You Get Respect When You Act Respectful

As a kid I got into fights occa­sion­al­ly , it’s prob­a­bly safe to say most if not all kids get into fights now and then, it’s as if fight­ing is a right of passage.
What hap­pened in that Brooklyn McDonalds recent­ly was not a fight. 
It was anoth­er instance of what has been hap­pen­ing all across America late­ly, sheer barbarism.
Aniah Ferguson, 16, and oth­ers pum­meled a  15-year-old girl until she went limp on the floor even then Ferguson con­tin­ued to kick the wound­ed girl while scores of oth­ers howled in delight or par­tic­i­pat­ed in the assault.

This was not white on black, this was black on black, a sce­nario which plays out in black com­mu­ni­ties all across America dai­ly result­ing in death and mas­sive injuries.

In fair­ness, this bar­barism is not con­fined to the slaugh­ter which occur on the streets of Detroit Michigan, Chicago Illinois, Camden New Jersey or any oth­er city for that matter.
It includes packs of young black men and women engag­ing in what are called flash robberies.
This is a kind of Robbery where gangs of young peo­ple run into busi­ness-places and grab what they want, dam­age the busi­ness estab­lish­ment then leave quick­ly before author­i­ties arrive.

It is no won­der then that they turn on each oth­er when they can­not find oth­ers to victimize.
These are truths from which we can­not afford to turn our back.
At a time when we are wit­ness­ing raw and some­times unpro­voked and even unwar­rant­ed aggres­sion from law-enforce­ment, the behav­ior of these young peo­ple does noth­ing to help the case against law-enforce­ment excess.

In fact those with big­ot­ed agen­das point to these occur­rences as rea­son for more law enforce­ment aggression.
We must begin then to look at what is going on with­in the black home that is fuel­ing this kind of behavior.
The moth­er of 16-year-old Aniah Ferguson report­ed­ly said she did not raise her daugh­ter to act in that way. 
Notwithstanding Ferguson is already a moth­er to a one-year-old baby, and a mem­ber of a gang called the young sav­ages, pros­e­cu­tors claim.
How is that for perspective.
Which leaves us to won­der what are the under­ly­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal issues at play which caus­es not just this young lady who by the way has an exten­sive rap sheet to act this way, but the tens of thou­sands of oth­er black teens and young adults who think this is accept­able behavior.

I don’t want to hear that not only black peo­ple act that way.
It does­n’t mat­ter who else acts that way it does not make it right or acceptable.
Secondly it is up to us to fix our house not the oth­er guy’s house.

When some of us with­in the black com­mu­ni­ty dare to speak out at the cri­sis of unwed moth­ers hav­ing babies, some with­in the com­mu­ni­ty take issue with our criticism.
We hear all kinds of kook-like expla­na­tions for the rea­sons why black America is in deep crisis.
Recently CNN’ Don Lemon point­ed to the fact that over 70% of black babies are born out of wedlock.
Lemon was round­ly con­demned for point­ing to what is a fact.
Does run­ning from the num­bers, make them any less true?
“If Lemon real­ly want­ed to help the black com­mu­ni­ty, he could start by adopt­ing a deep­er under­stand­ing of the his­to­ry, soci­ol­o­gy and psy­chol­o­gy of his own peo­ple,” wrote Washington Post blog­ger Rahiel Tesfamariam. “Offering made-for-TV analy­sis about deeply com­plex social issues in the man­ner in which he did is irre­spon­si­ble and lacks intel­lec­tu­al rigor.”
Clearly when you have apol­o­gists like Rahiel Tesfamariam com­ing up with smart sound­ing goobly-gook, it is no won­der many with­in our com­mu­ni­ty take com­fort in victimhood.
Even as Rahiel Tesfamariam accus­es Lemon of a lack of intel­lec­tu­al rig­or, he engages in what could be con­strued to be intel­lec­tu­al dis­hon­esty or at best Intellectual elitism.
Maybe Rahiel Tesfamariam is quite hap­py that there are peo­ple that oth­ers like him­self look down on.
http://​www​.poli​ti​fact​.com/​t​r​u​t​h​-​o​-​m​e​t​e​r​/​s​t​a​t​e​m​e​n​t​s​/​2​0​1​3​/​j​u​l​/​2​9​/​d​o​n​-​l​e​m​o​n​/​c​n​n​s​-​d​o​n​-​l​e​m​o​n​-​s​a​y​s​-​m​o​r​e​-​7​2​-​p​e​r​c​e​n​t​-​a​f​r​i​c​a​n​-​a​m​e​r​i​ca/

Frankly you know you have a prob­lem when even those who hate you tell you what ails you.
We can no longer accept the tran­quil drug of ratio­nal­iz­ing. We can­not con­tin­ue to nuance our response to events which war­rants no spec­u­la­tion ratio­nal­iza­tion or nuancing.

We must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for our children.
We can­not con­tin­ue to believe the lie that hav­ing chil­dren at the ten­der age of 15 is okay . It isn’t.
We can­not con­tin­ue to invent rea­sons why 12, 13, and 15 year-old kids are hav­ing babies.
It is a fail­ure of parenting.
It is a fail­ure of under­stand­ing that each house­hold which con­tributes to this enig­ma of teen birth out of wed­lock is con­tribut­ing to the blight of the entire com­mu­ni­ty and maybe our entire existence.
Who in their right mind expect that when 71% of all babies born in the African-American com­mu­ni­ty are born to unwed moth­ers, that there are not seri­ous con­se­quences for those statistics?

Who does­n’t both­er to rec­og­nize that the epi­dem­ic of unwed birth has become a pro­duc­tion line for the prison indus­tri­al complex.
And no, it does not mat­ter in this con­text that not all end up in prison.
If one does it is one too many.
The fact is that the vast major­i­ty do end up in the crim­i­nal jus­tice system.
Is it dis­re­spect­ful or dis­loy­al to point out that we are direct­ly con­tribut­ing to some of the prob­lems plagu­ing our community?
Is it rea­son­able for us to demand oth­ers show us respect, when we act like rav­en­ous Wolves tear­ing away at the car­cass­es of each other?

We can only tru­ly expect respect when we act respectful.
Not for any­one else but for our own selves.
For our own dignity.
For our own survival.