This World Is Just Too Much

So today, I am annoyed. Very annoyed. Let’s start with this:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/10/elderly.robbed.ap/index.html

Black man in his 30s “allegedly” (don’t get me started on that word) mugs two elderly, walker-bound women. Don’t forget to watch the video.

What… The… Hell?

For my black readers: Have you ever heard about a really bad crime story on the news and sat there secretly hoping the criminal wasn’t black? Then, in the cases where they are not…you kind of are relieved?

It’s okay, you can admit it. I’ve done it plenty of times too.

Now, I’m about to say some things that may piss some people off, but it’s my opinion so…WHATEVER!

Do you know that every time I see a black male with his pants sagging down to his knees, I’m embarrassed?

Do you know that every time I walk past a couple of young black dudes in the mall smelling like weed, I’m pissed off?

Do you know that every time I hear a black male say ‘That baby ain’t mine’ (knowing the child looks just like them), I’m angry?

Why is it “cute” for you to have a mouth full of gold and cornrows/ponytails with barrettes on them??

Why can’t they understand how much their own behavior shoots us all in the foot? Anyone with a “natural tan”, as I call it, has at least heard of Driving While Black (DWB). I will acknowledge that it isn’t right to just pull someone over because of their color. We shouldn’t need a ghetto anthem like “Ridin’ Dirty”. But statistically, since so many of these confused, undisciplined, angry youth think it’s cool to do stuff like smoke weed on the regular and sell dope as a profession, we make ourselves easy targets.

Of course there are many, many cases where this behavior is completely unwarranted, we all know that. A man driving in a suit in a jag is not suspicious…period. But a young buck in a wife beater with a mouth full of gold, his hat cocked to the side, blasting foul-mouthed rap music, leaning to the back seat in the middle of a workday in a jag…IS! Be mad, but that’s what I think.

Then the excuse is that “the man” is keeping “the brothas” down.

Puh-leeze.

“The man” is not the one that made you break into your neighbor’s house. If you have to pick a lock or break a window to get it, 9 times out 10 it’s not yours!

“The man” is not preventing you from staying in high school and taking your trifling butt to college/trade school! What is this idiotic ideal in the black community that says ‘It’s cool to be dumb”, and the smart kids with ambitions are constantly ridiculed for wanting more? And – after hearing it all my life – don’t get me started on the “talking white” accusations!!! Must I smack my lips and speak ebonics to be accepted by my own people?

“The man” didn’t put the gun in your hand for you to rob someone instead of getting a job!!! Sure, you could make more selling weed or crack to your own people. I could make more as a call-girl, but that doesn’t mean I will! I would rather forgo the constant threat of arrest and incarceration and oh yeah DEATH to be a productive member of society!

But, who I am to judge!?

Oh yeah, I know. I’m the taxpayer taking care of you while you’re in jail getting your GED and a MASTER’S degree in LAW, and taking care of the kids you are not able to support because you make a couple of dollars a day!!

People, we have to get better than this! This is ridiculous!

We have the highest rates of new HIV cases of any other group in this country, BY FAR.

Black women are almost 4 times as likely to have HIV than their white counterparts (thanks to the ex-cons and down-low brothas…and our own ignorance).

Over two-thirds of the black families are headed by single women. Two-parent households in the black community are like an anomaly, rare but not completely unheard of.

At least 2 to 3 times the number of black males are incarcerated rather than in college. Since the early eighties, the numbers of black male college graduates has consistently and sharply declined.

Is this the best we can do??