to this the equally sad fact that the 40, 50 and 60-somethings who are supposedly our “voices” and “leaders” lack the courage to stand up and express these truths and confront and challenge black America at large so we can begin the work of reversing these frightening realities. Apparently it’s far easier and more expedient to hide the elephant in the room behind excuses, equivocations and even justifications. “The white man has taken all the money, ruined the education system and we have no jobs”. Stop it, already. It’s time to wake up.
Geez, Dre. It sounds like you’re one incident away from being a champion of “Stand Your Ground.” LOL!
Not entirely. I don’t believe in “shoot to kill”, but I AM starting to believe more in “shoot to injure.” If these jokers don’t respect my stuff, then I don’t respect their kneecaps.
“If these jokers don’t respect my stuff, then I don’t respect their kneecaps”
Best line ever.
…and your self-hating, racist, Klan-recruiting circle has made a full turn.
Live in a city like Flint for six months and I guarantee you’ll be changing our tune.
You know Dre, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this post. On one hand, I agree with the idea that one or two out of control young black men (YBM) make it harder for all of us, black men and women alike. But on the other hand, you’re clearly making generalizations in an effort to address a situation much more complex than those generalizations. On top of that, what’s your proposed solution? I see you complaining and ranting, clearly coming from a frustrated place. Nothing wrong with that. But how would you fix the problem? Complaining never got a person anywhere.
Love ya though!
As for black crime, it’s a confluence of a lot of different things and not an easy problem to solve. You have a lot of fatherless homes and single mothers. While not all single mothers raise bad sons(I personally know great guys raised by single moms), most guys in prison never had a strong father in their life. Women’s role is nurture, men’s role is discipline. Boys aren’t afraid of their moms. They’re afraid of their dads. Boys need fathers, first and foremost. I don’t know what the high cause of single motherhood is in the black underclass. I truly have no idea and I think about this stuff all the time since I’m a black man. It wasn’t always like this. There was a time that blacks were known for having strong families. The explosion seems to have happened in the 60s. I don’t think there’s anything genetic about it. This doesn’t seem to be the case in Africa, especially traditional African society. It seems to be something unique to black Americans. I don’t know what it looks like amongst black Latins or Caribbeans. But family in Africa seems pretty strong, so I know it’s not genetic.
Secondly you have a large cultural vacuum in certain parts of the country. Do you ever read about how there are dead zones in the ocean? Certain areas where there is not enough oxygen and that part of the ocean is devoid of life? The inner cities of America are dead zones. They are islands of misery, hopelessness, broken schools, high unemployment, drugs, urban decay. There’s very little there to give people inspiration and hope. The church is often the only thing. The people living there have just enough so as not to revolt, yet not enough for them to be functional players in the economy. The origin of such ghettos can be traced back to segregation. Some of these communities thrived at a time and were fairly self-sufficient. The black middle class fled these places. And was left behind was the poor and a crumbling society. The middle class blacks might have served as role models to those less fortunate. The whites didn’t care about them either. Everyone that could afford to get out, got out. So what can be done about it? I don’t know. The problem seems almost intractable. So I guess the only real solution here would be some sort of gentrification. Concentrated poverty is a very dangerous thing. As I’ve shown before it can turn white people violent as well as it did in NYC tenements or as it currently does in Glasgow. Spreading the poor out a bit should help. And it should also make their behavior better through cultural osmosis. I can imagine no better situation than being a black kid raised by a poor single mother, where the only male role models are thuggish rappers and drug dealers. They need to see other things and get out of that box. They need something positive to aspire to.
High unemployment. When unemployment is high, it makes working in dark side of the economy more seductive. I’m sure many of these kids coming up would like to be able to make a decent living and not have to worry about ending up in jail or getting gunned down. But the fewer jobs there are, the more it makes the risk of selling drugs seem worth it. Even fairly decent people will start acting shady if that’s the only way they have to survive. Well one major problem is that many blue collar jobs that blacks used to do for a living wage either went to China or went to illegal aliens. It wasn’t uncommon to see black carpenters, drywallers, construction workers, meatpackers, etc. Now these jobs are almost all entirely done by Mexicans illegally in the country. This was a huge issue in the rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina. There were a lot of blacks out of work that wanted those construction jobs and they were livid that they were going to Mexicans who aren’t even citizens and don’t even have any roots in the city. How can anyone not feel their pain? The gutting of solid blue collar work has had a huge effect on rust belt white America but it has been an utter disaster for black America. I see no easy solution here either.
I also thing the music is a problem. Now maybe it’s an issue of art imitating life, or it’s the other way around, I don’t know. But I do thing it has something of a feedback loop effect. A lot or rap music, even if not explicitly advocating violence tends to reinforce a lot of selfish attitudes, hyper-materialism, fast money, fast women, party hard, a lot of Machiavellianism. It’s pervasive, even in the more lukewarm hiphop music. Sometimes it’s just the attitude. The anger. One rarely sees rappers smiling or seeming happy unless surrounded by money, bling and sexy women. This stuff has to stop, and if I had a kid, I’d be very careful about what they listen to. That said, not all rap music is like that, a lot of it is positive and life affirming. Some of it is great to dance too or just enjoy in the background if you have the smarts to not get caught up in the Machiavellian stuff. It should also be noted that not all “black music” is like this. The majority of black music is not rap and does not contain violent lyrics. Unfortunately though, most of the music young black males of the inner city listen to will be rap and often with terrible messages. What can anyone do about this? Not much, as long as there’s a first amendment, rappers can pretty much talk about whatever they want sell their music to whoever they want, most of which is bought by whites anyway.
Sorry I don’t have any easy solutions, but these are just a few things that contribute to the issue.
Wow. What a hard hitting piece. It’s a shame the people who need to hear this won’t. All the same, thank you for sharing.
Lol
Care to elaborate on what’s so funny?
I suspect this was a hard piece to write. It was hard for me to read. But it hit home. I’m gone to tell my little brother about this post. Hopefully, it will help in getting his life back on track.